The Environment is a broad term for where you exist or live. In the context of a system, it's the surroundings that it interacts with.
Understanding your environment is essential to make decisions, or craft a good Strategy. Describing it in a helpful way requires modeling what's important and ignoring what isn't, which is subjective: Every person will have a different view of the environment. Modeling it together is likelier to yield something that reflects a shared reality.
## Wardley Mapping
One way to do this is through Wardley Mapping. Such a map of your environment can give you an understanding of:
* The relationship between different features of the environment. * The position of these features in terms of visibility and evolution. * Obstacles and forces acting on the environment.
Even better, a map can help others challenge your vision of the environment.
## Causal Loop Diagrams
A Causal Loop Diagram helps you understand how a system interacts by listing variables and how they reinforce or balance each other.