Outcome
Also called: Desired outcome, Product outcome
Last reviewed
An outcome is a measurable change in customer or business behaviour that a product team commits to creating. It sits at the root of an Opportunity Solution Tree and answers the question of what should be different in the world. Unlike an output, an outcome describes a result rather than a thing you shipped.
Outcome vs. output
The distinction is the reason Opportunity Solution Trees exist at all. An output is something a team produces: a feature, a redesign, an integration. An outcome is the change that output is supposed to cause: more people finishing onboarding, fewer support tickets, faster time to first value.
Teams that plan in outputs commit to a solution before they understand the problem. Teams that plan in outcomes leave room to discover which problem is worth solving, which is exactly the space the tree is designed to explore.
What makes a good outcome
A useful outcome is measurable, influenceable by the team that owns it, and specific enough that you could tell whether it moved.
- Measurable: expressed as a metric, not an adjective. "Increase weekly active teams" beats "improve engagement".
- Within the team's control: if the team cannot plausibly move it through their own work, it is a company goal, not a product outcome.
- Behavioural where possible: a change in what customers do is more actionable than a change in what they say.
- Bounded in time: an outcome without a horizon cannot be evaluated.
Product outcomes and business outcomes
Business outcomes describe company health: revenue, retention, margin. Product outcomes describe customer behaviour that drives those numbers. A product team usually cannot move revenue directly, but it can move the behaviour that leads to it. Translating a business outcome into a product outcome is often the first real piece of work before a tree can be drawn.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between an outcome and an output?
An output is something a team produces, such as a feature or a redesign. An outcome is the measurable change in behaviour that the output is meant to cause. Outputs are within your control; outcomes are what make the output worth building.
How many outcomes should a team work on at once?
One at a time is the common recommendation. A single outcome keeps the tree focused and makes prioritisation possible, because every opportunity can be compared against the same target. Multiple concurrent outcomes usually mean the team is really working on several unrelated trees.
Related terms
- OpportunityIn an Opportunity Solution Tree, an opportunity is a customer need, pain point or desire that, if addressed, would move the desired outcome.
- Product discoveryProduct discovery is the work of deciding what to build and why, as distinct from delivery, which is building it well.
- Continuous discoveryContinuous discovery is the habit of maintaining at least weekly customer touchpoints, run by the team building the product, in pursuit of a desired outcome.
See how outcome fits the whole tree
The full guide covers all four layers and how they connect.