Lean Business Canvas
Summarize “at-a-glance” how users, business and technology meet to create a business opportunity.
Phases
Suggested Time
1-2 hours
Participants
Core team, stakeholders
Why do it?
To create a shared understanding of the project’s goals and provide a basis for validation. This method can be done for an existing business model to identify opportunities or for a future business model to get a holistic view of the potential solution.
When to do it?
This process can be repeated as needed to compare multiple business models and create a shared understanding of the project’s goals. This can be done at Kickoff to provide a basis for validation. Or toward the end of a D&F to summarize learnings.
What supplies are needed?
- Whiteboard or digital version like Miro
- Sticky notes
- Sharpies
- Dry erase markers
- Small sticky dots
How to Use this Method
Sample Agenda & Prompts
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Draw the lean business canvas on the whiteboard
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Explain the lean business canvas, one section at a time, using a common business as an example (e.g. “yelp”)
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After the explanation, start to ideate by having each participant write what they think should fill into one section (starting with the “Problem”)
Tip: If you are working with a larger group, instead of asking each person to fill in the canvas, you can split into groups of three.
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After 2-3 minutes, go around the room and “de-duplicate” the ideas (e.g. when Joe reads his sticky note and Sally wrote the same thing, Sally will not read that when her turn comes around)
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Put all the “de-duplicated” stickies on the board (outside of the canvas) and proceed to “dot vote”
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The single or few stickies that have the most dots should be moved to the section they belong in.
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Repeat steps 4-6 for each section in the following order:
- Problem
- Customer segments
- Value proposition
- Solution
- Channels
- Revenue streams
- Cost structure
- Customer metrics
- Business metrics
- Unfair advantage
Success/Expected Outcomes
Success is when you have agreement and understanding of the product market fit, what value we’re delivering from a customer perspective, and an idea of how to sustain this business.
Facilitator Notes & Tips
- If the group is small, dot voting may be unnecessary.
- later sections may not need as much (or any) ideation time since participants may be able to shout out a shared set of answers.
- Revenue is one way to measure success, that box could be renamed to Outcomes
- Update this business model week over week, it’s meant to be used over time.
