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Most prioritisation debates in product come down to opinion dressed up as strategy. The opportunity score is an attempt to replace that with something more grounded - a simple formula for identifying which customer needs are both important and underserved 📊 It comes from Tony Ulwick, whose outcome-driven innovation work builds directly on Jobs To Be Done. The full framework is laid out in Jobs To Be Done - worth reading if you want to go deep on the methodology.

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The formula

Opportunity score = Importance + max(Importance - Satisfaction, 0)
Where both importance and satisfaction are rated by customers on a scale of 1-10. In plain English: a need is a good opportunity when it’s important to customers but they’re not currently satisfied with how well it’s being met. A need that’s important and well-served is already covered - by you or a competitor. A need that’s unimportant doesn’t move the needle regardless. The sweet spot is high importance, low satisfaction.

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How to use it

Survey your customers with two questions per job or outcome:
  1. “When you [do the job], how important is it that you are able to [desired outcome]?” (1-10)
  2. “How satisfied are you with how well current solutions allow you to [desired outcome]?” (1-10)
Run the formula. Anything scoring 15+ is a strong opportunity. Anything below 10 is over-served - don’t invest there.

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What it’s good for

The opportunity score is particularly useful when you have a long list of potential improvements and need a defensible way to prioritise. It puts the customer’s voice directly into the prioritisation conversation and makes the trade-offs explicit. It also exposes over-served areas - places where you’re investing in something customers already find adequate. That’s often where teams are spinning their wheels without realising it 😅

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The honest limitation

The formula is only as good as your survey. Vague outcomes produce vague scores. The hard work is writing precise, testable outcome statements - “minimise the time it takes to generate a monthly report” beats “improve reporting” every time. Lesson learned: the most useful thing the opportunity score does isn’t the number - it’s forcing you to articulate what outcomes your customers actually care about before you start prioritising solutions 👊