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Download free templates. Are you looking for templates to directly make a change? Here are some of the best frameworks to generate and manage ideas or evaluate new trends. Download the templates and start the process right away to make a successful change.
This is a toolkit on how to invent, adopt or adapt ideas that can deliver better results.
Here you can find all the templates from the Digital Innovation Playbook.
During the ideation stage try to stay lean, use the Lean Canvas to get your ideas down and use lean principles to test your hypothesis by getting out the building.
“Startup success can be engineered by following the process, which means it can be learned, which means it can be taught.” Eric Ries
Turn a good idea into a successful concept. Innovation project canvas can help you archieve that goal.
Readytouse templates for you to collect more of the right ideas for your product, process or project.
Issues to be taken into account for a proper management of IP when innovating through openapproaches.
Discover the 7 habits of highly innovative organizations today and propel your business towards success.
Learn how to determine key cultural levers on which to focus, based on your organization’s greatest needs for cultural change
The fugle innovation model is a framework that turn ideas into real innovations.
A free mind map template that shows you the most important aspects when developing new innovative products.
An overview and brief guide on how to maximize your advantage in space innovation.
Accelerate innovation by running a Design Sprint with a distributed team.
A persona is a crucial tool that designers use in order to stay grounded and empathize with users when designing products and services
If you are going to invest in the work to improve your innovation culture, you are investing in change.
Think of these Methods as a step-by-step guide to unleashing your creativity.
This is a toolkit on how to invent, adopt or adapt ideas that can deliver better results.
What if you could avoid battling for customers? Tap into a Blue Ocean with the simple Strategy Canvas template and differentiate yourself today.
Many companies use insane amounts of resources to battle with their competitors for market space. What if you could avoid this? The strategy canvas is based on the idea that long lasting business success will not be found in this red ocean of fierce competition. Instead, businesses should try to open up new “blue oceans” and thereby tap into unexplored markets.
The Strategy Canvas concept was made popular by Kim and Mauborgne in their best selling book "Blue Ocean Strategy: How To Create Uncontested Market Space And Make The Competition Irrelevant".
The strategy canvas gives you an easy way to visualize the key aspects of your competitors’ strategy. This gives you the opportunity to differentiate yourself against them by focusing on other factors. Also, by combining competitors’ focus points in new and innovative ways, you can develop new strategies to attract and retain customers.
While many existing strategies focus strongly on how to compete better in existing markets (either through differentiation or through a cost advantage), the idea behind the Blue Ocean Strategy is to find completely new markets. This also means to find customers who’s pain points have not been addressed so far and solve their unsatisfied demand in creative ways. In order to to this, it is also not always necessary to choose between a focus on differentiation or on cost advantage. Instead you can find new ways to differentiate, while still having a low cost business model. The concept is exactly about that: finding new and creative ways to combine different factors and create new business models.
In order to use the strategy canvas, we’ve created a template for you to directly put your strategy on paper. Of course you are also welcome to just use our template for inspiration and draw your own canvas. In the following, we will explain the canvas in detail and show you how to use it for your business.
The strategy canvas consists of a row of factors that determine competition, lines and dots for each competing product or service that you want to compare and a scoring system on top. But let’s explain that in some more detail...
The horizontal axis on the canvas shows a range of factors that are critical for competition in a specific industry or market. This could include things such as price level, quality of the products, size of products or customer service.
The vertical axis is a simple scoring range (in this case from 0-5 but you are of course welcome to change that), which is used to rate every factor for each competing product or service. On top you see a small legend with three different lines and dots. These represent the 3 different competing products / services (offerings) that you want to compare with each other.
When you draw a dot in each factor column for one of the offerings and connect these dots, you get a product’s or service’s value curve.
Pro tip: The Strategy Canvas is all about comparison. Find at least one product or service that you want to compare with your own offering. We would also advise that you don’t choose more than two or three competing products, in order to keep the canvas clean.
The strategy canvas thereby has two purposes:
There are four simple steps in order to create your strategy canvas.
In the following, all steps are explained in detail, so that you can easily apply the template for your own strategy.
The first step to draw the strategy canvas is to figure out who you want to compare yourself to. The most straightforward choice are your direct competitors in the industry. Nevertheless, you might also consider to focus on offerings from other industries who address the same customer needs. For example, if you are an airline, the obvious choice would be other airlines. However, you could also include a Virtual Reality company that addresses the customer need to see new and exotic places around the world. Southwest airlines for example looked at cars and compared them to other airlines in order to define a new strategy. Check out their canvas here in a Harvard article: https://hbr.org/2002/06/charting-your-companys-future
When identifying your competition for the strategy canvas, it is thus crucial to always look at it from a customer point of view: Which customer need do I want to focus on and who addresses that need? Choose one, two or max. three competitors that you want to focus on and write them down. If possible, have a different color ready for each of them to put them into the canvas.
In the second step, you continue to look at the offerings from a customer perspective: What do the customers value the most? What are key aspects for them? If you are a car manufacturer, these aspects might be comfort of the car, price, maneuverability and maybe technology. Here you should have your own customers in mind, but also the customers of the competitive offers that you chose in Step 1 to focus on. What are factors that are important to the customers of all the products / services you chose in Step 1?
Here it makes sense to go out and talk to customers to find out what factors are the most important to them. Be aware though that customers might not always know themselves what drives their buying decisions. Use a concept such as the Empathy Map to find out about the true customer needs.
If you are struggling with how to find out about true customer needs, check out this podcast by Harvard Business Review:
Now that you decided who to compare against and which factors to base the comparison on it is time to go to the strategy canvas! Print out our template or draw an empty canvas yourself. Start with one of the offerings you want to compare against and evaluate it according to the scale on your template (in our template you would rank the offering from 1-5 for each factor). Draw a dot or a small cross into each of the factor-columns and then connect these dots with a line. This is your first value curve, which shows how value is created for the customers! Repeat the process for the other products or services you chose to compare against.
Pro tip: don’t do the evaluation alone! Discuss within your team how the different products / services rank. You might have a very subjective point of view! Also don’t forget to include actual customer feedback!
Your canvas might now look something like this:
Now it is time to define your own strategy. Therefore you need to analyze the strategy canvas and identify opportunities to differentiate yourself from existing offerings. You want to draw a line that is clearly different than the ones of your competitors. If some competitor is good in one factor and another competitor is bad in this factor but good in a second one, then think about how you can be in between. How can you combine this factors? Pick a combination of factors that could appeal to a whole customer segment. See where you could be better than the competition and where it is maybe not necessary to be better. Afterwards, use the Business Model Canvas to map out your new strategy in detail.
The Strategy Canvas can be a powerful tool to avoid fierce competition and instead find new market opportunities. In order to make the most out of the tool:
If you feel like you still haven’t quite understood the concept of blue ocean strategy, check out this video by Harvard Business Review:
Check out other Resources on https://www.reallygoodinnovation.com/ and become part of our Innovator Community on Slack!
Zoom in on the problems that your users want to solve and identify opportunities as white spots where competition is still limited
Description
Especially in markets that are already saturated or where competition is increasing, it is key to identify opportunities for differentiation.
How to use the template
1. Get customer feedback regarding both how satisfied they are with each of your products and services and how important they are to them.
2. Get Customer feedback regarding their needs.
3. Rate the different products and services you offer, according to customer satisfaction (1-10) and importance for the customer (1-10).
4. Plot your products in the opportunity map.
5. Evaluate where customer needs are under- or overserved and define actions to be taken.
If you have various customer segments, consider doing the same exercise for customer segments instead of products and services: which target customers are the most important and which ones are the most satisfied? Which customer segments are under- or overserved?
Develop a thorough understanding of your customers, of what value proposition you offer them, and how the two parts fit.
Description
The Value Proposition Canvas looks at two of the building blocks from the Business Model Canvas. The tool can be used both to improve existing value propositions, or create new ones. On the left side is the Value Proposition, which describes the proposed value of your business model in detail. On the right side, the Customer Segment Profile describes the specific target customer.
How to use the template
Fill out the Value Proposition Canvas to the best of your abilities. Then go out and talk to the target customer to refine it.
Customer Segment
Customer Jobs: What are customers trying to get done in their work or in their life? This doesn't only include functional jobs (e.g. driving from A to B) but also social jobs (e.g. gaining a good reputation) or personal jobs (e.g. achieving peace of mind or feeling more safe).
Customer Pains: What do the customers not like? What problems do they have? What obstacles are in their way to get certain jobs done?
Customer Gains: What are the outcomes customers aspire? What does the customer expect from a value proposition?
Value Proposition
Products and Services: List all the products and services your value proposition includes and how relevant they are.
Pain Relievers: How does your value proposition address and solve specific customer pains?
Gain Creators: How does your value proposition enhance or create specific customer gains
In the end, your value proposition and your customer segment need to fit together! Otherwise either side needs to be realigned.
Use this template to describe the details of how your organization creates, captures and delivers value to its customers.
Description
A business model describes how an organization creates, captures and delivers value. The Business Model Canvas helps to give a shared understanding of which elements to discuss when talking about business models. The nine building blocks are focused around the two core topics of the company's value proposition and the target customer.
How to use the template
It makes sense to start with the two core elements "value proposition" and "customer segments" and build everything around that.
Customer Segments: For whom are we creating value? Who are our most important customers? Are we addressing a mass or a niche market? How segmented is the market?
Value Propositions: What value do we offer? Which customer problems do we solve and how? What are the most important features?
Channels: Through which channels do we reach our customers? Which different channels are needed for raising awareness, selling and delivering our products, or offering after sales services?
Customer Relationships: Which relationships do we have with our customers and what do they expect? How automated or personalized is the relationship? What is the relationship between different customers?
Revenue Streams: For what do customers pay and for what are they actually willing to pay? How do customers want to pay? How do different revenue streams come together?
Key Resources: Which resources are needed to offer our value proposition? (Tangible, intangible, human and financial resources)
Key Activities: Which activities are required to offer our value proposition?
Key Partnerships: Which key resources are we acquiring from partners? Which key activities do partners perform? Who are our partners?
Cost Structure: What are the different fixed and variable costs in our business model? Which resources and activities cost the most and how much?
Structure feedback from stakeholders and draw conclusions on how to change your value proposition for the better.
Description
In order to structure feedback from different stakeholders, the feedback grid is a great tool. Whenever you receive feedback, try to structure it with the help of the feedback grid to draw conclusions and make use of the input.
How to use the template
To fill out the feedback grid four types of questions can be asked:
What do you like about the concept?
What could be improved? / What should be changed?
What remains unclear?
What other ideas do you have?
Instead of using these questions, it is often a great possibility to just show customers a prototype of a concept (can just be a drawing on a piece of paper or a mock-up) and let them interact with the prototype. You will be able to observe what they like, what they don't like, what they don't understand and what creative ideas they have to add to the prototype. Observe the stakeholders, ask follow up questions and fill in the feedback grid with what you heard.
Understand a specific target group by designing a customer persona profile in order to address their needs appropriately.
Description
A customer persona is a fictional character that represents a specific target segment. Personas are built based on customer research and should help to understand customers better.
How to use this template
Go out and learn about your customers (e.g. with a design thinking approach). Cluster your findings and create customer personas from them.
A customer personal can include a lot of different information and the kind of information that is important also depends on your specific target group.
Some data you might want to include is some demographic data (e.g. age, gender, salary, education, job). While this might be relatively easy to find out, it is even more important to understand customers in terms of their behaviors (e.g. What do they like to do? How do they spend their time? How do they address specific issues?), their goals and also their pains.
Use the empathy map to get a deeper understanding of your customers and capture what drives them emotionally and cognitively.
User empathy is about seeing things from a user perspective. Our understanding of things is limited by our own experiences. Trying to understand customers, with all their feelings, emotions and sensations helps us to build great value providing products and services for them. User empathy helps you to make decisions that benefit the customer and that they can identify with.
An empathy map is a collaborative tool that, similar to the customer persona, helps to better picture your target user. Compared to the persona, it is however even more focused on a deep understanding of the customer to empower the team's work. Empathy mapping is all about being empathic and gaining insights into your target segment. How else would you be able to really understand your customers' needs?
Empathy maps are often split into four quadrants or sectors, while newer versions mostly use six. The different sectors include what the user persona says, thinks, does, feels, hears and sees and thereby tries to dive deeply into the real user needs and find their pain points. For example, what is the real reason why people want a specific product? What is their deeper motivation?
The strong focus on empathy is the first step in design thinking and is key to improve any user experience. The concept was originally developed by consultant Dave Gray, who also wrote the influential book "Gamestorming", where he gives great insights into how to communicate better and generate ideas.
You got it? But maybe you would like to see what a final result could look like? We found a beautiful example of a filled out empathy map here: https://medium.com/@charlesleon/empathy-mapping-in-design-thinking-d6d580fac095
So how can you use this template to have an impact?
The first thing you need to do is to sit together with your team members to clearly define who you want to focus on. The more clearly you can define that, the better. If you have no specific segment in mind yet, try to define a persona that describes generalized characteristics of your main customers.
After clearly defining your target customer, you also need to think about the goal that you want to achieve with this empathy map. If you are looking into product innovation, you might want to focus on other aspects as if you try to cross sell some of your services or enter a new market.
- Empathy map template / or draw yourself (print out as big as possible)
- Sticky notes
- Big markers
- A whiteboard (if available, otherwise a table or a wall and tape to attach the template)
In order to apply the map and understand user behavior, we have to go outside and talk to our end users. Build empathy by understanding their daily routines, their habits and their thoughts. Observe them in their environment and listen closely to them in user interviews to obtain real data. Have the print out of the map available, as well as sticky notes and markers. While diving into the template (detailed explanation below), write your findings on sticky notes, discuss them in the team and then put them on the map. Find overlapping learnings with your team members and cluster the notes into bigger themes. In the end, discuss new hypotheses you and your team have from the insights and talk about how you want to test them (btw. the test cards are a great tool for this!).
a. What can we observe?
The most obvious part in your user research is to look at what customers DO and SAY, as this can be directly observed. The two fields at the bottom are therefore filled out the quickest. By asking the right questions, you can listen to what the customers says about what they want, what they dislike and what they would absolutely pay for. Listen for specific keywords and write down quotes that could be important.
This can be combined with an observation of the behavior of customers (e.g. Where do customers go on the website? What articles do they click on? How long are they in my physical store?). Make small drawings or describe in a lot of detail what you observed about what people DO.
b. What do the customers perceive with their senses?
Next to the "saying" and "doing" perspectives, it is also relatively straightforward to find out what customers HEAR and SEE (left and right side of our empathy map). While it is possible to use observation as a possible tool to gain insights (e.g. observe what customers are looking at or what sounds they focus on), these quadrants are well addressed through interviews. What things that customers see and hear, influence their actions the most? Ask them about specific situations and let the user reflect on what they would focus most on with their senses.
c. What do customers think and feel?
To find out what customers THINK and FEEL (the upper two sections in our empathy map), you need to be very open to get to know them. Ask them how they feel in specific situations and let them tell stories without Interrupting them. Ask for example "when was the last time you did...". Also, ask follow up questions like "What did you feel in that situation? What did you think? What struck you as surprising?" By focusing on storytelling and letting them guide the conversation, you will gain many insights that are incredibly valuable for your business.
This empathy map template was designed by Really good Innovation, so you can directly print it, or use it as inspiration to draw your own empathy map.
Of course, you can also add dimensions or leave some out. The key aspect when using this tool is to understand customers from different angles and get a picture from their point of view that is as complete as possible. It is thereby also important to let the user guide the conversation. If they want to talk more about their feelings than about what they see and hear, let them and ask follow up questions. If one part of the map is empty at the end, don't worry. Just ask yourself: Do I really understand this person? And what are the implications of this for my business?
We are often so much caught up in our own assumptions and see the world from a very subjective perspective. In order to build real value for users, we need to be able to look at things with different eyes. This is where the empathy map comes into play. By observation and interviewing, we want to find out what customers see, hear, say, do, think and feel. Use a template and sticky notes to capture the findings.
Innovation is all about combining existing knowledge in a value creating way. In order to do that however, it is crucial that you have a deep understanding of your target customer. Without this knowledge, your new products will not provide the value that you intend and your market expansions might not work out the way you imagined. Spend some time to clearly define your customer and then use the empathy map to engage in a deep conversation with the people you want to do business with.
Check out other innovation tools, templates or book recommendations on www.reallygoodinnovation.com
And join our Slack channel to discuss how to innovate in a better way!
Evaluate the importance and novelty of products or service features and take decisions on what elements to focus on.
Description
The innovation battlefield is similar to the opportunity map. However, it is not focused on your portfolio of products and services but on single features of one product or service. The innovation battlefield helps to understand which features are necessary (hygiene factors) and which ones are new and surprising features to differentiate yourself.
How to use the template
1. Look at either at an existing product or service or think of a new offering you would like to evaluate.
2. List the features this product or service offers / should offer (not more than 10).
3. Rate each feature according to its novelty for customers (how exciting is it for customers) and according to its indispensability (how important is it to keep a feature).
4. Plot all features in the innovation battlefield map.
Must have features: the features in the bottom right corner are the ones you need to provide to keep your customers. However, not more than necessary should be invested there.
Unnecessary features: the features in the bottom left corner should be left out as they don't provide enough value for the customers.
Key features to focus on: the features in the top right corner are the most important ones. The most resource should go into further strengthening them.
Unexpected but awesome features: these are "nice-to-have" features. Nevertheless they might be crucial to differentiate yourself from competition.
Capture insights from your experiments with the help of learning cards and thereby prove or disprove your hypotheses based on data
Description
Test cards can be used to design and run experiments to verify parts of your value proposition and your business model. After the experiments are done, the learning cards are a great tool to structure the learnings and take action accordingly.
How to use the framework
Take a look at the test cards and use the insights to fill out the learning cards. After filling out the whole card, assign the necessary next steps to people in your team and set deadlines for the implementation. Give them the learning card as a reminder.
Use the test card to design all kinds of different experiments to test and validate your business hypotheses in a structured way.
Description
The test card is a tool to keep track of hypotheses you have, design experiments to test those hypotheses and run the tests. This will help you to base decisions not just on believes and assumptions but on actual data.
How to use the template
1. Fill out the test card by (1) stating your hypothesis, (2) explaining the experiment you want to conduct to test the hypothesis, (3) defining clear metrics of what will be measured in the experiment and (4) what the exact outcome needs to be to prove or disprove the hypothesis.
2. Do this exercise for all the hypotheses you have and consider having several experiments and test cards for the same hypothesis, to increase reliability of the tests.
3. Prioritize your test cards and start with the experiments that are easy to implement and costs little (don't invest a lot early because easy tests might already lead you into new directions)
4. Conduct experiments and use learning cards for each experiment
Map the most important drivers of change that could influence your business and bring opportunities for innovation.
Description
Trends have a huge influence on possible innovation, both in a negative and in a positive way. Trend mapping enables you to be aware of different trends and helps you to include them in your innovation strategy. Use the trend map to see potential barriers but also as a source of inspiration. Consider first using the trend profile template.
How to use the template
1. Review the predefined categories and decide whether some are not relevant for your business or whether others are missing.
2. Use the trend profiles you already filled out or start by defining specific trends (based on customer and expert insights and market research)
3. Have a brainstorming session in your team to discuss the different trends and to assess how quickly a trend will have an impact (1-5 years; 5-10 years; >10 years?).
4. Plot the trends into the trend map.
Evaluate different trends and their potential market impact by using the trend profile as a structure for your data.
Description
In order to build sustainable innovation, it is crucial to be not only aware of different trends but analyse them in detail and evaluate their potential impact on your market.
How to use the template
1. Go out and talk to customers, talk to industry experts and combine this with desk research to know about all relevant trends.
2. Fill out a trend profile for each individual trend: (1) describe the trend in detail, including the way in which it could affect your industry. Use examples and illustrations to enable other people to quickly understand the trend profile. (2) Evaluate each trend according to its possible impact on your market (use research and not just your gut feeling) and according to how easy it is to implement related technology (how likely is it that this trend will quickly be used for new products or services?).
3. Use the trend mapping exercise as a next step.
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