The Product Definition Canvas

Andréa Crofts

Published in

The Almanac

11 min readApr 23, 2018

Tales & takeaways from the wild, wild world of collaborative workshopping

Why another canvas?

Product development is a holistic process. It’s comprised of a number of moving pieces, whether they be people, features, or the hopes and dreams of client teams. This canvas adds structure to the chaos, and has become a central artifact in our variable design process at TWG. It can be applied to problems and businesses of all types and sizes. We use it when kicking off a new feature or product to inspire team alignment, and mitigate long-term risk.

By dusting off the granular details at the onset of a new project or product, we avoid stakeholder misalignment and tough conversations mid-way through, when tensions are high and resourcing is limited.

Our Goals

As a digital product design & development studio, we create custom software for our clients across every industry and platform. Our service offering lives at the intersection of Lean Startup and Human-Centered Design processes, while using Agile methodologies as the scaffolding for our development process. TWG’s ultimate goal is to create deep organizational value for our clients and their customers.

We believe that the product definition canvas can be an invaluable tool for both product companies and consultancies / agencies, as the main goal of it clarity and structured thinking. However, we will be focusing on a client engagement model for the rest of this article, to be able to share our learnings over the last fifteen years with you.

Our Goals when Using the Product Definition Canvas:

Quickly ramp up on projects and domain expertise
Collaborate with clients to solve tough problems
De-risk product development and avoid misalignment

What you need

2–3 hours
A group of 4–6 smart humans that hold a variety of roles, and are the key stakeholders in the client’s company (sales, marketing, product, leadership)
The project team: Product Designer, Product Manager, Developer and Account Manager
Post-it notes and sharpies
A whiteboard and whiteboard markers (multiple colours, for best results)
Small dot stickers for voting (if need be)

Prerequisites

Where this canvas falls in our process is incredibly important to note. Prerequisites for the canvas are as follows:

A basic understanding of the client’s industry and business offering
A recently updated Lean Canvas, outlining their business model at-a-glance
A kickoff session spent Asking the Right Questions, such as “why are we doing this now?” or “how are you making money from this product?”

The answers to these critical questions will form the foundation of this workshop.

The puzzle pieces

These are the exercises in the workshop. Although this is the order we’ve found to be most effective, all sections can be re-arranged and re-mixed to suit your specific use case. We’ll walk you through the framework, while using one of our clients, Muse (makers of a brain-sensing meditation headband) as an example.

Icebreaker

Timebox: 1o minutes • Materials Needed: enthusiastic team members

The priority at this stage is to start with why, (thanks, Simon Sinek!) and document both the vision for the product and the project. This is a heavy note to kick off on, so we’d suggest opening up the workshop with an icebreaker that sets the stage for the Vision exercise. Put down the post-its and verbally share your “why” with the team. The focus is not on the canvas quite yet; it’s on getting to know your project team and their goals.

Each person starts by vocalizing their “why.” The framework for this statement is shown above. This helps to uncover both the practical and aspirational reasons why each person is in the room. As a Product Designer, I would introduce myself as follows:

“As a Product Designer, I’m here because I want to design a solution that will help the client build a strong meditation practice.”

A member of the client team might respond with something like,

“As a Director of Sales, I’m here because I want to create a recurring revenue stream that will help our company grow sustainably.”

Someone on your team should document these motivations internally, to get a sense of everyone’s core roles and motivations.

Vision

Timebox: 15 minutes • Materials Needed: whiteboard markers

Once we’ve greased the wheels, we dive into the exercise. A product’s vision can take on various forms. What’s important at this stage is to start broad, while identifying overarching themes.

These themes are as follows:

Why are we doing this project (business goals)?
What is our intended outcome (business metrics)?
How will we achieve this (project output)?

At this stage, the moderator uses the following frameworks to collaboratively craft statements that the whole team will agree on. We’ll use a similar structure as the icebreaker exercise. This one includes answers to all the themes above.

An example for Muse was as follows:

“We’re prioritizing this responsive web application because we want to achieve our goal of increasing recurring revenue opportunities, which we hope will lead to more diversified sales opportunities for Muse.”

User Types

Timebox: 30 minutes • Materials Needed: Post-its & Sharpies

Get your posts-its ready. This section is going to get wild.

Disclaimer: every client will list every. single. potential. user. This is encouraged, because it gives you the ability to de-risk potential user-focused edge cases. More importantly, it provides an early opportunity for prioritizing and categorizing user types. If you are working with a large team, limit the number of sticky notes to around 3 for each user type, and each subsequent key need.

Primary Users are the humans that the product is designed for, first and foremost. These are the people you’ll include in usability testing, and keep top of mind while designing. They are central to the product’s feature definition, and ultimately the success of the product.

For Muse, these were:

Life Coaches, Mental Health Professionals, and Psychiatrists working in private practices. One of their primary “Key Needs” was to See an at-a-glance view of client performance and usage trends.

Secondary Users are those that will benefit from the product in various ways, but aren’t the core audience.

For Muse, these were:

People suffering from various mental health behaviours such as ADD, ADHD, anxiety, depression and addiction.

Tertiary Users can be the client-side employees that manage the product, provide support, or have limited use of the product.

For Muse, these were:

The Sales and Customer Care team, Product Managers on the client side, and Quality Assurance (QA) teams, for example.

Note: If this exercise is being used for a very complex product, it’s possible that it requires its own dedicated workshop to dive deeper into more granularity.

Desired Outcomes

Timebox: 15 minutes • Materials Needed: Post-its & Sharpies

This section surfaces the metrics we’re hoping to track after the product launches. These will be both qualitative and quantitative, as well as user-centric and business-centric.

For Muse, sample user goals were as follows:

Qualitative: Engage in more focused and constructive sessions with clients.

Quantitative: Increase the number of client meditation sessions by x% through increased visibility and accountability.

Similar to the last section, you’ll likely end up with a vast number of post-its. Grouping similar ideas together identifies trends, and dot voting (more on dot voting below) helps to prioritize which outcomes are top priority. Be sure to highlight misalignment between user outcomes and business outcomes as they arise; this helps to de-risk projects early. As you’re moderating, ask yourself: “Is there any tension between these metrics?” If so, talk through these with the client before moving on to the next section.

Features

Timebox: 30 minutes • Materials Needed: Post-its & Sharpies

This section presents another opportunity for prioritization.

The Signature Feature:

Is often the hardest to populate in the workshop, because it often emerges throughout the discovery phase
Netflix’s “browse” screen is an example of a signature feature, as well as Instagram’s “discover” feature. This is often the feature that differentiates your app from the competition
Think of it this way: If you wanted your product’s users to remember one feature of your app, what would it be?
The goal is to introduce this concept early and keep it top of mind throughout the project

Core Features:

Are fundamental, and are required for the product to fulfill the user’s basic goals
Could include a log in screen, settings screen or password re-set, to name a few
The attached worksheet suggests a number of common product features, so that you and your team aren’t starting from a blank slate

Other Features

The nice-to-haves. The product would function without them
Their presence would move the needle only slightly
Perfect for building a roadmap and addressing tensions early on

Note: A common mistake in this exercise is to bucket every feature as a core feature. The power of this exercise is that it’s ripe for proactive roadmap grooming, so use it to your advantage! As a moderator, asking questions like, “could the app function without this feature?” helps to focus the team on the goal: prioritization.

Risks and Measures of Success

Timebox: 20 minutes • Materials Needed: Post-its & Sharpies

Take a deep breath; you’ve likely uncovered a lot about your product at this point in the workshop. This is where the feelings come out. Vocalizing risks at the onset of a project is a great relationship-building tactic.

Risks can be anything from a lack of project resources to potential legal regulations. For Muse, some of the risks identified by the client included over-complicating the UI and having access to real health professionals for testing. Invalid assumptions can also pose a risk to the project. Identifying what these could be is integral to the project’s success.

An example of an assumption could be:

“we’re assuming that all of our users will want to download another iOS app”

…when this may not be the case.

Success measures are more objective and measurable than the feelings-based nature of risks. These help to determine how the client will objectively define success on this project. Some typical product success metrics include x number of daily/monthly active users, as well as acquisition metrics. (the completion rate of an onboarding flow, for example) We’ve included some additional possibilities in this worksheet.

Avoiding client disasters

Sometimes, your team may require extra preparation to feel 100% comfortable during such a collaborative exercise. We’ve found that it’s best to send the client or product stakeholders a version of the canvas template before the workshop. This provides them with a cognitive model of what they’re expected to contribute, and allows them to create alignment internally. Context is key.

Moderating Tips

The moderator plays a critical role in the workshop… But with great power, comes great responsibility.

What if everyone contradicts each other? How do we solve an argument over a contentious feature? In addition to composure, a moderator’s most valuable tool is dot voting. This method allows everyone in the room to vote on their priorities based on the discussion. It defuses the situation, and allows everyone’s voice to be heard.

Distribute. Decide on an appropriate number of dots to distribute to each person, based on the number of options on the table (3 is a good minimum, and forces people to vote wisely).
Go all in. Allow participants to place more than one dot on an item if they really believe in it
Vote silently. Try to avoid group-think and have everybody vote independently.
Count the dots. The post-its with the most dots are the winners.

If the scenario can’t be solved with dots, ask poignant questions and use statements that facilitate prioritization and discussion. Some examples include:

“Can you talk us through the repercussions of omitting this feature?”
“What percentage of your user base does this person account for?”
“Tell us more about that. We’re interested in hearing your perspective.”
“It seems as though we all have different ideas about this, so let’s talk through this more. Could everyone share their thoughts on their suggestion?”

If you get the sense that ongoing misalignment will significantly impact the workshop timeline, you can either table it for a further discussion, or allocate more time to it and save another exercise for a later date.

For best results…

Five ways to achieve great success using this canvas:

Allocate at least two hours for this workshop (three hours is ideal)
Send the canvas template at least 2 days before the workshop
Come prepared with (lots of) post-it notes, but limit participants to a certain number if your audience is larger than 4 people (the sweet spot is often around 6–8 people)
Circulate the final output actively in client/team communications (Slack channels, e-mail threads, etc.), and refer to it regularly throughout the project’s life cycle
Update this canvas as the product evolves, for best results. Consider it a living document

Ready to take it for a spin on your next project? Download it here:

Download all files

Product Definition Canvas as a PDF

Product Definition Canvas as a Keynote

Product Definition Canvas Worksheet

At TWG, one of our core goals is to design in the open. We love open sourcing our design process! If you’ve used this canvas on a project, please share your experience in the comments below.

Standing on the shoulders of giants

We wrote this post as a hat-tip to the talented folks at UsTwo. We first discovered a variation of their Product Definition Canvas while reading Lean UX, a book by Jeff Gothelf and Josh Seiden. It’s our hope that by highlighting the various ways we’ve applied this canvas in our client work, we’ve demonstrated how we’ve flexed its general structure for a variety of applications.

The Product Definition Canvas is also inspired by the fundamental Business Model Canvas and the aforementioned Lean Canvas. We’d like to acknowledge that we’re standing on the shoulders of giants, and extend a heartfelt thank you to those who have shaped our process.