Project 2019

The Design Thinking Canvas

One sheet that holds a whole design-thinking engagement: people, problem, vision, solution, impact and how it gets managed.

What it is

Eight areas on a single sheet — people, storytelling, challenges, vision, impact, management, problem and solution — designed to keep a design-thinking project coherent from kickoff to delivery rather than leaving it as a folder of separate exercises.

Reach for it when

• A design-thinking engagement needs one artefact a sponsor can read
• A project has run several workshops and nobody can see the thread between them
• A team new to design thinking needs the shape of the whole before starting

Running it

1. Use it as a running document across the engagement, not a single workshop output.
2. Fill people and problem first; vision and solution written before those two are guesses wearing confidence.
3. Revisit it at each phase gate and mark what changed. The edit history is the value.
4. Keep the management area honest about who decides what — it is the area teams leave blank and later regret.