“People don’t want a quarter-inch drill, they want a quarter-inch hole.”
Theodore Levitt
“It’s not about your product, solution, or brand, but what people want to accomplish.”
Jim Kalbach
What is Jobs-to-be-Done?
JTBD is a framework that enables companies and product teams to focus on the customer’s and user’s desired outcomes – the jobs they want to get done – and needs.
In his book, The Innovator’s Solution Clayton Christensen, a former Harvard Business School professor, popularized that “to understand what motivates people to act, you first must understand what it is they need to get done”. JTBD represents the deepest objectives people have when using a specific product. Think of a product that you use. Now, think of why you use it, what is your ultimate objective? Why are you willing to pay for that product? What kind of need do you have that is served by it? Using the quote above, if you buy a quarter-inch drill, you don’t do it because you always wanted to have one, but because you need it to reach your final objective: to get a quarter-inch hole.
Successful companies focus on what their customers need. To find that out, they use JTBD and dig into their customers’ deepest objectives. Once they find that out, they understand better the “Why” of people purchasing their products and work on ideas that will help their customers in a more complete or innovative way.
The Jobs-to-be-Done Elements
The JTBD framework is a strong basis for all of your product strategy and development. Having a focus on your customer’s and user’s desired outcomes sets you up for success. Like any good framework, JTBD has different elements that through a strong interaction with each other, provide us with reliable results and a strong focus for the product.
There are 5 main JTBD elements: the Job Performer (who), the Jobs (what), the Process (how), the Needs (why). and the circumstances (when/where).
The Job Performer is your persona, the person that will be executing the jobs.
The Jobs are the desired outcomes from the job performer, what he or she aims to achieve. Jobs must be simple and clear, and should not include technology or solutions. The Jobs are stable on time, this means, your described job could be understood today, as 30 years ago or 30 years in the future. Go from A to B is a good example of a job. We use cars today however we used horses in the past and will maybe use flying cars in the future. The Job will always be “Go from A to B”. Under this topic, you also have different job categories as related jobs, social and emotional jobs.
The Process will help you to research more underlying jobs, as well as to organize the jobs in a chronological job map.
The Needs will tell you what the Job Performer needs to get the different jobs done. A typical need statement will include a direction of change (minimize, maximize, reduce…), a unit of measure (time, effort…), an object of need (the subject that will be stimulated by the job), and a clarifier (some extra information that helps to understand the need). Find an example with more details in this article.
Finally, the circumstances explain more about when and where the job is getting done. Depending on these conditions, a job performer might have underlying needs. Picking the previous example of going from A to B, if it’s raining, for instance, you should take it into consideration to find a suitable and innovative way of helping the job performer to get his or her job done.
Why should you work with Jobs-to-be-Done?
If you read the above, you probably know by now the answer to this question. If you want to have a successful product today and tomorrow, maybe spending millions on marketing campaigns, ads, amazing salespeople, and new offices in your target markets will do. If you want to have a product that people love, and that people will be using for years, you should add a strong focus on people’s objectives (jobs people want to get done). This will also help you to upgrade your product, and to develop your product better. desired-outcomes driven.
Benefits of using JTBD
The Jobs-to-be-Done framework provides a strong basis that enjoys longevity represented by the main jobs. These are not changing over the years, at least at a high level. If your user’s main job is to go from A to B, this was also the main Job 200 years ago and will be in the future. What changes here are the means used to do it. Before we used horses, today we drive in a car, in the future, you can imagine the possibilities.
Another benefit of this framework is that by focusing on the customer’s and user’s desired outcomes, your imagination is open to innovation. You know what people want and need, now you can think of better ways to get them there easily with a great experience.
JTBD creates a common language and mindset across your organization, this way breaking down communication silos and giving everyone a tool that enables them to challenge opnion-based or HIPPO’s decisions but also to be participative on finding solutions for the company, customer, and user problems. JTBD fosters communication between departments which ultimately will lead to a natural and positive cultural change in organizations, where collaboration, focus on innovation and solutions to help customers getting their jobs done, and ownership is the core.
The Jobs-to-be-Done interdisciplinarity
Lots of people think that JTBD is a design tool. Even though designers work with JTBD, as it helps them to think of the customer’s deepest objectives when ideating, JTBD should be used by anyone that wants to have a successful product by focusing on real people’s desired outcomes and needs. Entrepreneurs may use it to validate and improve their ideas, and the same goes for any department in a company. Marketing needs to understand the real objectives that their target customers have, to address them, as well as, Sales wants to use them so that when they are convincing a prospect about the product they can hit the sweet spot. JTBD is for everyone and will transform whatever you do for someone, into a better experience and a product that people love.
JTBD different schools of thought
When researching about JTBD you might get confused with different approaches. Let’s avoid that by clearing this up! According to Jim Kalbach in his book “The Jobs to be Done Playbook”, JTBD falls broadly into two camps: the Switch school of thought (Bob Moesta) and the ODI (Outcome-Driven Innovation – Tony Ulwick).
In the first, the researcher “seeks to reverse engineer the underlying motivation for changing from one solution to another. He or she tries to understand why people choose a solution to get the job done and analyze the forces of change.” The goal is to increase demand for a service or product. This technique uses qualitative interviews to get its answers. The next focuses on “uncovering desired outcomes that people want from getting a job done in a given domain. These desired outcomes are prioritized, in a second phase, with a quantitative survey. ODI increases adoption of innovation by creating products that address unmet needs.” Kalbach believes though that there is a place for these two sides. “Sometimes there you have to understand people’s objectives and needs from the bottom-up (ODI), for instance, when developing a new product or when redefining your market. Other times it’s appropriate to start with a particular product in mind and understand why people “hired” that product to get the job done (Switch). In the end, techniques from both interpretations can help your organization shift its mindset from inside-out to outside-in. There is a common focus on the underlying objectives that people have.”
Now that you know what Jobst-to-be-Done is, are you ready to build yours? Go ahead, I will give you a hand with this article!
Enjoyed the read? Take a look at the articles below!