Chapter 02
Practices
Reading time · 25 min
9 practice areas of Journey Management
80
Total respondants
28
Countries
10+
Experience range
A total of 80 participants qualified for this section of the report. To qualify, respondents were required to complete all nine practice areas, evaluating practice relevance and effectiveness, as well as the frequency of related challenges. Incomplete responses were excluded from the final analysis
Identifying strategic opportunities across Journeys
Identifying strategic opportunities across journeys uses journey evidence and performance data to uncover growth areas, operational inefficiencies, and emerging risks where organisational strategy must adapt. This practice area includes rebalancing how value, resources, and effort are distributed across internal and external stakeholder relationships. It also encompasses creating targeted dashboards, reports, and communication assets to demonstrate tangible benefits and track the realised value of projects or initiatives over time.
Survey respondents first rated the relevance of each practice (0–5, from 'not relevant at all' to 'very relevant'). For practices scoring 3 or higher, respondents scored their organisation's effectiveness in applying them (0–5, from 'not effective at all' to 'very effective'). The chart above shows both the range and average scores for relevance and effectiveness across each practice.
Insights
Organisations significantly increase their effectiveness in identifying
optimisation and risks, and tracking realised value over time
An organisation's effectiveness in leveraging journey evidence to identify operational inefficiencies, improvement opportunities, and operational risks improves substantially across practice stages. Emerging practices rate this capability at an average of 2.97 out of 5 (falling between slightly and moderately effective), whereas advanced practices score 4.90 out of 5 (placing them between very and extremely effective). Similarly, using journey maps, dashboards, and performance evidence to communicate outcomes and track value realisation across projects and investments increases from 2.99 out of 5 (slightly to moderately effective) among emerging practices to 4.00 out of 5 (very effective) at the advanced stage.
Optimising stakeholder value and relationships is hardest for every practice stage
Using journey insights to reassess how value, resources, and effort are distributed across internal and external stakeholder relationships records the lowest perceived relevance, scoring 3.08 out of 5 (moderately applicable), alongside the lowest effectiveness rating at 2.69 out of 5 (placing it between slightly and moderately effective). This results in the cohort's widest discrepancy between relevance and effectiveness at 1.29 points. Even among advanced-stage practices, this disconnect remains pronounced, with a gap of 1 point. Furthermore, only 56% of respondents who consider this practice relevant assess their delivery as moderately effective or higher.
Communication is valued but hard to master
Developing and maintaining supplementary assets such as dashboards, reports, and presentations that use journey data to articulate the tangible benefits and outcomes of projects, initiatives, and capital investments proves the most challenging to execute effectively across all practice stages. Perceived relevance increases steadily from 3.61 out of 5 (falling between moderately and very applicable) for emerging practices to 4.43 out of 5 (placing it between very and extremely applicable) for advanced practices. Despite this growing recognition of its value, the gap between relevance and effectiveness remains persistent for every practice stage.
Insights
Conflicting planning cycles is the most frequent challenge, at every stage
More than half of respondents (54%) face challenges that arise from straddling different strategic planning approaches that conflict with journey frameworks or data, often or very often, with reporting frequencies remaining consistent across every practice stage. Emerging practices average a frequency score of 3.66 out of 5, while established practices score 3.77 and advanced practices record 3.79 out of 5.
Half of respondents experience most of these challenges often or very often
Almost half of respondents (49%) frequently encounter three interconnected strategic obstacles, rating them as occurring often or very often. These comprise the absence of a clearly defined strategy or unified success metrics to align journey initiatives with organisational goals, difficulties in challenging entrenched assumptions about the strategic value and priority of stakeholder relationships, and limited traction when attempting to influence leadership to reprioritise existing capital roadmaps in favour of journey-based opportunities.
Advanced-stage practices experience challenges related to defining and measuring value, and mental model resistance as the most persistent
Both challenges record high-frequency ratings for advanced-stage practices. Establishing consistent definitions and evidence across the business for commercial, operational, and human-centred value (including ROI and efficiency gains) averages 4.00 out of 5, while difficulty challenging strongly held beliefs regarding the strategic value and priority of stakeholder relationships scores even higher at 4.14 out of 5. These challenges reflect the organisation's mindsets.