layers-product-strategy

This skill is a library of techniques for the product and service strategy layer of a layered design framework, the first layer of the solution space where problem-space understanding converts into deliberate decisions about scope and direction. It solves the problem of connecting user opportunities to business outcomes and solution bets, and of testing the riskiest assumptions cheaply before committing to build.

The default technique is Teresa Torres's Opportunity Solution Tree, which makes the chain from outcome to opportunity to solution to experiment explicit. Its disciplines keep strategy honest: the outcome must be measurable, meaningful, and bounded with one outcome per tree; opportunities must be first-person customer needs, pains, or desires anchored to a journey moment (with a flip test that catches solutions disguised as opportunities); every opportunity must connect to the outcome; every bet must name its riskiest assumption with more than one bet per opportunity; and every experiment must be the cheapest way to test the core assumption in days not months. The techniques table adds solution bets, experiments, impact mapping, jobs portfolio mapping, Now/Next/Later roadmaps, Kano analysis, HEART and North Star metrics, Wardley mapping, bundling and unbundling, an NPE canvas, and critical user journeys, each with guidance on when it fits. Outputs are lightweight residue: the outcome, the opportunity tree grouped by journey moment, top bets with experiments, deferred bets, and open questions, with honesty that strategy built on weak needs is a bet on assumptions.

It targets product managers, product designers, and strategy-minded teams using this methodology (it assumes layers-intro is loaded). Typical use cases include building an opportunity solution tree, choosing among many candidate opportunities or features, and designing cheap experiments to de-risk bets. It is pure strategy methodology with no code or tooling.