The process of customer-journey mapping usually involves bringing together a cross functional team of different roles and levels of seniority. It’s crucial to bring people from various teams and departments together to ensure that the customer journey is accurate, and also that everyone in the company supports the process and the outcomes. But how can journey mapping work when teams are not merely metaphorically siloed within an organization, but are physically siloed — geographically dispersed — as well?

In This Article:

Distributed-Team Structures Exacerbate Journey-Mapping Challenges

Journey mapping fails when there is lack of buy-in, when the findings are not socialized, and when teams view the outputs as “final.” These struggles in particular can easily be exacerbated when teams are distributed.

Lack of buy-in for the process. Getting people to work together across disciplines and departments is challenging enough within an organization where everyone is under one roof, but when teams are distributed across the country or globe, communicating the value of journey mapping and engaging people in the process is even more challenging, especially when those people can’t witness the actual activity.

Lack of buy-in for the outcome. When teams are not located in the same building, or even the same time zone, it can be challenging to truly engage team members during the journey-mapping process or with its outcomes. Thus they may not believe much in your journey map and will be less likely to act on it. 

Difficulty iterating. Because the journey map itself is oftentimes a physical, static document that can be difficult to update and build upon, many people misunderstand the result of a journey-mapping endeavor to be “final.” Couple that with the difficulty a distributed team would have in trying to iterate upon a static document, and there is little chance that a journey map created by a dispersed team would evolve and continue to be updated as new insights are uncovered.

Three Levels of Digital Journey-Mapping Tools

Luckily, just because customer-journey mapping necessitates collaboration and diverse perspectives it doesn’t mean that everyone has to be physically in the same room to create an insightful map. A range of digital tools can help remote teams produce insightful maps; these tools can also help teams who are not distributed share the process in order to increase buy-in and generate outputs that can be more easily disseminated and updated.

There are several levels of digital tools available; Teams should select a tool from the level that best fits their needs (and budgets).

Level 1: Compile and Visualize

These tools are blank canvases that allow teams to create digital versions of journey maps, by simply compiling information in a digital format rather than a physical one, so that it can be more easily shared. They often feature drag-and-drop functionality to allow users to move information or insights around a blank canvas. The visualized output is more easily shared with remote teams than snapshots of physical workshop outputs that often become lost on individual team members' devices. In addition, the resulting map is much easier to edit, evolve, and iterate upon then a static graphic version.

Example Tools for Compiling and Visualizing Journey Maps

  • Canvanizer is a free cloud-based software that allows you to share links to your work that give others editing permissions.
  • In addition to canvas-oriented tools such as Canvanizer, more traditional diagraming programs such as Omnigraffle, Gliffy and Lucidchart offer the features necessary to visualize a basic journey map.

These tools are limited in their visualization capabilties, but are inexpensive and serve the straightforward purpose of visually aligning user thoughts, actions and emotions across phases and channels well. They are more suitable to individuals or UX teams-of-one that do not need or have the budget for tools with real-time collaboration capabilities.

Level 2: Collaborate

These tools allow teams to not only compile information onto a blank canvas, but also enable multiple contributors to participate in the process at the same time — a likely necessity for distributed teams who do not have the luxury of coming together in the same physical space. With level-2 tools, teams can meet in the same digital space to collaborate synchronously on the journey map. 

Example Tools for Real-time Collaboration in Journey Maps

  • Mural and Miro (formerly RealTimeBoard) are whiteboard-like spaces where teams can collaborate in real-time, providing an optimal way to mimic the benefits of an in-person journey mapping workshop with remote team members.
  • Other programs such as Smaply and UXPressia have features targeted specifically to the creation of digital journey maps, such as templates, persona integration and presentation capabilties.

These tools typically have a free trial or free limited-usage membership, and then a reasonable monthly fee for more maps or additional collaborators.

Level 3: Consolidate and Integrate

If a team has multiple information sources that need to be integrated into a customer journey map, level-3 tools are appropriate. These tools allow other documents, such as personas or additional secondary journeys, to be linked to a customer-journey map. Some even allow the integration of outside data sources such as voice of customer or site-survey information into your map.

Example Tools for Consolidating and Integrating Outside Data into Journey Maps

These SaaS-based journey management tools are much more robust, with higher pricing to match. The are ideal for organizations with company-wide journey mapping or customer experience programs, or ongoing customer experience efforts with multiple sources of data to manage across groups.

Factors to Consider when Selecting Digital Tools

With a plethora of journey-mapping software available, how does a team begin selecting one?

Team Resources

Think of your team size and the roles it comprises. Are you a UX team of one? You might simply need a level-1 tool that can help you create a digital output that is more appropriate for sharing than your sketches and sticky notes. Do you have a large team? You may need a level-2 tool that allows multiple contributors.

Available Data

Do you need to integrate additional data, such as business -intelligence data, into the map? Some software, such as IBM Journey Designer, can show live business data on the map, changing the map from being a simple document to a living report. Consider the stakeholders working with you: Is their data important to integrate in the map? If so, you may need a level-3 tool.

Budget

There are many free visualization tools that can be “hacked” to become useful journey-mapping tools. Many fall into the level-1 category. When features such as integration and real-time collaboration are part of the tool, the price can quickly increase.

Conclusion

Creating a journey map with a distributed team is challenging but not impossible task.You always have to try harder and be more aware of potential pitfalls when working with a distributed team. There are no shortcuts; creating a cohesive, shared vision for a project it simply requires more proactive planning and energy to create a cohesive, shared vision for working on a project. While no tool will ever completely overcome all the impediments to journey-mapping success outlined in the previous section, the right tools can at least make this process less arduous and increase the chances of a favorable outcome, for both distributed teams and those in the same building.