Innovative ideas need to be validated before the organization spends time and money on building products, changing processes or delivering new services. During the last decade, many effective methods for validating ideas have emerged, especially from the start-up scene. Either of these tools may be useful in validating the idea at hand in your organization. Which one is best depends on the combination of what type of idea needs to validated, the experience obtained by the Innovation Coaches and the time and means the Innovator has available.
Canvasses
There are dozens of canvas templates available online, each with the aim to describe the idea, its value and its costs in a simple overview. The majority of these canvasses are based on the original Business Model Canvas that was first introduced by Alexander Osterwalder and his team. Osterwalder extended the original idea of the Business Model Canvas with a second canvas, which offers a more detailed description of the idea itself and the way in which it offers a solution to customer needs. This canvas is called the Value Proposition Design canvas.
- Lean Canvas – Ash Maurya
- Business Model Canvas – Alexander Osterwalder
- Value Proposition Design – Alexander Osterwalder
Osterwalder’s canvasses are regarded to be the leading canvasses in the field, but that does not mean that other canvasses are not useful. Each canvas serves its purpose when it helps an Innovator to reflect on his/her idea and validate its potential feasibility and value. In addition, the lessons learned from earlier validation sessions are applied to continuously learn from previous experience.