Mapping What Matters Newsletter
#001 If nothing breaks, was it ever a need?
11/03/2026
In chapter three of User Needs Mapping: Aligning Teams Around What Matters, I offer a simple litmus test: “If the thing you’re building never gets delivered, who suffers and how?”
A need sits in a dependency chain; other things rely on it. A want, by contrast, tends to float. It may improve experience, polish perception, or even create delight. But if it never materialises, the system continues to function. No structural damage occurs.
The problem is not that wants exist, it’s that organisations routinely treat wants as if they are needs. And when that happens, everything downstream becomes distorted: prioritisation, team alignment, investment decisions, and even org design.
#002 Beyond function: what we miss when we reduce user needs to tasks
08/04/2026
In the last issue I wrote about the difference between wants and needs, and how easy it is to mistake one for the other, especially when what we’re given sounds reasonable and well-articulated. The litmus test — if this never gets delivered, who suffers and how? — was intended to create a bit of separation between the two.
But even when we’re trying to identify real needs, we’re often working with inputs that are incomplete. Not wrong or misleading, but shaped by what the user can see, explain, and comfortably express.