Doctrine Assessment Tool
Updated
How competitive is your organisation in the light of Simon Wardley's doctrine? Doctrine is the set of universally useful patterns a company can apply regardless of context. This tool turns the doctrine catalogue into a quick self-assessment.
Click any principle and mark it good, medium, or bad. Colour builds a picture of where your organisation is strong and where it is self-sabotaging. Hover or focus a principle for the contextual explanation behind it. Your assessment is saved in your browser — nothing is sent anywhere.
| Category | Wardley's Doctrine (universally useful patterns that a user can apply) | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Communication | Development | Operation | Learning | Leading | Structure | |
| IV - Continuously Evolve | Listen to your ecosystem | Exploit the landscape | No single culture | |||
| There is no core | Design for constant evolution | |||||
| III - Better for Less | Optimise flow | A bias towards the new | Commit to the direction | Provide purpose, mastery & autonomy | ||
| Do better with less | Be the owner | |||||
| Inspire others | Seek the best | |||||
| Set exceptional standards | Embrace uncertainty | |||||
| Be humble | ||||||
| II - Become More Context Aware | Focus on the outcome | Manage inertia | A bias towards action | Move fast | Think small teams | |
| Think fast, inexpensive, restrained and elegant | ||||||
| Use appropriate tools | Manage failure | Strategy is iterative | Distribute power and decision making | |||
| Be pragmatic | Think aptitude and attitude | |||||
| Effectiveness over efficiency | ||||||
| A bias towards open | Use standards | |||||
| I - Stop Self-Destructive Behavior | Common language | Know your users💬 | Know the details | Bias towards data | ||
| Challenge assumptions | Focus on user needs💬 | |||||
| Understand what is being considered | Remove bias and duplication | |||||
| Use appropriate methods | ||||||
How to use it
- Name it (optional). Type a label in the box above the grid — say "Acme Corp — Q2". A shared link and its preview card will carry the name.
- Mark each principle. Click a cell to cycle through bad → medium → good → clear. Or focus it (Tab or click) and press 1 (bad), 2 (medium), 3 (good), 0 or 4 (clear).
- See what it means. Hover or focus a principle — or press h — for the explanation behind it.
- Share it. As you mark the grid, the address bar updates to a link for your assessment. Copy it straight from the browser — or use Share in the menu — and send it to anyone: opening the link rebuilds your exact grid, and pasting it into chat or social media shows a preview card with your title and tally. The link holds the whole assessment, so nothing is stored on a server.
Colours show the rating: green ✓ good, yellow ≈ medium, red ✗ bad, grey not yet rated.
The rest of the menu: Save keeps the assessment in this browser for next time, Load restores a downloaded file, and Save… downloads it as JSON or a PNG image. The flags switch language; Help opens a quick guide.
How to read it
A wall of green means little; an honest assessment usually is not. The value is in the conversation: share the result with colleagues, disagree about the colours, and decide what to improve. The phases run bottom to top — Stop Self-Destructive Behavior first, then Become More Context Aware, Better for Less, and finally Continuously Evolve. You cannot skip ahead; the lower phases are the foundation.
More
Based on Simon Wardley's work and the Wardleypedia doctrine patterns. Learn the wider method at wardleymaps.com.