Representing Customer Segments on Your Opportunity Solution Tree (Teresa’s Take)

Teresa Torres responds to Hope Gurion's proposal to add customer segments to opportunity solution trees, arguing that the tool should stay simple and focused on a single product outcome. She disagrees with two of Hope's three scenarios, reframing the first around one focused segment and critiquing the second tree for mixing multiple outcomes and feature requests. She concludes that segments belong on the tree only when each one can independently drive the outcome and their needs differ meaningfully. The piece matters because it shows continuous discovery is principle-driven, with teams choosing practices that fit their context.

01Key takeaways

• Keep one product outcome at the top of the opportunity solution tree to maintain focus.
• If only one customer segment drives the business result, reframe the outcome around that segment instead of branching by segment.
• Interview a wide variety of customers to test whether segments genuinely have different needs.
• Make the strategic choice between competing outcomes before mapping opportunities, rather than mixing them in one tree.
• Dig into the context behind feature requests to uncover the real opportunity.
• Label segment-specific sub-opportunities when most needs are shared but a few differ by segment.

02Key sections

Guiding principle: simplicity drives focus

Torres treats the opportunity solution tree as a single-purpose tool with one product outcome at the top. She prefers simplicity so teams can quickly see where to spend time.

Scenario 1: uncovering potential customers

A medical software team found that the segment with the most users was not the one driving renewals. Torres suggests narrowing the outcome to the decision-making segment rather than splitting the tree by segment.

Scenario 2: too many segments

When segments turn out to share identical needs, the segments add no value and can be removed. Interviewing a wide range of customers is what reveals whether segments are truly distinct.

Scenario 3: two outcomes and feature requests

Torres critiques a tree with two competing outcomes and a feature request framed as an opportunity. She recommends making a strategic choice first and digging into the underlying needs behind requests.

When segments belong on the tree

Segments are worth including when each one can drive the outcome independently and their needs barely overlap. Labeling segment-specific sub-opportunities is an alternative when needs are mostly shared.

03From the post

“There is no single right way to do continuous discovery. I can’t emphasize this enough. Recently, Hope Gurion walked through three scenarios where she argued teams might benefit from including customer segments on their opportunity solution trees. In that post, she wrote: Opportunities are written as first-person statements”

04Frameworks mentioned

Summary and takeaways written by PM Atlas; quotes are short excerpts. © the original author.