Experience Canvas
The Experience Canvas is a one-page canvas that a project team fills in together to state which problem it is solving, for whom, with what solution, and how it will know the work succeeded. It comes from the Atlassian Team Playbook and is derived from the Business Model Canvas and Lean Canvas, but it is aimed at a single project or feature and not at a whole business. The canvas tells the story from the customer's point of view and ends in a hypothesis the team can test.
Facilitation script
- 1
Set the stage: explain the canvas, the goal and the ground rules, and appoint a timekeeper.
5 min - 2
Draft the problem as a hypothesis and review the evidence for it.
15 min - 3
Describe the customers or personas who have the problem and their needs and pains.
20 min - 4
Describe the solution from the customer's point of view.
20 min - 5
State the value for the business and define the success metrics.
20 min - 6
Read the canvas as one story, revise earlier areas in the light of later ones and record open questions.
15 min - 7
Agree next steps, owners and dates for building and testing the minimum version.
5 min
Tips
Bring evidence into the room; a canvas filled in from opinion gives a false sense of alignment.
Hold the group on the problem and the customer before anyone describes a solution, since teams tend to arrive with the solution already in mind.
Phrase success as a number and a date so that it can fail.
Atlassian rates the play as hard, and the difficulty lies in keeping six people honest about what they do not know, so write assumptions down as assumptions.
Common pitfalls
Starting from the solution and filling in the problem to match, which turns the canvas into a justification and leaves the real risk untested
Treating the canvas as a form to complete in order and never revising earlier areas, so contradictions between problem, customer and metric stay on the page
Writing success metrics without a target or date, which means the hypothesis can never be shown to be wrong
Leaving out the sponsor or key stakeholders, so the agreed canvas is overruled a week later
Recording assumptions as if they were findings, so the team builds on customer needs nobody has checked
Variations
Remotely, use a canvas template on a digital whiteboard and have people write silently on each area before discussing it. If 90 minutes of canvas work is too long for the group, split it into two sessions with the customer and problem areas first and the solution and metrics second. For a small feature, a lighter run of about an hour covering problem, customer, solution and metric is enough. Revisit the canvas after the first test and update the hypothesis.
Where it fits
When to use it
A project or feature is about to start and team members describe its purpose in different ways
A solution has been handed to the team and nobody has written down which customer problem it solves
Stakeholders and the delivery team need a single page they both sign up to before work begins
The team has research but has not turned it into a testable hypothesis with a measure of success
A running project has drifted and needs to be re-anchored in the customer problem
When not to use it
You are designing or testing a whole business model with revenue streams and cost structure; use a Lean Canvas or Business Model Canvas
Nothing is known yet about the customer or the problem; do discovery research first, because the canvas will otherwise be fiction
The work is a routine task with a known solution and no open question about the customer; a short project charter is enough
You need to explore the fit between customer jobs and a product in depth; a Value Proposition Canvas gives more room for that
The group is much larger than six; hold the canvas session with a core team and review the result with the wider group afterwards
Related methods
Frequently asked questions
What is Experience Canvas?▾
The Experience Canvas is a one-page template from the Atlassian Team Playbook that a project team completes together. It captures the problem, the customers who have it, the proposed solution, the value for the business and the success metrics, and results in a hypothesis to test. Its purpose is to make sure a project is useful to customers, feasible and worthwhile before the team builds anything.
How long does an Experience Canvas session take?▾
Atlassian sets it at 100 minutes: 5 to set the stage, 90 to build the canvas and 5 to agree next steps. Add about 15 minutes of preparation beforehand to gather research and data.
How is the Experience Canvas different from the Lean Canvas?▾
The Lean Canvas describes a business model for a startup or new venture, including revenue, costs and unfair advantage. The Experience Canvas borrows the one-page idea but focuses on one project or feature and on the experience of the customer. It asks whether this piece of work is worth doing, not whether the business is viable.
Who should take part?▾
Three to six people: the project owner, the sponsor where there is one, stakeholders from the areas affected and members of the cross-functional team who will carry out the work. The mix matters more than the number, because the canvas has to hold up from the customer, business and delivery points of view.
What happens after the canvas is filled in?▾
The team builds the smallest version of the experience that can test the hypothesis, measures it against the success metrics and updates the canvas with what it learned. The canvas is a working document for the life of the project and should be changed when the evidence changes.
Plan your next workshop with AI
Workshop Weaver helps you combine methods like Experience Canvas into a complete, timed agenda in minutes.
Try it freeMethod descriptions on Workshop Weaver are original content written by our team, based on established facilitation practices. This method was inspired by work from Atlassian Team Playbook.