Communicado: Business Communications Blog

Information Mapping – is it a methodology?

In my previous post, I summarised the answer to the question “Information Mapping – what is it exactly?”, by explaining it’s a structured, research-based approach that helps people in all walks of business life to communicate more effectively with their colleagues, customers and suppliers.

So this begs the question, “Is Information Mapping really a methodology?”. Hate to say this, but the answer to that question is both yes and no! Let me explain.

First of all, let’s deal with the dreaded “M” word. You might like to know that when you get the global Information Mapping partners together in a room (as happens every couple of years or so) we can debate for hours whether or not we should call Information Mapping a methodology.

It really boils down to this. Some people hate methodologies (too restrictive, too bureaucratic, too slow) and some people love them (lots of rules, lots of process, lots of tasks).

If we call Information Mapping a methodology, we risk alienating a whole bunch of people who would really find it useful. If we avoid calling it a methodology, then we risk losing the interest of people who like things to be highly organised and structured.

So what to do? Well, we’ve never completely resolved that conundrum, but let me at least outline the ways in which I believe Information Mapping is like a methodology and ways in which it is not.

Guidelines, tools, processes and tasks
If your only definition of a methodology is these four things, then Information Mapping very definitely fits the category. It definitely has a research-based set of guidelines and tools (developed by Robert Horn). It definitely has processes you can follow. It definitely recommends breaking down those processes into tasks.

But I think this is where the similarities end. Because for me, methodologies are very prescriptive. They expect you to complete every process and every task and they are so linear in nature that if you haven’t completed everything exactly as prescribed in an early stage, you’ll fall flat on your face at some point in a later stage.

Flexible and scalable
Information Mapping is very definitely not like this. It is extremely flexible and (perhaps most important) very scalable. If you choose, you can apply every single guideline and use every tool. If you want to you can complete every single task in every single process stage. But you don’t have to (and in many cases won’t need to).

Why? Because when you are communicating with customers, colleagues or suppliers, the length, complexity and format of each communication you produce is going to be different almost every time. Which means you need something that is flexible, can be applied in a variety of ways, that will get you the result you need and won’t fall apart half way through. In my experience, Information Mapping is just that.

In summary then, Information Mapping has some of the characteristics of a methodology, but it is flexible and scalable enough to be more than a typical methodology.