Product Inception Canvas
Want an easy tool to help you start building great products that people love?
That’s exactly what the Product Inception Canvas is: a practical worksheet to help you, your business people, your stakeholders, and everyone else on your team discover exactly what to do next as you build and extend your product.
The Product Inception Canvas facilitates alignment among business people, product development teams, and stakeholders. We begin by identifying, discussing, and aligning on our company vision and product vision: Who are we? Why do we exist? How will the world be different and better because of the work we are doing? Next, we identify stakeholders and bring them to life as user personas: Who cares about the work we are doing? Who are they, really, including all their details? Finally, we put it all together into a product backlog—an ordered to-do list of everything we want to be true about our product in the future: What are the wants and needs of our stakeholders? What problems will we solve for them? Which problems should we solve first to maximize their joy?
This template was created by Richard Kasperowski.
Get started with this template right now.
Simple Project Plan Template
Works best for:
Project Management, Strategic Planning, Project Planning
A simple project is a North Star for your team, helping them answer any big questions about the project. The project plan should describe the nature of the plan, why you’re doing it, how you’ll make it happen, how you’ll carry out each step of the process, and how long each step is projected to take. If you’re a project manager or team lead, use this template to start a simple project plan, which can then be adapted to suit internal team projects or external client partner projects.
Visual Story Map Template
Works best for:
Marketing, Desk Research, Mapping
Some people like to think of a visual story map as a stylized to-do list, but it’s a lot more powerful than that. Visual story mapping allows your product management team to visualize multiple dimensions of information.
AARRR Template
Works best for:
Marketing, Strategic Planning, Project Planning
Sometimes called “Pirate Metrics” because of the name (go ahead, say it, it’s fun), AARRR is a valuable approach for startups to consider. That’s because AARRR stands for Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Referral, and Revenue—five key types of user behavior that are highly measurable and drive growth. Ask and answer the right questions around each of these five factors, and you’ll be able to establish clear goals and identify the best steps to help reach them.
Status Report Template
Works best for:
Project Management, Documentation, Strategic Planning
A status report provides a snapshot of how something is going at a given time. You can provide a status report for a project, a team, or a situation, as long as it emphasizes and maps out a project’s chain of events. If you’re a project manager, you can use this report to keep historical records of project timelines. Ideally, any project stakeholder should be able to look at a status report and answer the question, “Where are we, and how did we get here?” Use this template as a starting point to summarize how something is progressing against a projected plan or outcome.
Product Evolution Canvas
Works best for:
Product Management, Planning
The Product Evolution Canvas template aids product managers in planning and executing product evolution strategies. By mapping out current product features, identifying areas for improvement, and setting evolution goals, this template guides product evolution efforts. With sections for analyzing user feedback, prioritizing enhancements, and tracking progress, it facilitates iterative product development and enhancement cycles. This template serves as a roadmap for evolving products to meet evolving customer needs and market demands.
Project Proposal Template
Works best for:
Project Management, Documentation, Project Planning
For any type of project, the Project Proposal template can be a crucial step toward clarifying the context, goals, and scope of a project to get stakeholder buy-in. A project proposal outlines what you want to accomplish, your goals, and how you plan to achieve them. Generally, a project proposal gives the reader some context on the project, explains why it is important, and lists the actions that you will take to complete it. Project proposals have myriad uses. Often, businesses use project proposals to get external buy-in from a donor or outside stakeholder. But many companies draw up project proposals for internal buy-in too.