Entity Portrait Canvas

#The problem this canvas solves

Platform design needs a consistent, deep picture of each entity-role: their context, their goals and performance pressures, their potential, and the gains they seek in connecting with others. Portraying entities differs from traditional persona research - portraits are made per entity-role cluster, not per individual, and focus on relationship potential rather than demographics.

#When to use it

Use the Entity Portrait after clustering entities into roles: capture the entity's context, its goals and pressures, its potential, and the gains a platform experience must provide - including the access and reach gains that hint at the niche relationships worth intermediating.

#The canvas

The canvas in the updated Boundaryless brand (full resolution — click to zoom). A print-ready PDF and editable SVG are also available on request.

#Canvas structure

#Context

The entity-role's environment, tools, constraints and daily reality - what their current experience looks like.

#Goals & Performance Pressures

What the entity is trying to achieve, and the mounting pressures (the 'compressors') it must cope with.

#Potential

The potential the entity can express - its growth trajectory and possible evolution.

#Gains sought (convenience / reach / value)

The experience gains the entity is looking for: easier-faster-cheaper ways of doing things, finding their 'other half of the apple', and gaining more value while expressing their potential.

#How to use it

Make a consistent, deep picture of each entity-role - context, goals, potential - to understand the experience gains they're looking for and that you should provide as a platform shaper.

#Steps

1. Whole canvas — Start with the entity-role most interesting for your design challenge - for whom are you designing in the first instance?
2. Potential first — Start from the potential, then move into the compressors (goals and performance pressures), and only then the gains.
3. Convenience gains — Capture any easier, faster, cheaper way to do things compared to the current situation - the part of the strategy that most resembles a solution to a problem.
4. Reach gains — Ask: what is the 'other half of the apple' these entities are seeking? What's the perfect counterpart, and which dimensions matter to find their niche?
5. Whole canvas — Map what entities are looking for in their current experience, not the gains you plan to offer - keep the focus outside-in.

#Tips

• Portraits are of loose role-clusters, not individuals: don't force persona-level detail - you're designing a value proposition for a wide spectrum of participants.
• Run informal, open-ended interviews with representatives of your entity groups - or have them participate in the mapping.
• A strategy that sustains participants while letting them express their potential generates the pull factor.
• What you end up with: a clear understanding of the entities' context (you've worn their clothes) plus a raw idea of your multi-sided value propositions.

#Connections with other canvases

#Feeds into

• Motivations Matrix Canvas — Portraits inform motivation analysis
• Platform Experience Canvas — Entity understanding guides experience design

#Informed by

• Ecosystem Canvas — Ecosystem design identifies key entities
• Ecosystem Scan Canvas — Scan provides entity context

#Used in techniques

• Mapping Key Relationships and Value Exchanges
• Profiling Key Entities

#Used in pipelines

• Understanding the Ecosystem
• Designing the Platform Experience

#Related reading

• Defining the Platform Experience, and Flywheels for Defensibility — Shows how Entity Portraits feed into Motivations Matrix and Experience design

#Resources

• Guide reference: PDT Strategy Design Guide - Entity Portrait chapter
• License: Creative Commons Attribution - Share Alike 4.0 International
• Version: 2.2

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Canvas · Part of Platform Design Toolkit · v2.2