# Customer needs as themes: an opportunity solution tree > How to build roadmap themes from customer needs: a user journey map and the critical path, system needs, an opportunity solution tree, job stories vs user stories, and what to do with requests that serve no objective. - Course: [Outcome-Based Product Roadmaps](https://productovi.com/courses/outcome-based-roadmaps.md) - Module: From needs to themes - Lesson 7/15, ~45 min - Source: https://productovi.com/courses/outcome-based-roadmaps/customer-needs-as-themes ## The morning after the board **Alex Tutor:** The board meeting is over, and you're back at your desk on CatChow's product team. **Sofia:** The board backed the direction! Ian came out of the meeting almost smiling. **Ian:** They liked the vision and the key results. But one member asked two things: what will customers actually get, and roughly when? “Churn from 9% to 6%” is our number, not theirs. **Alex Tutor:** A good question to get. The answer to “what do customers get?” is your themes. So far they were written from three facts and a spreadsheet. Today we rebuild them from customer needs, with a user journey map and an opportunity solution tree. **Dataset (CSV):** [CatChow's request spreadsheet](https://productovi.com/datasets/outcome-based-roadmaps/customer-needs-as-themes/catchow-requests.csv) The 40 feature requests from sales, support and the founders that the product team starts the course with, in the order they sit in the spreadsheet. Synthetic data made for this course. - `id`: Row ID - `request`: The request as written in the spreadsheet - `source`: Who asked: sales, support or the founders **Sofia:** And “roughly when”? **Alex Tutor:** Next time. First the what. A theme is a customer need or problem, phrased as a result. Need and problem sound alike, but they're worth telling apart. **Alex Tutor:** A **need** is something customers don't have yet: a new owner has no way to know which food suits a kitten. A **problem** is something that fails today: the next delivery arrives after the bag is empty. **Sofia:** Both are gaps, then. And either can become a theme, as long as it's written from the customer's side. > **Exercise:** A board member asked what customers will actually get. Which line from CatChow's roadmap answers that best? **Alex Tutor:** Today's frame is an opportunity solution tree: an outcome at the top, then opportunities, solutions and experiments. Can you place these items? > **Exercise:** Match each item from the subscriber branch of CatChow's **opportunity solution tree** to its level. **Alex Tutor:** And the forty spreadsheet rows? Climb the why ladder from each one. Which rows land under “never run out”? > **Exercise:** Sofia climbs the “why” ladder from each spreadsheet row. Which rows end up under the theme “Subscribers never run out between deliveries”? Select all that apply. ## User journey map: a morning at a clinic **Brandon:** I spent Monday morning at one of the two PurrPoint pilot clinics, watching the admin place her weekly order. I wrote everything down. My notes are a mess, though. **Alex Tutor:** Messy notes are the raw material for a **user journey map**: every step a person takes from noticing a problem to getting it solved, workarounds included. **Sofia:** Why map the steps? The problem is obvious: clinics run out. **Alex Tutor:** “They run out” is the end of the story. The map shows where things go wrong before that, and each painful step can become a smaller need under the clinic theme. ![Stepping stones cross a clinic floor, each with a scene: a low shelf, counting by eye, a phone call, checking a box; two stones are cracked and glow orange.](https://productovi.com/courses/outcome-based-roadmaps/inline/customer-needs-as-themes-illustration-2.webp) *The empty shelf is the end of the story; the painful steps come before it.* **Brandon:** Here's the mess: she checks the delivery against her list, phones us to dictate the order, counts what's left on the shelves, waits two or three days and writes a list on paper. **Sofia:** Out of order, as promised. **Alex Tutor:** Put them in order first. A journey starts at the moment she notices something, not at the phone call. > **Exercise:** Put the steps of the clinic admin's weekly order in order, from first to last. ## Where it hurts **Sofia:** Now it reads like a story. And the painful steps jump out: counting by eye, dictating by phone, finding a missing diet only when the box is opened. **Alex Tutor:** Each painful step can become a **subtheme**: a narrower need inside the theme. “Admins know what's running low before the shelf is empty.” “Orders arrive complete.” “Reordering takes no phone call.” **Sofia:** Are they all equally urgent? A slow phone call is annoying. An empty shelf means a cat goes without its diet. **Alex Tutor:** Good instinct. Some steps are the **critical path**: the few steps that must work, or nothing else matters. If the diet isn't there when a vet prescribes it, a nicer order form changes nothing. ![A rope bridge over a river with a few thick orange planks in the middle and thin decorative ribbons on the sides; a clinic admin carries a box across.](https://productovi.com/courses/outcome-based-roadmaps/inline/customer-needs-as-themes-illustration-3.webp) **Sofia:** So pains on the critical path go first, and the rest wait their turn? **Alex Tutor:** Yes. Try it on the clinic's journey. > **Exercise:** Which pain on the clinic admin's journey is on the critical path and should shape the clinic theme first? ## The system is a customer too **Lucy:** If themes are customer needs, where does the warehouse replacement go? No customer will ever ask for it, and it's the biggest thing my team does this year. **Alex Tutor:** Not every need comes from customers. **System needs**, often called non-functional, are what the product needs to keep working: reliability, speed, capacity, security. Treat the system as a special kind of customer. **Sofia:** So the theme isn't “replace the warehouse system”? **Alex Tutor:** That's the solution. The need is closer to “Every clinic order is picked and delivered correctly, even at 80 clinics.” Written as a result, it links straight to the key results it unlocks. **Sofia:** And it sits right under the clinic theme, since that theme can't grow without it. **Alex Tutor:** As its subtheme or right next to it. Either way, nobody reads it as optional. ## Opportunity solution tree: one outcome, many branches **Sofia:** Journeys, pains, subthemes, the warehouse… and forty rows. How do I keep it all straight? **Alex Tutor:** Many teams use an **opportunity solution tree**, popularized by the discovery coach Teresa Torres. At the top sits one outcome the team owns, such as a key result. **Alex Tutor:** Below it, **opportunities**: needs, pains and wishes heard from customers. Under each opportunity, several solutions. Under a solution, small experiments that test whether it will work. ![A tree with one bright fruit at the crown, a few thick boughs below, and several small budding twigs on each bough.](https://productovi.com/courses/outcome-based-roadmaps/inline/customer-needs-as-themes-illustration-4.webp) *The first idea is rarely the best; compare a few answers to each need.* **Sofia:** So an opportunity is a theme? **Alex Tutor:** Close. A roadmap theme is usually one big opportunity or a few grouped together. The tree goes deeper: it lives in discovery, below the roadmap, and changes every week as the team learns. **Lucy:** Several solutions per opportunity? That I like. I'd rather compare three small options than estimate one big one blind. **Alex Tutor:** That's the point. The first idea is rarely the best. Compare a few, then test the riskiest assumption cheaply, before anyone writes code. ![One outcome the team owns branches into three clinic needs; one need, reordering without a phone call, gets three candidate solutions, and a solution gets a cheap test.](https://productovi.com/courses/outcome-based-roadmaps/diagrams/m3-l1-opportunity-solution-tree.png) *Outcome, opportunities, several solutions each, then experiments.* ## Up the ladder from the spreadsheet **Sofia:** Now the forty rows. Do I place every one of them on the tree? **Alex Tutor:** Climb the “why” ladder from each row, like in module 1, until you reach a customer need. Rows that land on the same need belong together. **Sofia:** One-click reorder. Why? So reordering is quick. Why does that matter? So owners reorder before the food runs out. That's “never run out”! **Alex Tutor:** Exactly. And the row stays a candidate solution under that theme. It doesn't become a theme itself. **Sofia:** The food-picker quiz climbs to new owners choosing the right food. A different theme. **Alex Tutor:** Right. Sort a handful and you'll see it: most rows are different answers to the same few needs. ## Job stories vs user stories: why it matters, in their words **Alex Tutor:** A theme says what should become true. To show why it matters, add a **job story** or two under it: “When [situation], I want to [motivation], so I can [expected result].” **Sofia:** Like a user story? “As a [user], I want to…” **Alex Tutor:** Similar, but that's the difference: a job story starts from the situation, a user story from the persona. The moment someone is in explains a need better than a description of who they are. **Sofia:** Let me try the clinics: “When a diet runs low late on Friday, I want to reorder it without a phone call, so I can be sure it's on the shelf on Monday.” **Alex Tutor:** Good: a real moment, a motivation and a result, and no solution named. That's the test. **Alex Tutor:** Before you write your own, compare two versions for the clinic theme. Which one passes the test? > **Exercise:** Two ways to write why the clinic theme matters. Which one is a good **job story**? **Alex Tutor:** Before your own job story, back to Lucy's warehouse for a moment. Does system work belong among the themes? > **Exercise:** Themes must come from what customers ask for, so internal technical work such as replacing the warehouse system has no place among them. **Alex Tutor:** One more on the warehouse. Lucy's team has its own name for the work. Which version belongs on the roadmap? > **Exercise:** The engineering team of Lucy, CatChow's tech lead, lists its biggest piece of work as “Replace the warehouse system”. Which line states the same work as a **system need** that belongs on the roadmap? **Alex Tutor:** A founder wants a monthly cat photo contest on the page. It climbs to acquisition, and no objective covers that. What would you do? > **Exercise:** One of the founders wants a monthly cat photo contest so that more people hear about CatChow. CatChow's two objectives are about keeping subscribers and growing the clinic channel. What should happen to the idea? **Alex Tutor:** Now write a job story for the new-owner theme. Take the situation from what support hears on those 250 calls a month. > **Exercise:** Write a **job story** for the theme “New owners pick the right food on their first order”: one sentence in the form “When…, I want to…, so I can…”. Don't name a solution. ## A theme with no objective **Ian:** One of the founders asked why her idea isn't on the page: a monthly cat photo contest. She says people would start talking about us. What do I tell her? **Sofia:** Up the ladder: a contest, so owners share photos, so more people hear about CatChow, so we get new customers. That's acquisition. **Alex Tutor:** And neither objective is about acquisition. The subscription is mature, so we chose keeping subscribers over finding new ones. The theme maps to no objective. **Sofia:** So it's a hobby, like dark mode? **Alex Tutor:** It's a warning sign. Three options: reframe it, if it really serves an objective; leave it off with a one-line reason; or ask whether an objective is missing. Here the second fits. **Alex Tutor:** And say when it could come back: if CatChow ever sets an acquisition objective. Write the reply Ian can pass on. > **Exercise:** Write the reply Ian, CatChow's CEO, can pass on to the founder about her cat photo contest (2–3 sentences): be respectful, explain why it isn't on the roadmap now, and say when it could come back. ## Case: an opportunity solution tree for the accounting SaaS **Alex Tutor:** My friend at the accounting SaaS has moved on from inputs. She interviewed ten firms and now has an outcome for her team and a pile of findings. **Sofia:** And a list of requests from sales and the director, I bet. **Alex Tutor:** Of course. Build her tree, turn it into a theme with subthemes and check which request serves nothing. **Sofia:** Outcome at the top, needs before solutions, and a job story in her customers' words. **Alex Tutor:** One hint: one of her findings is a system need. Don't lose it. > **Exercise:** Build Docketly's opportunity solution tree and turn it into a theme. ## What to remember **Sofia:** So the board member gets an answer in customers' words: owners never run out, clinics restock without calling, new owners choose right. And each theme stands on evidence. **Alex Tutor:** That's what themes are for: what customers get, with the reasons underneath. The solutions below them stay free to change. > **Key ideas** > > - A **theme** is a customer need or problem phrased as a result; **subthemes** split it into narrower needs. > - A **user journey map** shows each step from noticing a problem to solving it; pains on the **critical path** come first. > - **System needs** such as reliability and capacity belong on the roadmap too, linked to the key results they unlock. > - An **opportunity solution tree** runs from one outcome to opportunities, several solutions for each and small experiments. > - **Job stories** (“When…, I want to…, so I can…”) show why a theme matters. A theme with no objective stays off the roadmap, with a reason and a condition for coming back. **Alex Tutor:** Next time: the other half of the board's question, “roughly when?”, and how to answer it without inventing dates. - Previous lesson: [Business objectives and key results](https://productovi.com/courses/outcome-based-roadmaps/objectives-and-key-results.md) - Next lesson: [Timeframes and the roadmap disclaimer](https://productovi.com/courses/outcome-based-roadmaps/timeframes-and-disclaimer.md) --- Productovi Learning. Free, no sign-up needed to read.