Value Proposition Design

Following Business Model Generation, Alexander Osterwalder, Yves Pigneur, Gregory Bernarda and Alan Smith build a guide around the Value Proposition Canvas, a tool for designing, testing, creating and managing products and services that customers want. In the same visual format as the earlier book, it lays out the patterns behind strong value propositions and a process for designing and testing them, so that teams get closer to customers and stop spending time on ideas that will not work. Exercises, illustrations and tools accompany the method, and an online companion on Strategyzer.com adds interactive exercises, self-assessment, checklists and downloadable files. The canvas is meant to fit with the Business Model Canvas from the authors' earlier bestseller.

Enterprise product manager Ashley Hathaway draws on it and Business Model Generation constantly at work, crediting them with teaching empathy, good user testing and iteration. Auquan CEO Chandini Jain named it one of five books for young people interested in her career path.