Product in Practice: Introducing Opportunity Solution Trees at Texthelp

Teresa Torres profiles Tali Melchior, Director of Product Management at Texthelp, who introduced opportunity solution trees (OSTs) first at a previous company after a book club, then at Texthelp, and later through workshops at a product conference. The piece shows how mapping opportunities against business and product goals clarified unclear priorities and built trust with stakeholders. It also describes the flexible ways her teams build and present trees, including bottom-up, top-down, and experience-map approaches. Finally, it highlights practical constraints such as limited designers and engineering leads, and the value of carving out dedicated time for discovery. The story matters because it offers a grounded, adaptable example of rolling out continuous discovery in a real organization.

01Key takeaways

• Start small: even a subset of continuous discovery work can deliver real value.
• Mapping opportunity solution trees can expose vague business and product goals that teams were already assuming.
• Trees can be built bottom-up, top-down, or from an experience map; pick whichever fits the situation.
• Present trees to stakeholders as simplified nested lists of goals, opportunities, and solutions to keep dialogue focused.
• Protect dedicated time for discovery, such as quarterly team days, when product managers lack a full product trio.

02Key sections

Discovering the method

Tali first encountered continuous discovery through a book club and found that mapping trees surfaced unclear business and product goals. She then ran workshops to bring her developers into the practice.

Adapting to a new company

After joining Texthelp, she onboarded her team with the book and interview snapshots, then built trees per product. The team revisited them at roadmap decisions to align stakeholders around one outcome at a time.

Teaching others

Tali facilitated a hands-on OST workshop at a product conference using a fictional case study and AI-generated interview snapshots and dashboards. Participants practiced mapping opportunities, solutions, and assumptions.

Overcoming challenges

Her teams found there is no single way to build a tree, sometimes working bottom-up or starting from an experience map. They also learned to present trees to stakeholders as nested bullet lists.

Resource constraints and team days

Limited designers and engineering leads leave product managers doing discovery alone. Quarterly team days with book clubs and tree workshops help carve out time for discovery.

03From the post

“There are all kinds of ways to introduce continuous discovery habits. If you’ve been at your company for a while, you might get inspired after reading a book or attending a conference. If you’re joining a new company, you might want to try a new tactic out with”

04Frameworks mentioned

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