A feature request is only one possible branch

The fictional team behind Cove, a shared reading app, wants more new groups to finish their first reading session. A stakeholder asks for automatic reminders. The team could build them immediately, but it does not yet know why sessions fail to happen.

An opportunity solution tree connects a desired outcome to customer opportunities, possible solutions, and tests of their assumptions. Teresa Torres describes the method in Product Talk. This walkthrough is hypothetical; its customer stories, proposed ideas, and tests are invented teaching material, not research Cove has conducted.

Start with an outcome you can influence

Cove chooses the proportion of new groups completing a first session within fourteen days of creation. The team would need a precise event definition and a baseline before setting a real target. Creating a group is not the same as completing a session.

The outcome focuses discovery without prescribing reminders. A revenue target alone would leave this team with too many possible causes outside its control.

Outcome → opportunities → alternative solutions → assumption tests

What changes?

Outcome

Choose a product outcome the team can influence.

Where can we help?

Opportunities

Map customer needs, pain points, and desires supported by discovery.

What might work?

Solutions

Consider alternative ways to address one target opportunity.

What must be true?

Assumption tests

Investigate risky assumptions before committing to a solution.

This is the tree’s hierarchy. Multiple opportunities and solutions branch below the outcome; tests investigate assumptions rather than certify whole ideas.

Build opportunities from customer episodes

In the hypothetical case, relevant stories suggest three difficulties: organizers cannot agree on a time, participants do not know what preparation is expected, and nobody is sure whether the session is confirmed. These are candidate opportunities to investigate, not interchangeable descriptions of the same feature.

Torres recommends starting from customer stories and an explicit target customer and outcome. A workshop filled with colleagues’ guesses cannot substitute for that discovery. Preserve the episode behind each opportunity so the team can revisit what was actually said or observed.

“Send automatic reminders” belongs among solutions. “I cannot tell whether everyone has confirmed” describes a possible unmet need. Keeping them apart allows different ways to address the same difficulty.

Select one opportunity and compare alternatives

Cove provisionally focuses on confirmation uncertainty. That selection would need support from relevant interviews and product evidence. A large branch on the diagram does not establish that it affects many customers.

The team considers three approaches: a shared confirmation status, an organizer checklist, and a reminder message. These ideas address a similar opportunity through different mechanisms. Comparing them is more informative than refining the first attractive idea in isolation.

A useful tree also shows opportunities the team has decided not to pursue yet. That makes tradeoffs visible and helps avoid rediscovering the same debate whenever a stakeholder asks about an omitted request.

Test assumptions rather than collecting compliments

Candidate solution Risky assumption Proposed investigation
Confirmation status Members understand what confirming commits them to Ask relevant participants to interpret a realistic prototype
Organizer checklist Organizers can complete the steps without chasing members elsewhere Walk through a recent organizing episode with the checklist
Reminder message Forgetting is a significant cause of missed confirmation Investigate recent missed sessions and their timelines

These are original test suggestions for the fictional case. None establishes success. The team should decide what evidence would weaken each idea and record the limits of the method. A prototype interpretation test cannot demonstrate a sustained increase in completed sessions.

The reminder proposal may survive, change, or disappear. If customers already remember but are waiting for others, sending more messages may add noise without resolving the underlying uncertainty.

Keep the tree useful as you learn

Begin with a narrow outcome and customer group. Attach source notes to opportunities, compare alternatives within a selected opportunity, and identify risky assumptions. Give each investigation an owner and a decision it will inform.

Keep observations, interpretations, and planned tests distinguishable. Archive superseded branches rather than presenting every idea as equally current. The tree should explain the team’s thinking, not become a museum of sticky notes.

The map does not prove causality, estimate engineering effort, or remove delivery constraints. Some questions require observing behavior over time after a change reaches customers. A clean tree can still rest on weak research.

Use Jobs to Be Done to deepen understanding of the progress customers seek in a specific situation. Use RICE when comparing scoped delivery options with consistent reach, impact, confidence, and effort estimates. An opportunity solution tree supports the reasoning that should precede that comparison.

For Cove, the next useful decision is which assumption to investigate first. The output is a clearer discovery direction, with reminders still treated as a candidate rather than a commitment.

Sources and further reading