Prioritise
Opportunity scoring
Also called Outcome-driven innovation, Importance and satisfaction
Rate each customer outcome for importance and satisfaction, then look for the ones that matter a lot and are served badly.
- Time45 to 90 minutes
- People2 to 8 people
- Steps4
What it's for
Customers judge a product by the outcomes they want from a job, such as getting a report out faster or never losing work. Opportunity scoring asks two questions about each outcome: how important is it, and how satisfied are people with the way they get it today? The best opportunities are important and badly served. Outcomes that are well served but unimportant are overserved, a chance to simplify.
Use customers' own ratings from a survey where you can. Ratings from the team are a hypothesis to check.
How to run it
List the outcomes15 min
Write each as a direction and a measure: 'reduce the time it takes to…', 'avoid…'. Outcomes, not features.
Rate them10 min
Give each outcome an importance and a satisfaction from 1 to 10, from survey results or the team's best guess.
Place them10 min
Put each outcome in the box its two ratings point to.
Score the strongest10 min
Opportunity = importance + (importance − satisfaction), counting the gap only when it's positive. Above 10 is worth pursuing; above 15 is rare and strong.
Tips
- 'Reduce the chance of a wrong order' is an outcome. 'Add an order review screen' is a solution. Keep solutions off the board.
- An overserved outcome is a chance to make something cheaper or simpler without anyone minding.
Where it comes from
Part of outcome-driven innovation, the method Tony Ulwick developed at Strategyn and described in What Customers Want (2005).
Pairs well with
Jobs to be done canvas
Describe the job a customer is trying to get done, the stages they go through, and the outcomes they use to judge whether it went well.
Kano model
Sort features by how customers react to them: basics they expect, performance they want more of, and delights they don't expect.
RICE scoring
Score each idea on reach, impact, confidence and effort, then rank by one number that rewards likely wins for little work.