These are resources by me and other design practitioners mentioned (directly or indirectly) in my book Sojourn.
Downloadables mentioned in Sojourn
Customer Journey Canvas
Value Proposition Canvas by Strategyzer
Customer Journey Canvas by Futurice
Tools & Platforms
TheyDo
The leading enterprise platform for journey management. Excellent for structures, governance, multi-track orchestration, and stakeholder alignment. Integrates with Figma and several other data integrations.
Smaply
More classic service design toolset — personas, blueprints, mapping. Useful for smaller orgs or teams starting with mapping basics.
Miro
For teams who want flexibility and exploration before formalizing in a journey platform, beyond the collaboration tool with best usability, they offer numerous canvas and plugins to work with journey management.
FigJam
As part of the Figma umbrella, a widely adopted tool for UX designers, FigJam is also a good option for collaboration and journey management, like Miro.
Frameworks & Methods Worth Citing
Service Blueprinting — Bitner, Ostrom, Morgan (2008)
The backbone of backstage–frontstage thinking.
“Jobs to Be Done” — Christensen, Ulwick, Intercom
Excellent for clarifying needs, pains, and motivations that fuel journeys.
Customer Experience Maturity Models — Forrester
Often used to help leadership understand where the org stands before adopting a journey operating model.
Wardley Mapping
Not CX-specific but extremely useful for understanding capability evolution, value chains, and ecosystem shifts — helpful in journey ops.
Pirate Funnel / AARRR Framework
Useful for connecting journey phases to business metrics in a light way.
Books
This Is Service Design Doing — Stickdorn et al.
The de facto textbook. Your readers will expect it.
Mapping Experiences — Jim Kalbach
Clear explanation of maps, alignment, and cross-functional orchestration.
The Experience-Centric Organization — Why CX Programs Fail
By Columbia Business School Press — fantastic for the organizational perspective.
Good Services — Lou Downe
A classic for service principles and clarity, especially public sector–oriented.
Service Design for Business — Ben Reason, Lavrans Løvlie
Great short intro to aligning design with business and governance.
Research & Thought Foundations
Don Norman — “Activities vs. Tasks” frameworks
Good for understanding why journeys are activity-based structures.
Lucy Kimbell — Service Design / Designerly Thinking
Her academic framing on services & organizations is gold.
Richard Buchanan — Wicked Problems
Helpful when connecting journey management to strategic change.
IDEO & Frog Case Studies
Not directly “journey management,” but excellent examples of organizational-level design processes.
Other inspiration
Because journey management lives between culture, organizations, and tech.
Rita Gunther McGrath — Discovery-Driven Planning
Brilliant for scaled, uncertain environments — very compatible with journey-led priorities.
Dave Snowden — Cynefin Framework
Helpful when explaining complexity to leadership (e.g., “why journeys aren’t linear funnel diagrams”).
Byung-Chul Han — The Burnout Society
Perfect philosophical reference for understanding digital expectations and the end-user psyche.
Mark Fisher — Capitalist Realism
Good grounding for the emotional and structural realities of digital life.
Design Management Tools
These are resources mostly useful for design practitioners, service designers, product managers and others responsible for creative input, change and strategic design.