JOURNEY MAPPING: An Overview

Why Journey Mapping?    Programs whose success depends on the full participation, collaboration, and growth of their clients have a difficult time measuring their worth. Despite the many benefits and outcomes they can identify, one-by-one, they lack the framework and tools for aggregating and gauging the sum total of these successes. Moreover, many of these benefits appear un-measurable and the skill sets employed in the service provider-client relationship to reach them are hard to pin down. Consequently these programs suffer from inadequate assessments. These assessments neither provide a clear and convincing picture of what has been achieved nor thought-provoking feedback to guide delivery system improvements. Journey Mapping is a framework and methodology for overcoming this shortfall.

It is a unique and innovative methodology in several respects. First, it encourages organizations, programs, and their staffs to both document their work systematically and express their passion for this work outwardly and in clear and understandable terms. Second, it exploits the power and potentials of the Internet for capturing and sharing data as no assessment or accountability tool has heretofore done. Third, it hands the assessment function completely over to the program team in a user-friendly format. Fourth, it allows sponsors and other stakeholders to reconstruct their own pictures of the program and its accomplishments and to draw their own conclusions from these pictures. Fifth, it permits reports to be printed in an instant that summarize the most recent and best work of the program. Sixth, it fosters deep learning across programs or sites working on similar challenges by permitting the electronic sharing of success stories and reflections.                                                                          

Through the use of Journey Mapping, questions such as the following can readily be answered:     

As Easy As E-Mail. Journey Mapping is several generations ahead of anything else currently available for this purpose. It is on the leading edge not only because of its creativity in tapping the potentials of the Internet, but more so because of the positive and humanistic orientation that its use forwards. Clients are viewed in light of their possibilities to grow and change, not in terms of their deficiencies in need of correction.
Much like doing e-mail, the on-line reporter (termed the “mapper”) selects the person, group, or event about whom some text will be written. The mapper might indicate her or his own name and engage in self-reflective mapping. Unlike e-mail where one selects the topic to write about, the mapper responds to pre-set probes that are customized for the program (e.g., please share highlights of recent changes in your life or what did you find most useful during the event?). Also, before sending the text (to the program database), the mapper generates some program performance data by rating an event, indicating gains in competencies, or noting outcomes reached from pre-set lists. These choices are automatically tallied with choices of other mappers responding to these same options to produce updated summary reports on all those impacted by the program.

A Normative Perspective. Journey Mapping is a highly descriptive but also normative model. By “descriptive,” I mean it captures what has happened or is happening. By “normative,” I mean it points to what ought to be happening. It offers a yardstick to track and measure how close individuals, groups, organizations, communities, etc. are getting to desired levels of achievement.

Success Markers and Progress Scores. To capture results, up to nine success markers, which are progressively more difficult to achieve, are established by the program for each of its target groups (clients being one, family members of clients perhaps being a second, partner agencies with whom the program works closely perhaps being another, etc.). For example, there can be up to nine success markers for pre-school youth to gauge their readiness to enter school. There can be up to nine success markers for their parents. And so on.

To capture progress, three options are available. Option 1: Progress can be tracked and gauged along a universal, prototype journey (hence, the name Journey Mapping). Progress along this journey indicates maturation and mastery of relevant individual or organizational challenges. As progress is made, a journey score increases for the individual or group being mapped. The score communicates movement toward an ideal outcome for the individual or group. Option 2: Progress is reflected through the mastery of competencies. A three-point scale is used to indicate and score gains for each competency. Up to 15 competencies can be tracked this way. Option 3: Same as Option 2, but a six-point scale is used.

Question. What is the connection between the success markers and progress scores?

These two indicators of change are clearly related. The nine success markers are used to see how many individuals or groups reach easy-to-reach, moderate-to-reach, and hard-to-reach milestones or targets (either in part or fully). The progress scores tend to focus on the moderate-to-reach areas, and break these down into sub-targets or competencies.

 

Question. How objective are these success markers and progress scores?

They are as objective as the application users want them to be. Where appropriate and applicable, success markers can be defined in physical, measurable terms. They can be linked to test score results. They can be tied to observable behaviors. Or, they can reflect judgments made by program staff or self-reported attitudes or behaviors. Similarly, progress scores can reflect observable shifts in behavior and concrete accomplishments achieved, or they can be more subjective. The accompanying narrative text associated with each entry and scoring/rating opportunity helps insure consistency in indicating the progress that has occurred.

 

Question. Can scores fall, or do they always get higher and higher?

For some types of tracking, relapse is a real possibility. Examples might include journeys of individuals participating in substance abuse treatment or experiencing domestic violence. In such cases, we might see progress scores go up, then drop, then go up again, then drop, and so on, until the situation stabilizes for better or worse. Journeys might also stall, in which case the score will remain the same for some time or indefinitely.

   

Question. Who decides how much progress has taken place?

The individual doing the mapping makes these choices. That individual could be describing his or her own journey or be a case manager or other knowledgeable party to the progress of the individual or group. Descriptions for each marker guide the mapper in making these selections and help insure inter-rater reliability. Reading the narratives alongside the scores affords further confidence that the right markers have been selected and the score is a good reflection of progress.

 

Question. How long does it take to do this on-line mapping?

Event mapping is a relatively quick process, taking no longer than it would to compose an e-mail regarding some experience worth sharing. Detailed journal-keeping takes a bit longer. It might require upwards of five to ten minutes per entry, depending on how much the mapper chooses to share and how competent a writer she or he is. Typically such entries are done monthly, but can be made more or less frequently depending on the actual rate of progress or relapse.

 

Question. How secure are these entries from outside eyes?

The overall site has been designed to be very secure. It employs encryption coding and is password protected. Each application includes a lock feature. This allows only the mapper who created an event or journal entry to have access to it. There is also one or two additional persons per program, usually senior staff persons or an evaluator, who can access all entries to provide feedback and quality control. Of course, few sites are totally safe from hackers who want to get into them and possibly create mischief. Accordingly, we encourage mappers to use aliases for individuals or groups when composing their journals and avoid providing information or making statements that might possibly prove hurtful or damaging if placed in the wrong hands.

 

A Whole-Systems Perspective. When setting up a new application, care is taken to identify the complete set of individuals, groups, agencies, and institutions that are being impacted through the program or set of programs. Probing questions, success markers, and progress scores are then generated for as many members of this set as possible. The arrays of data that result, when combined, offer an incredibly rich and informative picture of the overall change process.

 

Question. What would be an example of this?

An program might be working with students who have been identified as having learning differences that prevent them from benefiting from traditional instruction methods or in demonstrating their knowledge through traditional testing methods. That program might include work with the students, with their teachers, and with their parents. To understand, gauge, and improve the multi-level efforts underway, journals might be maintained for all three categories. Unique sets of success markers, as well as progress scores, would be used to capture movement for individuals within each category. In addition, changes taking place at the school building or district level to support the work of the teachers, parents, students, or program staff might also be tracked through event markers and associated markers.

 

Empowerment. This is an empowerment model in the truest sense of that term. The methodology is totally handed over to the programs in an incredibly user-friendly format that is very quickly mastered. There is no “expert” standing between programs and their data. This allows for a more intimate and responsible relationship between the data and the program. The external consultant role, where required and invited, is that of “methodology coach”. In that role, the challenge is helping the program to maximize its use, and the benefits derived through the use, of Journey Mapping.

Minimal Start and Report-Generation Times. An application can be set up and used to generate useful data in relatively little time. In most cases, a single-site or even a multiple-site program can be on-line within less than one day of customization and preparation. As a complementary bonus for the sponsor, there is no need to wait around for quarterly, semi-annual, or annual reports. The application automatically generates reports to reflect and summarize the latest data that have been provided. Authorized personnel can get on line and view narrative entries, success markers, and other progress measures at any time and draw their own conclusions about the program and also what might be done to enhance performance.

I hope this brief introduction and listing of advantages have whet your appetite to see and learn more. To arrange a guided tour or for additional information regarding Journey Mapping, please contact:

Barry M. Kibel, Ph.D.
Director, Results Mapping Laboratory
Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation
1516 E. Franklin St., Suite 200, Chapel Hill, NC 27514-2812
Phone: (919) 265-2614
e-Mail: kibel@pire.org

Last updated: July 30, 2004

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