When was the last time a journey map in your organization changed an outcome?
I have built my fair share of Journey Maps and Service Blueprints in my career, we learnt that they were going to help us with empathy and storytelling... but that alone is insufficient, because If you stop at empathy, you have stories without change levers, and in healthcare, banking, or policy, that’s just not good enough.
The recent research by Voorheis and colleagues (2025 - Image credit) pulled together how journey maps and service blueprints are currently being built in health projects (but can apply to other industries)
What stood out for me was the fact that these JM's or SB's did not apply any behavioral theories or models, and we are talking about heath here, where what is mentioned always is behavior!
The research and my experience tells me that essentially teams are omitting a behavioral layer (not on purpose), which is making these maps incomplete, not wrong... just incomplete.
What I like to tell most teams is that you don't need to start over and spend endless months re-mapping, you just need to add the missing behavioral layer, even adding a minimum viable behavioral layer can be enough to start with.
So what do I add when a company asks me to add a Behavioral Layer, well that is what I want to share with you...
If you add a behavioral layer, it means you will be:
• Adding determinants • Spelling out barriers and enablers in context, not just pain points • Making autonomy, competence, and relatedness explicit at every stage • Linking precise behavioral techniques • Mapping the loops that sustain or stop behavior, and set measures to track them • Bringing in system context
How you do this, will really depend on your context, but above are things you should be thinking about...which will help turn your journeys from descriptive artifacts into diagnostic tools, because a descriptive journey map won’t inform on how someone can change their diet, log into a platform, or adopt a new way of working.
Remember, most Journey Maps aren't wrong... they are just incomplete...