How to Create a Value Proposition Table (Lean Product Process)

Is your product truly meeting your customers’ needs? How can you outperform your competitors in satisfying those needs?

A value proposition table can help you answer these questions. This tool, a part of Dan Olsen’s Lean Product Process, lets you compare your product’s features against those of your competitors—focusing on the needs your product will address. You’ll gain clarity on where your product stands in the market.

Keep reading to learn how to create and use a value proposition table to boost your product’s appeal and effectiveness.

Creating a Value Proposition Table

Once you’ve calculated the value of each customer need, Olsen advises you to create a table that will help you examine which needs your product will address and how you’ll address them better than your competitors. He calls this a value proposition table.

(Shortform note: Another visual way to structure your value proposition is by using a Value Proposition Canvas instead of a table. This maps critical elements of your product or service in relation to customers’ needs, splitting the process into two categories: a customer profile and a value map. The customer profile helps you understand your target audience and their needs more effectively, while the value map helps you to identify how your product can address those needs.)

In the first column of your value proposition table, list the needs your product will address. He recommends that you focus on a limited range of needs: Choose your customers’ most important needs, and choose needs that complement each other. For example, if you’re designing a fitness tracker, add features that directly support health monitoring (like calorie counting and sleep tracking) instead of something like weather updates that are only tangentially related. Being selective about what needs your product addresses allows you to use your resources more efficiently, avoid distractions, and deliver the most value with the least amount of waste.

Olsen recommends grouping these needs into three categories:

• Essential needs—basic needs or requirements your product must satisfy to be acceptable. For example, a video editing software must be able to cut, splice, and rearrange footage or it would be useless to prospective users.
• Performance needs—expectations that increase customer satisfaction when better fulfilled and decrease satisfaction if not adequately fulfilled. For example, users would be more satisfied by high rendering speed and the ability to handle high-resolution footage.
• Bonus needs—extra features that customers don’t necessarily expect but would be excited about if you provide them. For example, a video editing software might provide a built-in library of royalty-free music.

(Shortform note: Olsen’s value proposition table draws from the principles of the Kano Model, which presents the various ways customers react toward features of a product or service. However, he doesn’t address the two types of features the Kano model suggests you avoid: indifferent features and dissatisfaction features—features that customers neither like nor dislike and features that actively decrease customer satisfaction, respectively. Adding weather updates to a fitness tracker, for instance, would likely fall into the category of an “indifferent feature.” Recognizing these negative features can help you create a clearer, more focused value proposition.)

Next, create three more columns—one for your product and two for competing products. Score how well the two competing products currently satisfy each need and how well you plan to meet each need. Fill out the rows for essential needs and bonus needs with either a “yes” or “no,” and rate each performance feature as low, medium, or high in terms of satisfaction. For example, you might rate the rendering speed as low for Competitor A, medium for Competitor B, and high for your product if you intend to deliver this benefit well.