Tech Debt Burndown Podcast Series 2 E1: Krysztof (Chris) Daniel on Strategy and Wardley Maps
Posted on Sunday, Jan 15, 2023
Show Notes
Recording date: Jan 24, 2022
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“When they have figured out what this game was really about, they figured out what should be the response” - Krysztof (Chris) Daniel
After intros we start by asking Chris why he got the @wardleymaps Twitter handle, and he explains that he was doing an entrepreneurship course that got him interested in Wardley mapping; and from that he went on to develop an online tool to help people make maps. We then chat a little about Chris’s work at the Leading Edge Forum (LEF), where he works alongside Simon Wardley.
Nick speculates that mapping hasn’t really made it to the US yet, but Chris points out that there are already vibrant communities in the US before giving an overview of the Wardley mapping technique. He then illustrates the approach using a customer case study. This gets into the customer not really knowing what they had (in terms of assets) until they went through the mapping process.
The conversation then turns to situational awareness, and whether that’s a predominantly military concept. Given that there are plenty of veterans about (particularly in infosec), why is it that situation awareness isn’t used more in companies?
We then get into how maps can be used to understand tech debt in organisations. In particular how assets in the value chain that have become debt can be examined for change. That leads into a discussion of the elements of (awkwardly named) doctrine, and where they fit into the overall strategic picture.
Before closing, discussion moves on to corporate structure, which relates to Wardley’s pioneers, settlers and town planners (PST) model.
Guests
Krysztof (Chris) Daniel
Krzysztof (Chris) Daniel is a researcher and advisor for DXC Leading Edge, teaching others how to effectively use Wardley Maps for their benefit. Chris works with customers to apply Wardley Maps to particular use cases, including outsourcing, IT modernization and business transformation. He enjoys mapping sessions with customers, guiding a process of identifying opportunities and risks and defining areas for growth. Chris is the author of the online Wardley Mapping course and an active member of the broader Wardley Mapping community.
Hosts
Chris Swan
Chris Swan is an Engineer at Atsign, building the Atsign Platform, an open source networking platform that is putting people in control of their data and removing the frictions and surveillance associated with today’s Internet.
He was previously a Fellow at DXC Technology where he held various CTO roles. Before that he held CTO and Director of R&D roles at Cohesive Networks, UBS, Capital SCF and Credit Suisse, where he worked on app servers, compute grids, security, mobile, cloud, networking and containers.
Chris is an InfoQ Editor writing about cloud, DevOps and security, and is a Dart Google Developer Expert (GDE). He’s a frequent speaking on supply chain security (SBOMs, SLSA and OpenSSF Scorecards), the Dart programming language and AI.
Nick Selby
Nick Selby is the founder and Managing Partner of EPSD, with a career spanning technology leadership, not-for-profit leadership, law enforcement, and cybersecurity. He serves on the board of directors of the National Child Protection Task Force, and the advisory board of Sightline Security.
He has held key executive roles at Evertas, Trail of Bits, 451 Research (now S&P Global Intelligence), and Paxos Trust. He served as Director of Cyber Intelligence and Investigations at the NYPD, and as both paid and reserve Texas police detective specializing in investigations of child sexual abuse material and online investigations.
He is co-author of several books, including Cyber Attack Survival Manual, Blackhatonomics: An Inside Look at the Economics of Cybercrime, and In Context: Understanding Police Killings of Unarmed Civilians; he was technical editor of Investigating Internet Crimes: An Introduction to Solving Crimes in Cyberspace.