Motivation Mapping is an exercise to understand the motivation for ourselves or the customer. We use a canvas divided in 6 sections and identify the goals, context, reason for the goals, obstacles, and the target outcomes.

Motivation Mapping uses a simple canvas to organize the following

1. Context - What is the environment surrounding us or our customer? What platform are we operating on? What are the factors impacting our environment?
2. Goals - What goals do we or our customers have? What do we want to achieve?
3. Reasons for the Goals - Identify why we set this goal or objective.
4. Obstacles - What is preventing us from making progress on our objective? What are the impediments?
5. Target Outcome - What state do we need to be in to be able to say that our goal was achieved?

• Divide a canvas into 6 sections. One box on top, two boxes in the middle, and three boxes at the bottom. The top box is Who we are understanding the motivation for. The middle two boxes are Objective and Context. The bottom three boxes are Reasons for the Goals, Obstacles, and Target Outcomes.
• Gather the team, department, business unit, or organization into one place.
• First identify who the Motivation Map is for, then work on the other boxes.
• Ensure that Target Outcome is defined, as this will be used for linking together our motivation map with the customers.
• Once the Motivation Map is completed, hang it in a place where the team, department, business unit, or organization can see it at all times. This is not a static document. It's a status board that shows the current state, and it needs to be updated regularly.
• Aside from our own motivation map, creation motivation maps for other organizations that are our customers or other individual customers.
  • Define Personas for individual customers as that will help us define the motivation map.
  • Ensure that the Target Outcomes are linked to our own Target Outcomes. This helps us understand what products or services should be provided for our customers so that our own outcomes can be met.