| name | itk-value-prop |
| description | Map user profiles (i.e., jobs, pains, and gains) to values (i.e., gain creators, products and services, pain relievers) to ensure that a product meets user needs. |
| intent | Ensure a fit between customers’ needs and the developed solution, which should be value-added for the customers. Quickly identify any disconnects between needs and solutions, exploring creative ways to close those gaps. |
| type | component |
| phase | understand |
| outcome | understand |
| difficulty | intermediate |
| group_size | 4+ people |
| time_required | 45+ minutes |
| best_for | ["Validating that a proposed feature set actually addresses prioritized customer jobs before committing engineering capacity in a PRD","Repositioning a struggling product by exposing gaps between marketed benefits and the pains users actually feel","Early discovery sprints where the team needs to ground solution ideas in evidenced customer jobs, pains, and gains","Aligning sales, marketing, and product on a single articulation of differentiated value before a launch","Pressure-testing a new offering's assumptions before building an MVP or running a Lean Startup experiment"] |
| sources | ["MITRE Innovation Toolkit (ITK)","https://itk.mitre.org/toolkit-tools/value-proposition-canvas/"] |
Value Proposition Canvas
What Is It
Map user profiles (i.e., jobs, pains, and gains) to values (i.e., gain creators, products and services, pain relievers) to ensure that a product meets user needs.
Why Use It
Ensure a fit between customers’ needs and the developed solution, which should be value-added for the customers. Quickly identify any disconnects between needs and solutions, exploring creative ways to close those gaps.
When to Use It
When positioning the value of your offering against user insights. When refining an existing product or service offering or when developing a new offering from scratch.
How to Do It
- Through user research (e.g., interviews, contextual inquiry, observation), populate the Customer Profile to capture customer jobs, pains, and gains. Reference the contents in the Customer Profile as you and your team develop ideas for gain creators, products and services, and pain relievers that will populate the Value Map.
- Identify users to interview and/or observe.
- Through interviews, observations, or contextual inquiry, collect information in the Customer Profile. Focus on describing customer jobs, pains, and gains.
- Use information from Customer Profile to guide and inform development of products, services, and pain relievers. Populate these plans into the Value Map.
Key Concepts
Customer Profile — The right-side circle capturing customer jobs, pains, and gains derived from research rather than assumption. It defines the demand side that any value proposition must earn fit against.
Value Map — The left-side square listing products and services, pain relievers, and gain creators your offering provides. It represents the supply side the team controls and designs.
Customer Jobs — The functional, social, and emotional tasks customers are trying to accomplish, closely related to Jobs-to-be-Done. Naming jobs precisely prevents teams from solving for tasks no one actually performs.
Pains and Gains — Pains are the negative outcomes, risks, and obstacles customers experience; gains are the benefits and outcomes they desire. Ranking them by severity and importance separates must-fix issues from nice-to-haves.
Problem-Solution Fit — The state where your pain relievers and gain creators map directly to the customer's most important pains and gains. Fit on the canvas is a hypothesis to validate, not proof of market demand.
Pain Relievers vs. Gain Creators — Pain relievers eliminate or reduce things customers dread; gain creators produce outcomes customers want. Distinguishing them keeps the team from conflating risk reduction with upside generation.
PM Applications
