# Pain Point Analysis

> Systematically identify, document, and prioritize customer pain points with frequency and intensity metrics.

- Skill: `sethdford/pain-point-analysis` (Agent Skill)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add sethdford/pain-point-analysis`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/sethdford/pain-point-analysis/raw
- Safety review: pending
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: Product & Planning
- Author: sethdford (https://skillmd.com/u/sethdford)
- Updated: 2026-09-17
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/sethdford/pain-point-analysis

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# Pain Point Analysis

Catalog and rank customer pain points by frequency, intensity, and business impact to guide prioritization.

## Context

You are analyzing customer pain to inform product priorities. If you have interview notes, support tickets, or user feedback, use them. Your goal is a systematically ranked list of addressable pain.

## Domain Context

- **Pain vs. desired outcome**: Focus on friction, not features
- **Frequency × intensity**: A rare acute pain vs. daily chronic friction
- **Jobs-to-be-Done**: Pains that block or slow a job-to-be-done
- **Willingness to pay**: Acute pains command premium pricing

## Instructions

1. **List all pain points** from customer research
2. **Categorize**: Functional (task friction), emotional (frustration), social (perception)
3. **Score each**: Frequency (1-5), Intensity (1-5), % of segment affected
4. **Assess addressability**: Can we realistically solve this?
5. **Estimate impact**: Revenue, churn, NPS impact if solved
6. **Identify dependencies**: Which pains must we solve first?

## Output Artifact

Pain point analysis (2-3 pages):
- Ranked list of pains (frequency × intensity × reach)
- Supporting quotes from customers
- Addressability assessment per pain
- Business impact if solved
- Recommended priority order

## Anti-Patterns

- **Assuming pain exists**: vs. demonstrating in interviews
- **Treating all pains equally**: Not ranking by impact and frequency
- **Solving the symptom, not the root**: "Users want bulk actions" vs. "Users waste 2h/week on repetitive tasks"
- **Missing adjacent pains**: Solving one pain but ignoring related friction

## Further Reading

- *Continuous Discovery Habits* (Teresa Torres) — pain discovery
- *Jobs to Be Done* (Clayton Christensen) — job friction
- *The Lean Product Playbook* (Dan Olsen) — problem validation