Context map canvas

What it is

The Context Map Canvas, created by David Sibbet of Grove International, maps the world outside your company: demographic shifts, rules and regulations, the economy and environment, competition, technology trends, customer needs and the uncertainties you cannot yet call. No business model lives in a vacuum, and this canvas makes the surroundings visible.

What you use it for

Use it at the start of any strategy or innovation effort to build a shared picture of the forces shaping your market, and to surface the trends your team disagrees about, which are usually the most important ones. It is also the natural starting point for scenario planning: the uncertainties you map here become the axes of your future scenarios.

How to work with it

Fill it as a team, from the outside in, and be concrete: name the actual regulation, the actual competitor, the actual technology. When the map is full, step back and ask which forces threaten your current model and which ones open a door. Revisit it a few times a year. Contexts move, and last year's map quietly goes stale.

Free to download, print and use. Helping people help themselves starts with the tools to do it.