Four Pragmatic Ways to Improve Opportunity Solution Trees in Practice

​Dear Reader,​

​Opportunity Solution Trees (OSTs) are a widely popular visual aid for connecting solution space work to business goals through problem space elements (similar to Impact Mapping).

From seeing the way product teams adopt them in practice, here are four ways I've seen improve their impact for your work:

Remember that OSTs are only a Visual Summary

I encourage teams to treat trees as the synthesis at the center (i.e., on Miro) and connect the work at the individual levels to the messy workspaces (interviews, ideation, alignment), etc., so one knows where the Outcome originated.
​

Never treat OSTs as an Artifact of their own

Trees have to connect to execution-guiding artifacts like goals. To make sure that there's some link/documentation to the success metrics of an Output, Experiment, or if the Outcome has been moved. Worth linking to OKR tools or visual aids like Vistaly. The Outcome at the top should link to your company's or team's long-term strategic business goals. Your leading team-level goals should be driven by the solutions you decide to test and build.

OSTs need to Facilitate Decision-Making where Value is created

Teams should have the hygiene to choose tools that integrate well with each other or put in the work to do it manually. I believe you can turn Miro artifacts into JIRA issues and link them. Or embed Miro Boards into Notion tasks. It's more about the team's discipline than the tooling.

Use Plain Language over Jargon

At the core, OSTs are a visual way to connect your business context to the problem and solution space. Instead of torturing teams to arrive at the exact "right" type of artifact per level, work with questions in plain English:

• 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘤𝘩 1-3 𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘴 𝘣𝘺 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘮𝘶𝘤𝘩 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘭 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘨𝘪𝘤 𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘪𝘤𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘴𝘶𝘤𝘤𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘧𝘶𝘭?
• 𝘞𝘩𝘪𝘤𝘩 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘯 (𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦!) 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘣𝘭𝘦𝘮𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘴𝘦𝘨𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘰𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘢𝘭 𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘳𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘴𝘦 𝘴𝘶𝘤𝘤𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘴?
• 𝘋𝘦𝘴𝘤𝘳𝘪𝘣𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘶𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘳 𝘰𝘶𝘵𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘴𝘦 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘣𝘭𝘦𝘮(𝘴): 𝘏𝘰𝘸 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘢 𝘤𝘶𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘳, 𝘸𝘩𝘰𝘴𝘦 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘣𝘭𝘦𝘮 𝘩𝘢𝘴 𝘣𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘴𝘰𝘭𝘷𝘦𝘥, 𝘣𝘦𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘥𝘪𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘭𝘺?
• 𝘞𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘱𝘰𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘢𝘭(!) 𝘴𝘰𝘭𝘶𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘱𝘶𝘳𝘴𝘶𝘦, 𝘵𝘰 𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘤𝘶𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘳 𝘰𝘶𝘵𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦?
• 𝘞𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘪𝘨𝘨𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘶𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘳𝘵𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘺 𝘰𝘳 𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘬 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘴𝘰𝘭𝘶𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘬 𝘪𝘵 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯 2 𝘸𝘦𝘦𝘬𝘴?

Thank you for Practicing Product,

​Tim​

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Who is Tim Herbig?

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.