The Open Innovation Project Canvas for SMEs

Open innovation involves multiple parties to succeed in collaborative innovation. We propose to create a temporary form for collaboration during the innovation process, for example, a project consortium, a (public–private) partnership, a network, or any other (informal) type of collaboration. This collaboration then becomes the vehicle for the first steps of the innovation process, typically from idea to the development of a working prototype and a first implementation for a launching customer. The next stages of innovation will involve, for example, the creation of a viable business model, further development and implementation, scaling-up, and commercialization. Sometimes the form of the collaboration needs to change in these phases, for example, by creating a new organizational entity that will be the vehicle for scaling-up and commercialization.In order to facilitate the creation of a consortium, partnership or network that can conduct an innovation project that can develop an idea into a prototype, we developed the Open Innovation Project Canvas, which can be used together with, for example, the Business Model Generation (BMG) or the Value Proposition Design (VPD) Canvases, both created by Osterwalder and Pigneur.The Open Innovation Project Canvas is distinct and complementary in the following ways: (1) it focuses on collaboration, and it has the collaboration as focal entity — rather than having one (key) actor as focal entity, as is typical in BMG; (2) it focuses on the first phases of innovation, for example, from idea to prototype — not on operations (after the innovation project), as BMG typically does; (3) it focuses on project results, for example, a prototype — in addition to VPD, which typically focuses on a finished product and its production and delivery; and (4) it focuses on the project results’ value and identifying a party that can use these — in addition to VPD, which typically focuses on the finished product’s value.