The product opportunity brief is a 4-6 page succinct narrative of the product opportunity, or an idea, followed by a go/no-go recommendation on pursuing it. Here’s my Product Opportunity Brief Template.
Ideally, a lot of opportunity briefs are produced from which a few are selected for a “go” (“no-go” is ok because as Steve Jobs said, “Focus is about saying no).
Get early input from others, especially external-facing teams. So, start with a first draft of 1-2 pages with bullet points, or start only with the problem statement. State that it is a “working draft for discussion” in the header. Break out an overarching opportunity brief into several other opportunity briefs. This is not a PRD/spec. Succinct? Yes, look at Tesla’s.
The sections of an opportunity brief are:
- At A Glance
- Problem Statement (or Opportunity or Challenge or Idea)
- Success Criteria / Outcomes
- Why Now (or When)
- Principles
- Feature Concept
- How To Win
- Recommendation
An appendix is optional. Include it only if you believe the information here will help the reader in understanding the opportunity brief.
The “At A Glance” section contains the top 3-5 things the CEO or a head of sales or other executive must know about this opportunity. These are very likely to be key points from each section of the rest of this doc. The “Recommendation” section must state your go / no-go recommendation to pursue this opportunity and a summary rationale, ideally as a clear and convincing argument. For guidelines on the other sections, check out the Product Opportunity Brief Template.
PS: Check out more articles on building products. I write to pay it forward and to clarify my thinking.
Niran Kundapur 