Opportunity Tree

What it does

The Opportunity Tree is a structured discovery tool based on Teresa Torres' Opportunity Solution Tree methodology. It helps you map a desired business outcome to the customer problems (opportunities) that, if solved, would achieve that outcome — and then to the potential solutions for each problem.

The key insight behind the Opportunity Tree is that you should never jump straight from a desired outcome to a solution. By explicitly mapping the opportunity space first, you avoid building solutions to problems that don't exist or aren't worth solving.

Specky adds an evidence score to each opportunity using the volume and sentiment of related signals from your integrations. That gives you a useful starting point for prioritisation and lets you see why an opportunity is rising instead of relying on gut feel.

When to use it

• At the start of a discovery cycle — structure your problem space before committing to solutions
• During prioritization — use AI scoring to rank opportunities by evidence strength
• In stakeholder reviews — communicate your discovery process and rationale visually
• When evaluating competing solutions — map multiple solutions to the same opportunity and compare
• For OKR planning — connect opportunities directly to key results

How to use it

1. Open Opportunity Tree from the sidebar
2. Click New Tree and enter your desired outcome at the root (e.g. "Increase trial-to-paid conversion by 20%")
3. Add opportunity nodes as children of the root — each opportunity is a customer problem or unmet need
4. For each opportunity, add solution nodes as children
5. Click Score with AI on any opportunity node to see how much signal evidence supports it
6. Use the Priority view to see opportunities ranked by AI score
7. Click any node to add notes, link PRDs, or attach signals

Example

Root outcome: Increase trial-to-paid conversion by 20%

Opportunity 1: Users don't understand Specky's value in the first session

• Solution A: Redesign the empty state with guided prompts
• Solution B: Add a "quick win" demo mode with pre-loaded data

Opportunity 2: Onboarding takes too long and users drop off

• Solution A: Reduce onboarding to 3 steps
• Solution B: Allow users to skip onboarding and explore first

After running AI scoring, Opportunity 1 has 3× more signal evidence than Opportunity 2, so you prioritize Solution A for Opportunity 1 in the next sprint.