A Tool for Team Building and Process Optimization

  • Gain perspective on the situation
  • See how things work
  • Understand relationships

What Village Mapping does

  • Gives the big picture on both intellectual and emotional levels
  • Creates an environment that can lead to breakthrough visions
  • Sets the stage for change

When To Use Village Mapping

  • You want to work through problems in your environment – Symbols allow you and others to put issues in perspective
  • You want a group to build a sense of community – Low risk environment promotes frank discussion of relationships, understanding and openness to change
  • You are aiming for improved group performance – Teams can work out how to deal with their problems and align to a common vision

Building Village Maps

A Village shows structure, actions and flows. Buildings are the basic unit of a village. They represent places where activities take place and decisions are made. Roads represent the quality of relationships between the buildings and form the base of the communication system. Messages or materials are represented by envelopes and other symbols. They typically move along roads.

Other symbols are used to show problems or qualities in the village’s functions, communication system and environment.

Step 1: Show stakeholders
Step 2: Show relationships and communications
– Map builders different types of roads to show differing qualities of relationships:
– Straight highways show good efficient relationships
– Curvy roads that work most of the time but have room for improvement
– Rocky roads indicate problematic relationships
– Granite bridges, for very strong relationships that function well even “when the water rises”
– The considerable information behind these symbols is relevant to change management
Step 3: Show problems or benefits
Step 4: Write narrative

Video of building a Village Map

Example Village Map

This shows a current state map with key entities and relationships.