Value Proposition Canvas

Abstract

An important aspect of project management is stakeholder management which contains many different tools and theories. An essential part of this management is the alignment of stakeholder expectations with project deliverables. The reason for a project initiation is a business case. These business cases are based on needs from stakeholders such as customers/users. Users are the persons or organizations who will use the project's product, service, or result.[1] To make sure the project is a success the needs of users must be thoroughly understood. As an example a consulting company can have the government as a client on a project, but the users of the project outcome are the citizens. No matter how succesful the government finds the project, it can all go to waste if the users are not satisfied. A tool for analysing these needs is the Value Proposition Canvas. The canvas assesses two different aspects:

1. The internal organizational side containing which products and services the organization will provide to the user.

2. The external user side which represents the user needs in form of pains of status quo and gains of project success.

The project manager can use the tool to analyse and connect these two aspects to make sure that all needs of users are satisfied as well as being differentiated by bringing gain creators to the users.

References

[1] A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide), Fifth Edition