How do I iterate, version or pivot my canvas?
Make a canvas
Before you can iterate on an idea, you will need to build your first canvas. This canvas could be your current state business model or an iteration that represents a new direction you are trying to explore. Before going too far, this is a good time to make sure you and your team have a clear naming convention for your canvases. If you need help we discuss this here.
Copy your canvas
Once your first canvas is complete, you should immediatly make a copy before making any modifications. This copy will serve as the container for all the changes you make in your first steps toward validation. We typically advise teams to create a copy each week to best track their progress.
To copy your canvas, click the Canvas Actions cog of your canvas and select Copy. This will bring you to the Copy Canvas options, where you can choose the name of your new canvas, and whether you want to also copy comments and notes you added. Copying the canvas will also copy any Value Proposition Canvases and financial estimations you may have, in additional to the main business model canvas.
Next Steps
Now that you are working in the copy of your starting point you are free to modify the building blocks and stickies. It's helpful to add notes to your canvas to describe what changed from the last one, much like a change log. Then when you look back on your canvases you will better recall the state of the canvas at that time and what changes you made to get there.
Testing in Strategyzer and iterations
If you are using Strategyzer to manage your testing process with hypotheses, tests, evidence and insights, you need to be a little extra cautious when it comes to copying your canvases.
Our recommendation is to avoid directly connecting Hypotheses to stickies on your canvas. While this feature is great to make sure your team is aligned on what part of your canvases you are testing, it limits how you can evolve your canvas over time. If you want to achieve the versioning approach outlined above, make your hypotheses directly in the Testing section of the app, so that when you copy your canvases, your testing materials are not linked to a specific canvas version. Use the Create a new hypotheses button, as shown below.
After a few iterations or weeks, you will have a canvas for each week of work showing the evolution of your canvases and all your testing items will be managed separately.
