The S3 Organization Canvas

The Guide

Downloads

Overview

The S3 Organization Canvas is a tool for exploring new business models or product ideas, or for communicating existing ones. Sections are numbered to indicate the suggested order of moving through the canvas. For new business models or products, it’s a good idea to create several canvases, which each explore different tangents, and then integrate the best ideas into a smaller set of canvases. Those can then be tested through pretotyping or other means of interacting with (potential) customers.

Organization Canvas Guide

Here’s how you create an organization canvas for your team:

1. Key Drivers

What are the top three drivers your organization responds to? Describe each driver in terms of actor, needs and context. Actors can be individuals or groups, inside or outside the organization, or the organization itself.

2. Key Deliverables

What does your organization provide to meet the key drivers? Describe the top three deliverables (products, services, experiences or transformations).

3. Customer Segment

Who will be your ideal customers? These should relate to the actors mentioned in your key drivers.

3b. Early Adopters

What part of your customer segment can you use to find out fast whether or not your organization is able to deliver value?

4. Unique Value Proposition

What is the one thing that makes your organization unique? Explain what will convince your customers and your partners to choose your organization over others.

5. Key Challenges

What are important constraints or risks your organization is facing? Look to your key drivers, customer segment and unique value proposition to identify them.

6. Channels

How does your organization deliver its value proposition to its customers? How do customers find out about your organization?

7. Key Resources and Skills

What does your organization need to sustain itself and create value for the customer? What skills do you need to create the key deliverables?

8. Key Partners

Who can provide essential support, services or materials to your organization? What might you outsource our buy?

9. Key Values

Describe the culture of your collaboration, and how you will interact with the rest of the world. List three guidelines for behavior and/or ethical constraints you consider essential to the success of your organization.

10. Key Metrics

How will you measure effectiveness of your response to your key drivers? Prefer simple, continuous and actionable metrics.

11. Cost Structure

What are fixed and running costs for your organization?

12. Revenue Streams

How will you start and sustain your organization financially?

Downloads

printable canvas (A3 or larger, includes facilitation guide)	download pdf
canvas for visual planning tools (png, 140dpi)	plain canvas or canvas with guide or facilitation guide or canvas slide
print on A4	view online or download pdf
online version	view on Google Drive or make a copy
facilitation guide	download pdf

License

The S3 Organization Canvas by Bernhard Bockelbrink is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. This work is a derivative of the Business Model Canvas by Alexander Osterwalder and Strategyzer, and of the Lean Canvas by Ash Maurya.

More information on the S3 canvas series, and versions for printing the canvas in various formats can be found at http://s3canvas.sociocracy30.org

S3 Organization Canvas rev. 2017-05-15