What is a Relationship Map?

Lesson Overview

In this lesson I will address five questions pertaining to a relationship map:

What is it?
Why is it used?
How does it help?
When is it used?
Who should use it?

To better understand a relationship map, let’s look into each of these questions.

What is it?

A relationship map is a visual diagram that allows you to see a broad view of connections between business entities. A relationship map presents an illustration of who plays a role in the business processes and operations, and helps you gain a high-level understanding of which roles interact and why.

Alternative names for a relationship map include Business Interaction Model, Entity Relationship Diagram (ERD), Organizational Context Diagram, and Organizational Relationship Map.

In the context of use intended in this course, an entity represents a person or thing that physically exists. Therefore, an entity is thought of as a noun. Examples of entities are:

user roles
stakeholders
functional departments
groups
organizations

In functional areas where work is automated by a computer application, the computer application or system may be an entity.

Why it is used?

The purpose of a relationship map is to highlight key entities in the business processes and operations, as well as to depict the existence of relationships between entities.

How does it help?

Relationship maps are helpful in the following ways:

Make complex operations easier to understand
Communicate who/what needs to interact and why
Make better decisions after consulting with affected entities
Reduce the risk of missed requirements

When is it used?

Current-state and future-state relationship maps can illustrate the entities that are affected by the scope of the project. Therefore, a current-state relationship map should be one of the first visuals reviewed by a project team. If a current-state relationship map doesn’t exist, the project team should create one as early in the project life cycle as possible. The relationship map should remain visual throughout the life of the project.

Who should use it?

Executive leaders, product managers, and product owners should review current-state relationship maps when considering any changes to business operations. Vision statements for projects should include a future-state relationship map along with descriptions of anticipated impact to entities affected by the scope of the project.

Product owners and business analysts should engage with project stakeholders to review current-state and future-state relationship maps to effectively elicit and manage the scope of requirements. All requirement deliverables should reference the relationship map.

Development team members including, but not limited to, developers, testers, data analysts, and system architects benefit from reviewing current and future-state relationship maps to identify project tasks.

In essence, any project team member and stakeholder can benefit from using the relationship map.

Have a question? Ask now!

Context Diagram

A Context Diagram is a focused view of a system boundary and the user roles that supply information and materials to and receive information and materials from the system boundary.

Facilitator

In the context of a facilitated workshop, a Facilitator, or workshop leader, should be someone who is a process expert. That is, the Facilitator is knowledgeable in the process steps needed to create the desired deliverable. The Facilitator sets the workshop agenda according to the deliverable that is to be produced.

Process Map

A Process Map is an illustration of the interaction across multiple roles, and the sequence of activities performed by each role. A process map presents a visual of who does what and in what order.

Relationship Map

A Relationship Map is a visual diagram that allows you to see a broad view of connections between business entities. A relationship map presents an illustration of who plays a role in the business processes and operations, and helps you gain a high-level understanding of which roles interact and why.

Use Case

A use case is a requirement analysis technique for representing functional requirements, typically as a text-based deliverable. The use case presents a step-by-step dialog or interaction between a role, also called an actor, and a system to accomplish a specific user goal.

Use Case Diagram

A Use Case Diagram is an illustration of a system’s intended functional user goals, its surrounding actors, and relationships between the actors and the user goals. More simply stated, a Use Case Diagram is a visual that focuses on a specific system domain and conveys a high-level understanding of the user roles that interact with it and why.

Workshop Activity

In the context of a facilitated workshop, an Activity is a structured set of instructions that a Facilitator uses to coordinate the collaboration among workshop participants. An activity consists of 5 elements:

Agenda Step. In the workshop charter, the agenda step is the name of the activity, and should be named exactly as it is displayed on the agenda visual aid.
Estimated Time. This identifies how long the activity will take the participants to do. It is typically stated in minutes.
Purpose. This is a description of the purpose of the activity. It is usually 1 or 2 sentences that answer a common participant question, “Why are we doing this step?”
Process Steps. These are precise, step-by-step instructions for how to conduct the activity. It includes prompts that the Facilitator wants to give the participants.
Document. This is an instruction to the workshop documenter on what should be captured as an outcome of the activity.

Workshop Agenda

The Workshop Agenda is a bulleted list of activities that are planned for a workshop session. The workshop agenda is structured into three parts:

Workshop Start consists of introductions, a review of the workshop purpose, presentation of the workshop agenda, explanation of the ground rules, and executive kickoff.
Workshop Process consists of the step-by-step activities.
Workshop Finish consists of a review of the deliverables, identification of next steps, review and assignment of open items, and an evaluation of the workshop.

Workshop Charter

A Workshop Charter is a facilitated workshop planning and execution tool. It serves as a Facilitator’s notes and self-instructions for running an effective facilitated workshop.

Workshop Participant

A Participant is any stakeholder who is present during a facilitated workshop session.

What is a Relationship Map?

Lesson Overview

Training

Resources

About

Contact