Dialogue Mapping and Issue Mapping

From Faster Than 20

Dialogue Mapping and Issue Mapping are both techniques for capturing complex issues, arguments, and wicked problems using the IBIS grammar. However, they differ in intent.

Dialogue Mapping attempts to strike a balance between transcription and interpretation. While the goal is ultimately to drive attention to the issues, it's critical to also capture the context of how those issues came up. Issue Mapping focuses on the ideas themselves, independent of any conversational artifacts.

One way to think about it is that Issue Mapping is a form of graphic recording, whereas Dialogue Mapping is a type of visual facilitation.

In a good Dialogue Mapping process, you are actually leveraging both Dialogue Mapping and Issue Mapping. In other words, you are capturing conversation via Dialogue Mapping, but you are also taking the time to develop a corresponding Issue Map via continual synthesis. Building on the Issue Map for subsequent conversations has the advantages of focusing a group on the issues rather than the conversational cruft. (If you need to refer to the "cruft" later, you can go back to the Dialogue Map.) It's also a better map for sharing with those who did not participate in the conversation.