1 tip & 3 resources per week to improve your Strategy, OKRs, and Discovery practices in less than 5 minutes.
🛠️ How Product Teams Use Decision Trees to Make Better Choices
Four Decision Tree Frameworks Product Managers Need to Know​Dear Reader,​ As a highly visual thinker, decision trees are one of my favorite ways to support product teams in making real progress and bringing structure to my thinking. Today, I want to share four of my favorite tree structures and use an outside-in view on Eventbrite to illustrate their usage. MECE TreesThe MECE tree structure, invented by legendary McKinsey consultant Barbara Minto, helps product teams break down problems into non-overlapping (Mutually Exclusive) and comprehensive categories (Collectively Exhausting). For example, when Eventbrite’s event creator success tanks, they might separate barriers into platform usage, business success, and support—ensuring no overlap and gaps in their analysis. Metrics Trees​Metrics Trees evolve MECE thinking into trackable metrics, progressing from lagging to leading indicators as you move down the tree. If you have the data, metrics trees can be set up in an algorithmic way. But even if you lack quantitative insights, creating a narrative-driven metrics tree will help you uncover measurement gaps. And while MECE is an excellent ambition for your metrics trees, don’t stress about it. Sometimes, a lower-level metric will link to more than one metric–and that’s ok. At Eventbrite, the tree might start with a lagging metric like quarterly creator revenue, break down into ticket sales performance, and further branch into leading indicators like event creation completion rates that predict future success. Opportunity Solution Trees​Opportunity Solution Trees bridge metrics and solutions. While Metrics Trees tell you what to measure, OSTs guide you on what to build. At Eventbrite, this means connecting creator success metrics to concrete opportunities (like simplifying event creation) and potential solutions (such as intelligent templates). Impact MapsSimilar to OSTs, Impact Maps help teams navigate the connection of problem and solution spaces by connecting high-level business goals to specific solutions and experiments–Highlighting where teams lack evidence to make decisions. Starting with a clear goal (increase creator success by 25%), Eventbrite’s product team might identify key actors (first-time vs. recurring creators), identify needed behavior changes through research, and outline solutions to test. If you have ever benefited from my content, I'd appreciate it if you would share​ this newsletter on LinkedIn. It truly helps. Thank you for Practicing Product, ​Tim​ Join my In-Person Workshops in BerlinI'm excited to bring my beloved in-person workshops back to Berlin in January 2025. You can choose between 1-day workshops on Product Strategy, Product OKRs, or Product Discovery OR get the full 3-day experience for you or your team.
(reach out for custom team quotes) As a Product Management Coach, I guide Product Teams to measure the real progress of their evidence-informed decisions. I focus on better practices to connect the dots of Product Strategy, Product OKRs, and Product Discovery. |
Product Practice Newsletter
1 tip & 3 resources per week to improve your Strategy, OKRs, and Discovery practices in less than 5 minutes.
Product Practice #375 Bringing Discovery to EngineersWho 'Just Want to Build' READ ON HERBIG.CO PUBLISHED Sep 12, 2025 READING TIME 5 min & 47 sec Dear Reader, I've coached product teams where engineering managers push back on discovery work, convinced that buildins is always faster than validating. They might see testing and validating ideas as obstacles between them and shipping cooler and shinier features. And, should you always extend your Discovery to a quarter because "that's how long...
Product Practice #374 How to Go From Customer Problems to Outcome OKRs READ ON HERBIG.CO PUBLISHED Sep 5, 2025 READING TIME 5 min & 18 sec Dear Reader, Most teams skip the hardest part of creating OKRs: translating validated customer problems into meaningful metrics. You've done the discovery work. Your interviews revealed that drivers on your ridesharing platform struggle with shift planning—they can't predict which areas will be busy, leading to wasted time and lower earnings. But instead...
Product Practice #373 Discovery Collaborationis about Skills, not Titles READ ON HERBIG.CO PUBLISHED Aug 29, 2025 READING TIME 3 min & 15 sec Dear Reader, Too many people get fixated on “we have to hire these roles to set up a Product Trio” when, in reality, they can get going from wherever they are. Having one representative from each domain of expertise is ideal, but it’s rarely the reality for product teams. So, instead of waiting until everything’s “in place,” here’s how to get going even...