Strategy & impact
Objectives, hypotheses and actions, impact contracts, baselines, and guardrails.
Canvasm connects the work you do to the numbers it should move. That connection is made explicit through strategy cards and the impact contract they carry.
Objectives, hypotheses, and actions
- An objective is what you're trying to achieve (grow MRR).
- A hypothesis (Ideas/Hypothesis card) is a bet about how to get there ("annual plans lift expansion revenue").
- An action (Work/Action card) is the work itself ("ship annual billing").
The impact contract
Any action or hypothesis can carry an impact contract — a small, measurable statement of the bet:
- Metric links, each with a role:
- Target — the metric you mainly intend to move.
- Leading — an earlier signal you expect to move first.
- Guardrail — a metric that must not get worse.
- Expected direction — increase, decrease, or stabilize.
- Expected change — an optional size, e.g. "+3,000 / month".
- Baseline window — the period you measure "before" from.
- Measurement window — the period you'll judge the result over.
- Confidence — low, medium, or high.
- Status — draft → planned → measuring → and finally won, lost, or inconclusive.
Example
Action: Ship annual billing. Target: Expansion MRR (increase, +3,000/mo). Leading: annual-plan adoption. Guardrail: churn rate (must not rise). Baseline May 2026; measure Jul–Sep 2026; confidence medium.
Baselines and guardrails
The baseline is the "before" you compare against, so a win is measured, not claimed. Guardrails keep a bet honest — a change that hits its target but breaks a guardrail isn't a win. Both are part of the contract, not an afterthought.
Where you see it
Linked strategy work shows up as impact badges on dashboard metric widgets, so a review answers "what bets are on this metric, and are they working?"