Network analysis glossary
What is a relationship map?
A relationship map is a diagram of how a set of people or organisations are connected: who is family, who does business with whom, who is in conflict. Each person is a card or a dot, each tie is a labelled line, and the map makes structure visible that a list or a spreadsheet hides.
Updated · Netgraf
What goes on a relationship map
- People or organisations, each with a name and a short role ("CEO, 1998 to 2002").
- Ties, each with a label that reads as a sentence ("co-founded PayPal with") and a kind: family, business, social, conflict or other.
- Dates, when the story changes over time, so the map can be replayed.
- Sources, when the map makes claims about real people, with a confidence level: confirmed, reported or rumored.
When a relationship map helps
Use one whenever the connections matter more than the individuals: a stakeholder map before a negotiation, an ownership map of the companies behind a brand, an investigation link chart, a family business across generations, or a character map of a long TV series.
It differs from an org chart, which shows only formal reporting lines, and from a family tree, which shows only descent. A relationship map holds both alongside the ties those diagrams leave out: the rivalry, the old friendship, the silent investor.
How to draw a good one
- Start with the three to five people the story turns on, then add outward.
- Label every line with a verb phrase, not a single word. "Funded" is vague; "led the Series A for" is not.
- Colour by the kind of tie, not by the person, so the pattern of ties is what the eye reads.
- Cite sources for anything about real people and mark what is only reported.
- Cut anyone who adds no tie the reader needs. A map of forty people who matter beats one of two hundred who don't.