Product Discovery using the Opportunity Solution Tree Course - First class

Hello, my name is Sergio, Sergio Schuller. I'm a product leader working in digital products since 2011. I'm also a product discovery coach on the side, and I worked in large companies like, for example, the largest SaaS in Latin America, a bunch of very big marketplaces, including the number one real estate marketplace in Germany, and one of the largest and fastest growing horizontal consumer marketplaces too. But I also worked in small companies like my own startup, and also some other pre-product market fit companies that we took the product from zero to one and all of those experience both in large and small companies one tool set was key for my success and that was the opportunity solution tree this helped me through all these companies and that's what i'm going to teach you in this course how to use this first thing i want to talk about is Not about the opportunity solution tree, but some problems that we have with product development that later we'll see that the opportunity solution tree will help us with that. So I have four problems. So the first one is features with no value. There is some research that shows that about 80% of the features launched have very little or no usage. So, you know, we're actually... almost literally burning cash oftentimes when product in product development the second is chaotic discovery so lots of times we ended up going to several directions and it seems there's no thread or no single line and it's very confusing and oftentimes PMs and UX researchers and designers are not very sure if the logic sense of discovery is making sense. The third one is that it's oftentimes it's hard to prioritize features. We have tons and tons of ideas. That's not the issue. But idea A versus idea B versus idea C, which one should you actually do it and do it first? And third and fourth, it's actually very difficult to communicate. product development especially you know product discovery and progress we're making that's not tangible software so all these problems they will be solved by using properly the opportunity solution tree you know that's very nice but first things first i didn't invent the opportunity solution tree it was teresa torres she's an awesome discovery coach and she has this book continuous discovery habits Highly recommended. It pairs very well with this course. And it's a very practical book too. So let's talk about the Opportunity Solution Tree. The Opportunity Solution Tree is deceptively simple. There is a desired outcome or what your team wants to achieve. Then there is opportunities that you can break down into super opportunities for it to be more concrete. And these opportunities have ideas under them. So let's go bit by bit. So first, the desired outcome. Let's say that we are Netflix because everyone knows Netflix. So, OK, I am in the retention team and my outcome that I want to drive is to increase viewing hours per viewing. So on average, that's people watch more of Netflix. And maybe there is a correlation with retention based on this. So that's what the team wants. Then for the opportunities, let's say that, you know, one opportunity is I can't find something to watch. I'm a user and I can't find something to watch or I don't want to miss out on good stuff. And if I wouldn't miss, then I would watch more hours or I want a better viewing experience. You know, OK, so if I had the better viewing experience, I would watch more of Netflix. And then these are broken down. into soup opportunities like i can't find something to watch okay i don't know how to search for a specific show so obviously i can't find something to watch or i am out of episodes of my favorite show okay so that's over so why would i watch netflix is this show even any good so i'm selecting shows but i am not certain i don't want to lose my time and all this and you know this is at infinity and then we have you know for the soup opportunities we have ideas attached to it so for example i am out of episodes of my favorite show okay so we can have like a feature to suggest similar shows or is this show any good oh we could put trailers on netflix and if you notice all of these or most of this idea ideas are on already on netflix or maybe they were even tried and didn't work out for for one reason or another so I'm not reinventing anything. I don't work at Netflix or anything like this. So this is very superficial level and kind of like trying to reverse engineering their thought process. But this is the basic opportunity solution tree. It's not very complicated. But how that little thing, this little drawing here, this little schematics, the opportunity solution tree actually helps with our four product challenges. So let me show you. So first, I will talk about features with no value and the difficulty to communicate product development and product discovery in particular. So imagine you have this and you are focusing on like you are a PM or a product person in Netflix and you want to increase viewing hours per viewing. OK, and you decided that for one reason or another. You want to focus right now the team effort into I don't want to miss out on good stuff. And I don't know when a new season is available. This is the opportunity. Okay. And this is one of the ideas that you are testing. So thinking about, you know, features with no value and difficult to communicate. How does this help? Okay. First of all, you have a very clear and measurable goal. And this should be valuable to the business. Okay. So my team. is focus on increasing viewing hours per viewing in Netflix and this is valuable so this is already something then like which user problem we are trying to solve to achieve this goal you know so there is a clear link between opportunities and the goal okay and third so how we want to solve the user problem and these are all our hypothesis for solving this so this makes it like very clear causal relation okay so if i if we put like a push for when a push uh notification for when a new season is available then you know for all these people that don't know that have this problem they don't know when a new season is available they will they don't want to miss out on this on good stuff that they want to see and this should increase viewing hours if our theory is correct you know and this also helps very much to communicate to other stakeholders what's your logic and why are you working on things and what you're working on. So this also helps with that fourth product development problem, the necessity to communicate clearly what a product team is doing and why and what's the logic and what's the business impact. So what about chaotic discovery and hard to prioritize? So both of these also. are impacted by the opportunity solution tree. So, for example, you have Netflix increasing viewing hours per viewing. Okay. So if you were starting from zero, from scratch, and this is your team goal, then you have to think, okay, what are the problems and opportunities that impact this goal? So you do some discovery, you brainstorm things, you talk to stakeholders, and you come up with a few opportunities. All right. Then what do I need to validate among these three opportunities to prioritize among them? So, you know, it's very step by step. So discovery is not chaotic anymore. Okay, I have these opportunities. Now I can compare and contrast them, prioritize them, validate a few things. Oh, this is not validated. Validate. All right. Let's say I chose, I don't want to miss out on good stuff. That's the one I prioritize. Then the next step, you know, you have sub-opportunities. I don't know when a new season is available and I want to know what my friends are watching. All right. So now what's the next logical step? Okay. What do I need to validate to prioritize among these two sub-opportunities? All right. I prioritize this one for reasons. And then, okay, I have a few ideas here. So what do I need to prioritize and validate in each of these ideas? You can see that it's a very like step-by-step process, and this will help for your discovery to not be so chaotic and more logical. So summary, Opportunity Solution 3 helps to deliver more value by connecting solutions with clear objectives, organize the problem and product discovery. communicate discovery progress and the reasoning behind this and prioritize initiatives and the opportunity solution tree is made of three blocks desired outcome opportunities to impact the desired outcome and solution hypothesis to address each opportunity

Free class. Rest of the course is in: https://productcrafters.com.br/opportunity-solution-tree-product-discovery-course/