Introduced alongside the Balanced Scorecard by Kaplan and Norton, the strategy map arranges objectives into linked layers. It reads from the bottom up: investments in people and systems improve internal processes, which strengthen customer outcomes, which produce financial results. Arrows between objectives make the assumed chain of value visible for everyone to inspect and challenge.
Its power is communication and coherence. A strategy map turns an abstract plan into a single picture that any employee can follow, and it exposes hidden assumptions—if a link cannot be drawn, the logic may be missing.