How to Run an Opportunity Solution Tree in Miro
The Opportunity Solution Tree (OST) is a visual framework created by Teresa Torres that maps the path from a desired product outcome to the customer opportunities that serve it, and from those opportunities to the solutions you will build and the experiments that validate them. When built in Miro, the OST becomes a living artifact your entire team can update after each discovery session.
This guide covers creating and maintaining an OST in Miro — from the initial board setup to weekly updates that keep the tree connected to real customer evidence.
Step-by-step guide
Create a new Miro board and set up the OST template
Open Miro and click "New Board." In the template library (the grid icon in the left toolbar), search for "Opportunity Solution Tree." Miro has a built-in OST template. Click "Use Template" to start with the correct hierarchy: Outcome at the top, Opportunities as the second level, Solutions as the third, and Experiments at the bottom. Rename the board "[Product Area] OST — [Quarter]".
Define the desired outcome at the top
In the top sticky note (colored differently to stand out), write your product outcome as a lagging metric you want to move: "Increase weekly active users from 40% to 55% in Q3." This is not a feature — it is a business result. Everything below this node must trace back to moving this metric. If a branch does not connect to the outcome, remove it.
Map customer opportunities as the second level
Below the outcome, create sticky notes for each customer opportunity: an unmet need, a pain point, or a job to be done. Use orange sticky notes in Miro to distinguish opportunities from solutions (yellow). Add a brief quote from customer interviews under each opportunity sticky. Example opportunity: "PMs lose context when switching between Figma designs and their PRD — they have to manually reconcile them." Opportunities should be problems, not solutions.
Add solutions as the third level
Below each opportunity, branch into potential solutions using yellow sticky notes. Each solution is a specific product idea that addresses the opportunity above it. Draw connector arrows from the opportunity to each solution using Miro's arrow tool. A single opportunity can have multiple solution branches — this is the divergent phase. Do not prune solutions yet; add all viable ideas.
Create experiment cards at the fourth level
Below each solution, add experiment cards (use Miro's Card shape for structured information). Each card should have: Assumption being tested, Test method (prototype, A/B test, wizard of oz), Success criterion, and Status (Not started, In progress, Complete). These cards link the OST to your actual sprint work.
Add evidence tags to opportunities after each interview
After each customer interview, return to the Miro board. Find the relevant opportunity nodes and add a small green tag sticky with the interviewee's initials and date. Over time, opportunities with many tags represent well-validated problems. Opportunities with no tags are assumptions you have not tested. This visual evidence map drives prioritization: work on what is validated, not what is assumed.
Review and prune the tree in monthly OST sessions
Hold a monthly 60-minute OST review with your EM and designer. Walk through each branch: Is this opportunity still the right framing? Has any experiment moved a solution forward or eliminated it? Prune closed solutions by archiving them to a "Parking Lot" frame in Miro rather than deleting — you may revisit them later. This keeps the active OST focused on current priorities.
Common mistakes
Mixing opportunities and solutions at the same level
Opportunities are customer problems: "Users cannot find the feature they need." Solutions are your responses: "Add a global search bar." Mixing them collapses the discovery process into solutioning. Keep the levels strict: outcome, opportunity, solution, experiment.
Building the OST once and never updating it
An OST that is not updated after each discovery session becomes a historical artifact, not a decision tool. Schedule a 15-minute OST update as part of your post-interview ritual.
One opportunity for the entire product
A single opportunity node like "Improve onboarding" is too vague to drive solutions. Break it into specific opportunities: "New users do not understand the relationship between workspaces and projects" and "First PRD generation takes longer than 10 minutes for new users."
Not linking experiments to sprint tickets
If experiments in the OST are not linked to actual Jira or Linear tickets, they will never run. Add ticket URLs to each Experiment card. When the ticket completes, update the card status and record the outcome.
Tips
Use Miro's "Voting" feature during OST reviews to let the team prioritize which opportunities to focus on in the next sprint
Color-code by evidence strength: red = assumed only, yellow = one interview, green = three or more interviews confirming the opportunity
Embed the Miro OST in your Confluence product strategy page so stakeholders can see the discovery underpinning roadmap decisions
Use Miro's tagging feature to tag each node with the quarter it was added — this makes it easy to see how the tree evolved over time
How Vantage helps
Vantage's query engine can search across all your customer interview notes, PRDs, and research documents and surface the opportunities that appear most frequently. You can use these results to populate your Miro OST with evidence-backed opportunities rather than starting from your own assumptions.