Move from visible pain points to frontstage, backstage, and ownership improvements.
A prioritized improvement picture with journey, blueprint, process gaps, and opportunities.
You can decide which touchpoints, backstage issues, and ownership gaps to improve first.
Own top actions, plan as test or implementation, and measure impact on service signals.
How does this group experience the chosen scenario across its phases, and where would learning or improvement help?
The Journey Map makes experiences, expectations, and pain points visible from the customer perspective.
The critical touchpoints are then connected with internal processes and systems.
Where do customer actions depend on backstage work, systems, or handoffs?
The Service Blueprint shows which backstage activities, systems, and roles enable or disrupt customer experience.
The backstage view is then deepened into concrete operational flows and handoffs.
What happens from trigger to outcome, where do decisions and handoffs occur, and what evidence supports change?
Process Mapping makes handoffs, waiting times, and responsibilities in the flow understandable.
Opportunities are then derived from process gaps into solutions and ideas.
Which evidence-grounded paths can achieve the desired outcome through customer needs and tested solutions?
The Opportunity Solution Tree connects improvement areas with solutions and measurable experiments.
Prioritized opportunities move into implementation, experiment planning, or service roadmap.
Artifacts stay collapsed until you actually need them.
Plan the initial setup and ongoing rhythm for outcomes, opportunities, solutions and tests.
# Opportunity Solution Tree: Worksheet
## Question
To be confirmed
## Desired outcome
To be confirmed
## Scope
Structure continuous discovery
Time: Ongoing practice; no total timebox
Complete this worksheet on paper or in your own document during the work.
## Preparation for this scope
### Method setup
- **Materials:** Outcome definition, sourced research notes, opportunity clusters, a shared tree and space for solution hypotheses and experiment cards.
- **Roles:** A product trio or cross-functional team with product, design/research and engineering; discovery ownership keeps the tree and evidence current.
- **Advance information:** Gather the outcome, target user and current product or customer evidence. Separate customer statements from interpretation.
- **Overall time needed:** Not a one-off workshop. Allow about 1–2 hours to frame the first tree; interviews, tests and updates continue across discovery cycles.
- **Setup:** Place the outcome above opportunities, solutions under the selected opportunity and experiments against solution assumptions. Deepen one target opportunity at a time.
### Prepare for the work steps
#### Outcome: Define a team-controllable outcome
- Product strategy and target user
- Available metric or observable behavior indicator
#### Opportunities: Structure customer opportunities
- Story-based customer interviews or observations
- Outcome and existing opportunity notes
#### Focus: Choose a target opportunity
- Outcome
- Opportunity map and related customer notes
#### Solutions: Explore multiple solution paths
- Target opportunity and outcome signal
- Product, design and technical perspectives
#### Learn: Test assumptions and update the tree
- Solution options and explicit assumptions
- Access to suitable users or data
## Opportunity Solution Tree
### Outcome
Which team-controllable result should improve?
...
### Customer opportunities
Which needs, pain points or desires from concrete customer situations could influence the outcome?
...
### Target opportunity
Which opportunity will guide the next discovery cycle, and why?
...
### Solution options
What different approaches could address this opportunity?
...
### Assumptions and tests
Which risky assumption will each test examine, and what decision follows?
...
Blank worksheet: choose one outcome, connect opportunities to evidence, select a target opportunity, then record solution hypotheses and tests.
[Source: Teresa Torres, Product Talk](https://www.producttalk.org/opportunity-solution-trees/)
## Outcome: Define a team-controllable outcome
Expected artifact: Outcome as the root of the tree
Outcome · target user · signal
Entry:
...
- [ ] Can the team influence the outcome through product decisions?
## Opportunities: Structure customer opportunities
Expected artifact: Customer opportunities with evidence
Need or obstacle · source · open question
Entry:
...
- [ ] Is each opportunity grounded in customer learning?
- [ ] Does it still hide a solution?
## Focus: Choose a target opportunity
Expected artifact: Selected target opportunity with rationale
Opportunity · evidence · rationale
Entry:
...
- [ ] Is the opportunity relevant and understood well enough to explore ideas?
## Solutions: Explore multiple solution paths
Expected artifact: Solution options with assumptions
Option · opportunity addressed · key assumption
Entry:
...
- [ ] Are there different ways to address the opportunity?
## Learn: Test assumptions and update the tree
Expected artifact: Updated tree with tests and decisions
Assumption · test · evidence · decision
Entry:
...
- [ ] Does the test examine an important solution assumption?
- [ ] Is the next decision stated before the test?
## Open questions and next steps
...
Method guide: https://methodatlas.meierhoff-systems.de/en/methods/opportunity-solution-tree/run-sheet