Business models are designed - intentionally and/or by default - by factors that affect the way in which the firm operates in relationship to business’ actors, purpose, place and definition of success over time. The business model, when reviewed as a single unit framework, is effective in providing a lens of experimentation for innovation within that firm (Weiller and Neely, 2013).

Part of the research being done in business model innovation is how to develop and use a growing library of visualization tools, participatory design methods and systemic design frameworks in combination with well-researched ontologies. In the context of the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the pursuit of designing business models with the mission to do good to do well, the tools we use to design with, matter. The tools must allow for the inclusion of participants by adapting to a variety of inquiry modes and cognitive abilities, and support participants in re-framing profit-normative narratives to strongly sustainable business model narratives.

In this research I looked to examine the design and development of a dialogic design tool, specific to the Flourishing Business Canvas v2.0 (FBC v2.0), that compliments its use from the perspective of different user cognitive abilities and modes of inquiry. The research questions asked relate to exploring what might be a human centred, systemic design approach to Sustainable Business Model Innovation, and how might we explore the variety of collaborative modelling modes in designing Strongly Sustainable (Flourishing) enterprises?

This research frames the Business Model Canvas and aforementioned dialogic design tool as a Graphic User Interface (GUI) in the process of Business Model Innovation. It further hints at the act of modelling, using the tools, as a nascent inquiry into how second-order cybernetics plays out in the exploration of design variety using tools for collaborative modelling modes in the discussion.

This is a systemic design research project conducted as design action research. It was enacted via a collaboration between Halmstad University in Sweden and Ghent University in Belgium. It was conducted with the support of the Strategic Innovation Lab (sLab) at OCAD University.