wardley-maps.sgit.ai / Resources / Crossing the River by Feeling the Stones (talk)

Crossing the River by Feeling the Stones (talk)

Reference & derivative Live talk

#3 of the ten to read first. Forty-eight free minutes of Wardley doing the thing. The highest-conversion artefact in the list: people who bounce off the book do not bounce off this.

What it is

Wardley's signature talk and the best single hour of him explaining the technique. He works through situational awareness and its application to technology strategy: how mapping an environment surfaces opportunities that a spreadsheet or a SWOT cannot, using examples from both UK government and commercial settings. He covers the patterns by which technology evolves, how organisations should restructure around those patterns (pioneers, settlers, town planners), and how leaders can anticipate change rather than react to it. The title is the argument: you cannot plan the crossing in advance, but you can feel for the next stone — provided you have a map that tells you which direction the far bank is in.

Limitations

From 2019 — predates the current tooling entirely, and predates his AI-era writing. Multiple near-identical recordings from different conferences create confusion about which is canonical. InfoQ requires no login but does gate some features. Not openly licensed, so no clipping or re-hosting.

The details