product-opportunity-template.md

This is a template for writing product opportunities. These are documents that illuminate some level of strategic thinking related to a particular product pain point that customers have. Typically they are accompanied by research (data, customer conversations, competitive analysis, etc.). This template helps break down the work so that Product Managers can keep moving quickly.

Product Opportunity Template

The purpose of filling out this document is to provide enough information for your colleagues to understand the opportunity, research (customer conversations and data), and value of tackling this work. It is not intended to provide solutions, scope or anything necessary to start the project or determine the next steps to start the project. This document focuses squarely on the problem space.

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Questions

What problem are you trying to solve?

Telling a story can help others understand the product pain you want to solve. When you do this, it's important to outline the main problem in an unbiased way.

1. list out your answer here
2. and here
3. maybe make some more bullets

Who are the primary customer/user segments that this opportunity will benefit?

This will change based on how you and your team define customer segments or personas.

1. list out your answer here
2. and here
3. maybe make some more bullets

What impact will this have on our current product?

Given the current state of the product, where might solving this pain overlap with other features, products, teams, etc.? This section helps identify dependencies and bring others into the conversation early.

1. list out your answer here
2. and here
3. maybe make some more bullets

What are the customer/user pain points or goals (what is the customer trying to accomplish that they can't today)?

Provide links to your customer development notes (maybe even recordings of conversations) so that others can see the data that drove you towards identifying the pain point.

1. list out your answer here
2. and here
3. maybe make some more bullets

Do you have an example of another product to help illustrate this opportunity?

A quick competitive analysis can help identify other places to explore value or highlight where you're falling behind in the market.

1. list out your answer here
2. and here
3. maybe make some more bullets

Supporting data and information

Add any other supporting data or information that may help people prioritize and pick up this product opportunity.

How do you define success and what metrics do you use?

If you solve this problem, how would you track success?