What is Unmet Needs Prioritization?

Unmet Needs Prioritization is a systematic methodology for identifying, evaluating, and ranking customer needs based on how well they are currently satisfied and how important they are to customers. 

This approach is founded on the Jobs To Be Done principle that customers "hire" products to help them accomplish goals, and they switch to new solutions when they find one that satisfies their unmet needs better than alternatives. By identifying which needs are most important yet poorly satisfied, companies can focus innovation resources on opportunities that will create the most customer value and drive adoption.

Why is Unmet Needs Prioritization important?

Effective prioritization of unmet needs offers significant advantages over traditional approaches:

1. Reduces innovation risk

By focusing on validated customer needs rather than assumed solutions, companies reduce the risk of building products that customers don't want or won't pay for.

2. Creates sustainable differentiation

Understanding which needs are underserved reveals opportunities for meaningful differentiation that competitors can't easily copy, rather than temporary feature advantages.

3. Maximizes resource efficiency

Resources are directed toward opportunities with proven customer importance and dissatisfaction, rather than spread across speculative features or competitive matching.

4. Drives higher adoption rates

Products designed to address high-priority unmet needs have higher adoption rates because they solve genuine customer problems rather than offering marginal improvements.

5. Supports premium pricing

When products address important unmet needs significantly better than alternatives, customers are willing to pay premium prices, enhancing margins and profitability.

What are the components of effective Unmet Needs Prioritization?

A comprehensive approach to Unmet Needs Prioritization includes these key components:

1. Needs Identification and Definition

The foundation of prioritization is a complete inventory of customer needs:

• Breaking down the customer's job into discrete steps (typically 15-20)
• Identifying specific needs within each step (usually 5-10 per step)
• Defining each need as an action and a variable independent of any solution
• Ensuring needs are measurable in terms of speed and accuracy
• Validating the completeness of the needs inventory with customers

These well-defined needs become the units of analysis for prioritization.

2. Importance Measurement

For each identified need, measure how important it is to customers:

• Surveying customers on the importance of each need
• Using consistent rating scales (typically 1-10 or 1-5)
• Ensuring questions focus on job execution rather than product features
• Segmenting importance ratings by customer characteristics
• Validating ratings through multiple research methods

These important ratings help identify which needs matter most to customers.

3. Satisfaction Assessment

Measure how well current solutions satisfy each need:

• Surveying customers on satisfaction with current approaches
• Using the same rating scales as importance measurement
• Focusing on job execution results rather than feature satisfaction
• Segmenting satisfaction ratings by solution used
• Validating through observational research and usage analytics

These satisfaction assessments identify where current solutions fall short.

4. Opportunity Score Calculation

Calculate metrics that indicate innovation opportunity:

Importance score - How important the need is to customers (e.g., 1-10)

Satisfaction score - How satisfied customers are with current solutions (e.g., 1-10)

Opportunity score = Importance + (Importance - Satisfaction)

Raw gap = Importance - Satisfaction

Relative gap = (Importance - Satisfaction) / Importance

These calculated metrics help quantify the value of addressing each need.

5. Segmentation Analysis

• Analyze how importance and satisfaction vary across customer segments:
• Identifying segments with distinct patterns of unmet needs
• Determining which segments have the highest opportunity scores
• Assessing segment size and economic value
• Measuring willingness to pay across segments

Determining accessibility of different segments

This segmentation reveals which customer groups represent the most attractive targets.

6. Competitive Assessment

Evaluate how well competitors satisfy high-opportunity needs:

• Assessing competitor performance on each high-opportunity need
• Identifying where all competitors perform poorly
• Discovering unique approaches that address specific needs well
• Analyzing trends in how competitors are evolving

Identifying potential disruptive threats

This competitive analysis helps identify strategic opportunities and threats.

How do you implement Unmet Needs Prioritization?

1. Create a comprehensive needs inventory

• Start by developing a complete list of customer needs:
• Conduct qualitative research to understand customer jobs
• Break jobs into discrete steps following a universal pattern
• Identify specific needs within each step that measure execution quality
• Format needs consistently as actions and variables

Validate the inventory with diverse customers

This inventory provides the foundation for all subsequent prioritization.

2. Design and conduct quantitative research

• Develop research to measure importance and satisfaction:
• Create survey instruments that clearly explain each need
• Use consistent rating scales for importance and satisfaction
• Ensure adequate sample sizes for statistical validity
• Include segmentation variables to identify patterns
• Incorporate competitive usage questions for analysis

This research provides the data needed for prioritization decisions.

3. Calculate opportunity metrics

Process research data to identify high-value opportunities:

• Calculate opportunity scores for each need
• Rank needs from highest to lowest opportunity
• Identify statistical patterns and outliers
• Group needs into thematic clusters
• Create visualization of opportunity landscape

These calculations transform raw data into actionable insights.

4. Conduct segment-based analysis

Identify how opportunities vary across customer segments:

• Analyze opportunity scores by segment characteristics
• Identify segments with clusters of high-opportunity needs
• Assess segment attractiveness based on size and value
• Determine which segments align with organizational capabilities
• Create segment profiles based on unmet needs

This segmentation guides targeting decisions and product strategy.

5. Evaluate competitive positioning

Assess how your solution compares to alternatives:

• Map competitor performance on high-opportunity needs
• Identify where your solution outperforms or lags competitors
• Discover unaddressed opportunities where no competitor excels

Evaluate emerging solutions that might address unmet needs

Assess vulnerability to disruptive approaches

This competitive analysis informs differentiation strategy.

6. Create prioritized roadmaps

Translate opportunity analysis into action plans:

• Group related high-opportunity needs into themes
• Develop solution concepts that address multiple needs
• Sequence initiatives based on opportunity size and resource requirements
• Create clear success metrics based on need satisfaction improvement
• Establish governance to maintain focus on high-opportunity needs
• These roadmaps ensure resources focus on the highest-value opportunities.

What frameworks help with Unmet Needs Prioritization?

The Opportunity Landscape

This visualization plots all needs on two dimensions:

Vertical axis: Importance to customers

Horizontal axis: Satisfaction with current solutions

The resulting quadrants help categorize needs:

• Top-Left (High Importance, Low Satisfaction): Prime opportunities
• Top-Right (High Importance, High Satisfaction): Table stakes
• Bottom-Left (Low Importance, Low Satisfaction): Low priorities
• Bottom-Right (Low Importance, High Satisfaction): Overserved areas

This framework provides an intuitive visual representation of priorities.

The Opportunity Algorithm

This calculation identifies needs with the greatest innovation potential:

Opportunity = Importance + (Importance - Satisfaction)

This formula ranges from 0-19 (on a 10-point scale) and weights needs by both absolute importance and the gap between importance and satisfaction. Scores above 15 typically indicate significant opportunities.

The Kano Model Adaptation

This framework categorizes needs based on their relationship to customer satisfaction:

Must-Have Needs: Cause dissatisfaction when not met but don't create positive satisfaction when met

Performance Needs: Create satisfaction proportional to their level of satisfaction

Delighter Needs: Create positive satisfaction when met but don't cause dissatisfaction when not met

This categorization helps develop balanced solutions that address different types of needs.

The Segment Opportunity Matrix

This framework maps opportunity scores across customer segments:

Rows represent customer segments

Columns represent needs

Cells contain opportunity scores for each segment-need combination

Color coding highlights high-opportunity areas

This matrix reveals which segments have clusters of unmet needs that could be addressed together.

The Solution Impact Assessment

This framework evaluates potential solutions against unmet needs:

Rows represent solution concepts

Columns represent high-opportunity needs

Cells score how well each solution addresses each need

Totals indicate overall opportunity impact

This assessment helps compare alternative approaches to addressing unmet needs.

What are common challenges in Unmet Needs Prioritization?

Need definition inconsistency

Poorly defined needs that mix solution characteristics with outcomes or vary in specificity make prioritization difficult. Consistent formatting as actions and variables is essential.

Survey design flaws

Surveys that use inconsistent scales, leading questions, or technical jargon produce unreliable data. Careful survey design and testing are critical for valid results.

Sample bias

Research that overrepresents certain customer types or current users while underrepresenting potential customers creates skewed priorities. Representative sampling is essential.

Averaging across segments

Analyzing needs at only the aggregate level obscures important segment-specific opportunities. Segment-level analysis is necessary to identify targeted opportunities.

Overreliance on quantitative data

Quantitative priorities should be complemented with qualitative understanding of why needs are important and how customers try to satisfy them today.

How do you measure the success of Unmet Needs Prioritization?

Product Development Metrics

These measure how prioritization affects development effectiveness:

• Development cycle time - How quickly teams deliver need-satisfying capabilities
• Feature adoption rates - What percentage of customers use new capabilities
• Feature value realization - How quickly customers achieve value from features
• Development resource utilization - How efficiently teams convert effort to customer value
• Feature retirement rate - How effectively teams eliminate low-value capabilities

Effective prioritization should improve these operational metrics.

Customer Impact Metrics

These measure how well priorities translate to customer outcomes:

• Need satisfaction improvement - How much satisfaction increases for targeted needs
• Job success rate - What percentage of customers successfully accomplish their job
• Time to value - How quickly customers realize value from the solution
• Customer effort reduction - How much less effort is required to satisfy needs
• Competitive preference - How often customers choose your solution over alternatives

These metrics indicate whether prioritization is creating real customer value.

Business Outcome Metrics

These measure how prioritization affects business results:

Customer acquisition - Increases in new customers from better need satisfaction

Customer retention - Improvements in renewal rates and reduced churn

Expansion revenue - Growth from existing customers adopting additional capabilities

Price realization - Ability to command premium prices for superior need satisfaction

Resource efficiency - Return on investment in development resources

These metrics connect prioritization to business performance.

Long-term Strategic Indicators

These measure sustained prioritization effectiveness:

• Innovation hit rate - Percentage of initiatives that successfully satisfy targeted needs
• Time to market - Speed of addressing newly identified unmet needs
• Competitive response time - How quickly the organization can reprioritize based on competitive moves
• Strategic coherence - Consistency of priorities over time despite tactical adjustments
• Market perception - Recognition for leadership in satisfying specific customer needs

These indicators reflect the strategic impact of effective prioritization.

How does Unmet Needs Prioritization differ from traditional approaches?

Versus Feature Voting

Feature voting lets customers or stakeholders vote on desired features without considering their underlying needs. This leads to incremental improvements rather than addressing fundamental job challenges.

Versus MoSCoW Method

The MoSCoW method (Must have, Should have, Could have, Won't have) categorizes requirements based on stakeholder opinions rather than quantified customer need data, often reflecting internal politics rather than market opportunities.

Versus Story Points

Agile story points prioritize based on development effort rather than customer value, potentially leading to efficient delivery of low-impact capabilities.

Versus ROI Calculation

Traditional ROI calculations often rely on revenue projections without understanding the underlying customer needs driving adoption, leading to optimistic forecasts for features customers don't actually value.

Versus Competitive Matching

Prioritizing based on competitor features leads to parity rather than differentiation anthrvsses opportunities to address unmet needs that competitors also overlook.

How thrv helps with Unmet Needs Prioritization

thrv provides specialized methodologies and tools to help companies implement effective Unmet Needs Prioritization. The thrv platform includes frameworks for defining consistent needs, survey tools for measuring importance and satisfaction, analytics for calculating opportunity scores, visualization tools for communicating priorities, and roadmapping capabilities for translating priorities into action.

For organizations struggling with subjective prioritization, feature bloat, or low innovation success rates, thrv's approach to Unmet Needs Prioritization provides a clear path to more effective resource allocation based on quantified customer needs. The result is more impactful innovations, higher adoption rates, and stronger competitive positions—all derived from focusing on the needs that matter most to customers.