For those who may not yet have seen the blog post, Alex has created a new tool as an addition to the canvas - the customer value canvas. It can be found through the link at the bottom of the Hub home page, or here

Business Model Alchemist

One of the most difficult challenges an innovation practitioner faces is reconciling all the different theoretical approaches, and variations on leading approaches. Often we are faced with incompatible or contradictory approaches and are left to reconcile the differences or adapt the approaches to make them compatible.

A great example of how approaches can be integrated is the collaboration between Alex Osterwalder and Steve Blank. The addition of the business model canvas to the customer development model (CDM) provided a strong tool to describe what Steve Blank instinctively knew was a key component of the model. The addition of the CDM to the business model canvas provided a process for the business model innovation in a start-up, entrepreneurial environment, to complement the existing business model innovation process in BMG. Steve Blank further extended the integration by the addition of the Lean/Agile product development as a method in "The Start-up Stack".

This new canvas tool takes integration in a different direction, vertical, by creating a 'plug-in' that helps one work out the details of the overall business canvas. Think of it as taking a portion of the canvas (value prop and customer segments) and blowing them up to focus on the details of that relationship. It is also is of great assistance in helping the client to focus on that part of the canvas and to identify and comprehend the relationship.

For some time now I have been experimenting with a couple of plug-ins to help clients work out the details of their value proposition in the business model. I have used the Value Mapping tool from the Board of Innovation, and the Whiteboard value map that is described in Cooper & Valskovitz's Entrepreneur's Guide to Customer Development. I have also experimented with some of the approaches in Ash Maurya's Running Lean; in particular, identifying three key problems and three solutions.

One of the best approaches I have plugged into the customer-value proposition analysis is the 'job-to-be-done' approach of Clayton Christensen and Mark Johnson. I use it in a table that has three columns. The first identifies the potential customers. The second column identifies the job each of these has to get done with which we can help, The third column identifies the need that customer has to get the job done. The 'need' becomes the value proposition in the model. By looking at column one we can identify key groupings of customers with similar jobs to form segments. Column three allows us to group based on value proposition and develop bundles of products and services.

I like this new tool by Alex and will be interested to see what the Hub community thinks of it and how it can evolve.