opportunity-solution-tree
Structure vague product requests into validated opportunities and testable solutions before building.
- Guides teams through a five-question discovery process: extract desired outcome, identify customer problems (opportunities), generate solution ideas, evaluate feasibility and impact, and select a proof-of-concept to test first
- Prevents "feature factory" syndrome by forcing divergence across multiple opportunities and solutions before converging on what to build
- Outputs a structured Opportunity Solution Tree mapping outcomes → problems → solutions → experiments, with scoring and experiment design for the recommended POC
- Integrates with problem-statement, jobs-to-be-done, and epic-hypothesis skills to move from discovery through hypothesis validation to roadmap planning
Purpose
Guide product managers through creating an Opportunity Solution Tree (OST) by extracting target outcomes from stakeholder requests, generating opportunity options (problems to solve), mapping potential solutions, and selecting the best proof-of-concept (POC) based on feasibility, impact, and market fit. Use this to move from vague product requests to structured discovery, ensuring teams solve the right problems before jumping to solutions—avoiding "feature factory" syndrome and premature convergence on ideas.
This is not a roadmap generator—it's a structured discovery process that outputs validated opportunities with testable solution hypotheses.
Key Concepts
What is an Opportunity Solution Tree (OST)?
An OST is a visual framework (Teresa Torres, Continuous Discovery Habits) that connects:
- Desired Outcome (business goal or product metric)
- Opportunities (customer problems, needs, pain points, or desires that could drive the outcome)
- Solutions (ways to address each opportunity)
- Experiments (tests to validate solutions)
Structure:
Desired Outcome (1)
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