Vision Canvas - the elevator pitch for a product or digital service
The vision canvas, developed by Whitmore, is a concise summary of the purpose and implementation idea of a product or service. It serves the product owner, those guiding product development, and the development team by providing a foundation for discussing the key issues of the product. It is suitable, for example, for describing the implementation vision of an information system or a digital service. The strength of the vision canvas lies in its ability to prompt crucial discussions about the product and to prioritize different needs and perspectives.
Faculitate the Visio Canvas work
It is highly recommended that the vision canvas be completed through discussions with various stakeholders. Typically, when filling it out, the product owner should at least consult with senior management and other different interest groups overseeing development. Also those responsible for architectural decisions and those planning the implementation is a good idea to keep in the loop (for example, the steering group, the organization’s internal IT, experts familiar with the market situation of the implementation technology, and the implementation team).
The discussion-catalyzing power of the vision canvas is best utilized when it is filled out in a workshop format using post-it notes on, for example, a meeting room wall or a digital collaboration platform. In this setting, all participants first write down their own views on each question in the vision canvas, after which the group can dive into critical issues, such as: Three of you thought the most important user of the service is the non-logged-in user, while two of you believed it’s the service administrator. What are your reasons? Could we find a common understanding?
The discussion that follows from making differences in thinking visible is usually extremely beneficial for the product, and having this discussion sooner rather than later helps avoid many conflicts in guiding the product's development.
Who to participate and when?
It is typical that not all questions in the vision canvas can be answered at once.
The composition of the group to respond varies depending on the question—for example, representatives of the implementation team can primarily contribute to the implementation vision discussion, while the steering group or management is typically needed to consider the product's business metrics.
.
d
d
It is also common that questions related to user needs and business metrics can be answered shortly after the product idea is conceived, whereas defining the scope or the implementation vision may take several months. A lack of answers indicates the need for further investigation.
The content of the Vision Canvas
The vision canvas consists of nine fields, numbered according to the recommended order of completion:
Who. Who is the most important user of the service? It’s tempting to list at least five groups, none of which can be excluded. However, the aim is to determine which user group will be prioritized if choices must be made between groups. Often, this is necessary. If it turns out there are two groups that are equally essential (for example, the non-logged-in user and the administrator), each can have their own sections 1-4, possibly using different colored post-its..
Need. What kind of need does the primary user have? What does the user want to accomplish, and what is wrong with current solutions? This section also asks how the user’s need has been validated. It’s better if the need is validated through, for example, user research or interviews, rather than relying on the intuition of the service developers. The latter can sometimes be off the mark.
Solution. What basic idea do we think might meet the user's need? For instance, Spotify might say it addresses the needs of a mobile music listener by offering all kinds of music streaming across multiple devices, or a local transport mobile app might say it enables route planning and ticket purchasing within the same app.
User Feedback. How will we ensure during the development of the service or product that we are genuinely solving the user’s problem? The usual answer is an early-stage prototype and its user testing to ensure the implementation idea works. This ensures that significant investment in development is truly worthwhile. Later, feedback can be ensured through pilot usage, which is expanded as development progresses.
Unique Value. The product always has competitors, even when it doesn’t seem so at first glance. Users can always choose not to use the product, stick with old methods, or call customer service. What ensures that users will prefer our product over competing alternatives? Answers often lie in ease of use or advanced features compared to competing solutions.
Operational Metrics. While user feedback aims to quickly signal whether we’ve chosen the right direction, operational metrics ensure that the product delivers the desired long-term benefits. Is the goal to achieve new sales, better customer satisfaction, more efficient operations, or all of these? What metrics can we use to practically verify these?
Key Resources and Capabilities. What specific skills do we need to implement the solution we’ve planned? Typically, this involves technical expertise, but what reference projects should our product's technical implementers have? In what areas must they be particularly capable?
Constraints. Many factors usually constrain the product’s implementation: target schedules with potentially compelling reasons, implementation and maintenance budgets, regulations affecting implementation, technical constraints, architectural requirements or integration needs, security, data protection, and accessibility requirements, among others. These should be acknowledged before we start detailed planning of the implementation.
Implementation Vision. Last but not least, in light of all the above: what is our brief implementation idea? Are we replacing something existing? What technology will we use, and how will we ensure that the implementation is cost-effective and sustainable? Are there ready-made solutions we can rely on? For instance, a CRM project team might say they are replacing an existing system with a SaaS solution, which requires adapting organizational practices to the chosen system.
Preparation for Vision Canvas work
To be able to fill out the vision canvas, a considerable amount of preliminary work is often required. User needs typically need to be investigated through surveys and interviews, as well as analyzing the analytics of the previous system. The background process of the upcoming system should be outlined with the organization’s experts through value stream mapping, and different implementation options should be explored through market research.
Although the vision canvas may seem simple in its presentation, it has a tendency to reveal gaps and contradictions in the thinking around the product. This is a good thing: the earlier we can bring the open questions about the product into discussion among different stakeholders, the better our chances of success. Reserve time to address these findings.
Take into use: Download the Vision Canvas as a file
Vision Canvas is a further developed version of Alex Osterwalder’s / Business Model Foundry’s Business Model Canvas and Ash Maury’s / Lean Foundry’s Lean Canvas by Withmore Oy’s Karoliina Luoto and Miika Kuha. It can be used and further developed under the Creative Commons 4.0 -license.
Visio Canvas has been brought by its developers to be a part of several organization’s agile developlent toolset, e.g. The City of Helsinki development method guidline (Kehmet)