Market Core · Market Opportunities · Module
The shortlist
What the organisation has decided to pursue and what it has decided not to — both dated, because both will be revisited by someone who was not there.
The idea
How it works
The output of opportunity work should be decisions rather than analysis. A document with fifteen opportunities and no ranking has moved the problem rather than solved it.
The rejected list is the one that saves time. Without it the same opportunity is researched again in two years by someone enthusiastic who has never seen the reasoning.
Working with it
In practice
- 01
Keep the pursued list to two or three
Capacity, not attractiveness, is the constraint. A longer list means none of them gets enough.
- 02
Record rejections with the reason and date
The reason matters more than the verdict, because it tells you what would have to change.
- 03
Set a revisit date on rejections
Conditions change. A rejection with no expiry becomes permanent by accident.
- 04
Attach each pursued opportunity to a goal
An opportunity that does not become a goal with an owner has been noted rather than adopted.
One level in
The components of the shortlist
A component is something that exists afterwards which did not exist before — a deliverable or a mechanism, not an intention.
A rejection with no revisit date becomes permanent by accident. Record what would have to change.
The other modules in market opportunities
Sizing
How large the opportunity actually is, built from the bottom up and stated as what is reachable rather than what exists.
LearnGrowth and direction
Where the demand is heading and what is driving it — because a shrinking large market and a growing small one call for opposite decisions.
LearnOpportunity assessment
Attractiveness and fit, judged separately — because a large growing market the organisation has no right to win is not an opportunity for it.
Learn