Opportunity Solution Trees
What It Is
Use the Opportunity Solution Tree (OST) to connect a business outcome to the customer opportunities that drive it, then compare solutions and tests. The tree forces you to separate needs from ideas and keeps discovery tied to delivery.
When to Use It
- Structure discovery around customer opportunities
- Tie customer needs to measurable outcomes
- Compare multiple solutions for the same opportunity
- Keep continuous discovery aligned with the roadmap
- Create a shared view of priorities with stakeholders
When Not to Use It
- You are not doing customer research
- The solution is already decided
- The work is a commodity requirement with no real options
- You only need a quick one-off decision
Patterns
Detailed examples showing how to apply OST correctly. Each pattern shows a common mistake and the correct approach.
Critical (get these wrong and you've wasted your time)
| Pattern | What It Teaches |
|---|---|
| opportunities-are-solutions | "Add a search bar" is a solution -- the opportunity is what's hard about finding things |
| starting-with-solutions | Work backward from outcomes, not forward from feature ideas |
| skipping-outcome | Without a clear outcome, you can't evaluate which opportunities matter most |
| interviewing-for-facts | Collect stories, not preferences -- needs emerge from what happened |
| conference-room-opportunities | You can't hypothesize opportunities without customer research |
High Impact
| Pattern | What It Teaches |
|---|---|
| single-solution-thinking | Always compare at least 3 solutions for any opportunity |
| opportunities-too-big | "Make it easier to use" is not actionable -- decompose into specific moments |
| flat-tree-structure | Opportunities should nest hierarchically from broad to specific |
| missing-experience-map | Structure opportunities around the customer journey, not internal categories |
| output-not-outcome | "Launch feature X" is an output -- "Increase activation by 10%" is an outcome |
| solution-testing-whole-idea | Break solutions into assumptions and test the riskiest ones first |
Medium Impact
| Pattern | What It Teaches |
|---|---|
| tree-not-updated | The OST is a living document -- update it weekly as you learn |
| needs-not-heard | Train your ear to hear opportunities customers don't explicitly state |
| too-many-branches | Limit top-level opportunities to 5-7 for cognitive manageability |
Core Structure (Overview)
- Outcome: the business result you are responsible for achieving
- Opportunities: unmet customer needs, pains, or desires
- Solutions: multiple ideas that address one opportunity
- Experiments: tests that validate the riskiest assumptions
How to Apply It (Brief)
- Define a measurable outcome.
- Map the customer journey to frame opportunity areas.
- Capture opportunities from real interviews (stories, not preferences).
- Organize opportunities into a tree from broad to specific.
- Generate at least three solutions per high-priority opportunity.
- Test the riskiest assumptions before building.
- Review and update the tree weekly.
Common Mistakes
- Write solutions as opportunities (see opportunities-are-solutions).
- Skip outcomes or use outputs instead (see skipping-outcome, output-not-outcome).
- Only explore one solution (see single-solution-thinking).
- Build from assumptions instead of research (see conference-room-opportunities).
Deep Dives
Read these only when you need the extra detail.
references/ost-playbook.md: experience maps, opportunity decomposition, interview prompts, assumption testing, checklists, and collaboration notes.
Resources
Books:
- Continuous Discovery Habits by Teresa Torres
- Nudge by Richard Thaler
Online:
- Product Talk (producttalk.org)
- learn.producttalk.org
Related Frameworks:
- Jobs to be Done
- Design Thinking