Value Mapping

Why?

We haver seen the most powerful ideas emerge when organisations are clear about their purpose, and individuals are aligned with that. NESTA's Value Mapping Tool helps you describe your own personal values and align them with the organisational values and can be more impactful than anything else in shaping what you do and why.  It can also be very useful when trying to explain your work to other people. 

How?

Step 1 - Start by writing down on a piece of paper or post it notes, what you feel is most valuable for yourself as well as for the organisation.  Write as many as you like – what makes you feel truly alive or passionately committed?

Step 2 - When you have noted down a wide range of values (ten or more), place them in the relevant fields on the worksheet.

Step 3 - Don’t worry about getting it right first time – swap them around until you have them in the right place.

Step 4 - To focus your activities, have a maximum of five in the ‘Always Important’ column.  

Step 5 - Ask your other team members to do the same.

Step 6 - Once all their worksheets have been defined, these can be shared and agreed upon. Together you can establish what values are important to the organisation as a whole.

It can be especially useful to bring all team members on the same page during projects by having the team first make their personal value maps and then match these with each other.