Jobs-to-Be-Done Theory
Definition
The concept of “Jobs to Be Done” (JTBD) is a framework for understanding what motivates customers when they purchase and use products or services. At its core, JTBD theory posits that consumers “hire” products to get specific “jobs” done. These jobs can range from solving simple tasks to fulfilling complex emotional or social needs. In product development and innovation, recognizing and defining these customer needs is crucial. JTBD theory moves beyond traditional demographic or psychographic segmentation, focusing instead on the functional, emotional, or social job the customer is trying to accomplish.
Key Takeaways
- Guiding Innovation: JTBD provides a lens through which companies can view innovation, ensuring that product development efforts are directly tied to solving real customer problems. This focus helps businesses innovate more effectively, creating products that customers genuinely need and want.
- Enhancing Customer Satisfaction: By understanding and meeting the specific jobs customers need to be done, companies can enhance satisfaction and loyalty. This alignment between product offerings and customer needs ensures that customers keep coming back.
- Driving Business Growth: Applying JTBD theory helps businesses identify untapped market opportunities and develop targeted solutions that meet these needs, driving growth and competitive advantage.
The “Jobs to Be Done” framework, as highlighted in the Harvard Business Review and other scholarly sources, emphasizes the importance of outcome-driven innovation. This approach aligns product development with the outcomes customers seek, making JTBD theory a powerful tool for companies aiming to stay ahead in the innovation curve. By focusing on the ‘customer job’ as the primary unit of analysis, businesses can uncover insights that lead to breakthrough products and services, ensuring that innovation efforts lead to tangible business results.
Relevance to Different Audiences
Business School Students
For students aspiring to roles as a marketer, product manager, or entrepreneur, a deep understanding of “Jobs to Be Done” theory is invaluable. This framework equips future leaders with the insight to design products and services that genuinely meet customer needs.
Recommendations:
- Coursework: Seek courses in customer behavior, product management, and innovation. Specialized classes that focus on “Jobs Theory” and “Outcome-Driven Innovation” provide practical frameworks for understanding what motivates purchasing decisions. Engaging in projects that require you to identify and analyze a “customer job” offers hands-on experience.
- Reading: Books such as “Competing Against Luck” by Clayton Christensen, an originator of JTBD theory, and “Jobs to be Done: A Roadmap for Customer-Centered Innovation” by Stephen Wunker, Jessica Wattman, and David Farber, offer foundational knowledge and application strategies. These readings delve into the nuances of identifying the “job executor” and the “desired outcome,” crucial for anyone aiming to lead a product team.
Pre-revenue Startups
Startups in the pre-revenue stage can leverage a modified JTBD framework, known as “Pre-Vision Interviews,” to substantiate, refine, or even abandon their initial idea based on a deeper understanding of unmet customer needs. This approach allows entrepreneurs to gather insights directly related to the “jobs” their potential product or service could fulfill, ensuring their value proposition is tightly aligned with market demands.
Application:
- Substantiating Ideas: Use Pre-Vision Interviews to confirm that there is a genuine, unaddressed “customer job” that your product can solve.
- Refining Products: Feedback from these interviews helps in refining your product’s features to meet the “desired outcome” more effectively.
- Decision Making: If interviews reveal that your product does not address a significant job or the market is oversaturated with similar solutions, it might be wise to pivot or abandon the concept.
SMB Owners
For small to medium-sized business owners, applying JTBD theory is about refining product offerings and enhancing customer experience. Understanding the “jobs” your products are hired to do, along with any “related jobs,” allows you to tailor your offerings more precisely to your customers’ needs, setting your business apart in a crowded market.
Strategies:
- Product Management: Consider every aspect of your product as a potential “job executor.” Evaluate whether it effectively delivers the “desired outcome” for your customers. Regularly gather feedback to identify any changes in customer needs or jobs.
- Outcome Driven Innovation: Align your product development process with the outcomes your customers seek. This approach ensures your team focuses on creating value that directly resonates with your target audience.
- Exploring Related Jobs: By understanding not just the primary job but also any related jobs your product or service might fulfill, you can uncover opportunities for additional features or entirely new products that further satisfy your customers’ needs.
Nine Tenets of Jobs to Be Done
By focusing on the job(s) the customer needs to be done, rather than on the product itself or the customer’s demographic profile, companies can uncover deeper insights into what drives purchasing decisions. This framework is built on nine foundational tenets that guide how products and services should be developed and marketed.
1. People buy products and services to get a “job” done.
This tenet underscores the primary purpose behind every purchase: to fulfill a specific job or need. Understanding the “core functional job” that a product or service is hired to do is the first step in applying the JTBD approach.
2. Jobs are functional — with emotional and social components.
While every job has a core functional aspect, it’s crucial not to overlook the emotional and social components that accompany it. These dimensions often play a significant role in the decision-making process, influencing why a customer chooses one solution over another.
3. Jobs to be done are stable over time.
Unlike market trends or technological advancements, the fundamental job a customer needs to be done remains relatively constant. Recognizing this stability allows businesses to innovate within a framework that has enduring relevance.
4. A job-to-be-done is solution agnostic.
The JTBD framework emphasizes the job itself, without tying it to any specific product, service, or technology. This solution-agnostic stance encourages companies to think broadly about how to solve customer problems.
5. Success comes from making the job the unit of analysis, rather than the product or the customer.
By making the job the focal point, the JTBD approach shifts the innovation process from a product-centric or customer-centric view to a job-centric perspective. This shift enables a clearer understanding of what customers truly need and want.
6. A deep understanding of the customer’s job makes marketing more effective — and innovation far more predictable.
Conducting thorough “customer interviews” and research to grasp the nuances of the job enables more targeted marketing strategies and reduces the uncertainty traditionally associated with the innovation process.
7. People want products and services that will help them get a job done better and/or more cheaply.
The value proposition of any offering is directly tied to its ability to perform the job more effectively or at a lower cost than existing solutions. This tenet is a key driver of competitive advantage and customer satisfaction.
8. People seek out products and services that enable them to get the entire job done on a single platform.
Solutions that offer a comprehensive answer to the entire job, encompassing both the “core functional job” and the “emotional job,” are more attractive to customers. They appreciate the simplicity and efficiency of completing the job within a single platform or solution.
9. Innovation becomes predictable when “needs” are defined as the metrics customers use to measure success when getting the job done.
Identifying and quantifying the specific outcomes customers desire enables businesses to innovate with precision. By aligning product features and benefits with these metrics, companies can develop solutions that are more likely to meet and exceed customer expectations.
Together, these nine tenets form the foundation of the JTBD approach, offering a comprehensive strategy for understanding customer needs, driving innovation, and achieving market success. By embracing these principles, businesses can navigate the complexities of the innovation process with greater clarity and confidence.
Benefits of Jobs to Be Done in the Pre-revenue Planning Phase
The Jobs to Be Done framework is a powerful tool for startups in the pre-revenue planning phase, offering a structured approach to identifying market opportunities and designing products that meet unmet customer needs. By focusing on the jobs that potential customers need to be done, startups can prioritize product features and functionalities that align with those needs, thereby increasing the likelihood of product-market fit.
Implementing JTBD in Pre-revenue Planning
Customer Interviews: Pioneered by experts like Jim Kalbach and Alan Klement, JTBD starts with conducting detailed customer interviews to uncover the “main job” customers are hiring a product to do. These interviews are designed to go beyond surface-level desires, probing into the functional, emotional, and social jobs that customers are trying to accomplish.
Job Statement Creation: From these interviews, startups can craft precise job statements that encapsulate the essence of what customers are trying to achieve. This clarity helps in defining the value proposition of the new product, ensuring it is sharply focused on fulfilling these jobs.
Job Map Development: A job map lays out all the steps a customer goes through to complete a job. By understanding this journey, startups can identify and prioritize which features are essential for their new product, ensuring it effectively supports users throughout the entire process.
User Stories and UX Design: Utilizing the insights gained, startups can then develop user stories that guide the user experience (UX) design. These stories ensure that the product development is user-centric, focusing on enabling customers to achieve their goals efficiently and satisfactorily.
How JTBD Informs Research & Development
JTBD not only assists in the initial planning phases but also deeply informs the research and development (R&D) strategy for new products. By integrating JTBD into R&D processes, companies can ensure that their innovations are both relevant and valuable to their target audience.
JTBD-Driven R&D Strategy
Aligning with Customer Needs: A deep understanding of the JTBD helps R&D teams align their efforts with the real needs of their customers. This alignment means that every feature developed, every user interface designed, and every user interaction planned is done with the intent of helping the customer complete their main job more effectively.
Enhancing User Experience: The insights from JTBD can significantly enhance the overall user experience by focusing on the critical elements of the job that customers are trying to get done. This focus ensures that the product not only meets the functional requirements but also addresses the emotional and social components of the job, leading to a more holistic and satisfying user experience.
Iterative Development and Testing: JTBD provides a framework for iterative development and testing, where R&D efforts are continuously informed by feedback from customer interviews and job analysis. This iterative process allows for the refinement of the product in ways that significantly improve its value to the customer.
Innovative Solutions: By understanding the broader context of the customer’s job, R&D teams are better positioned to innovate. They can identify unmet needs or uncover inefficiencies in how current solutions address the job, leading to the development of breakthrough products and services.
How JTBD Helps Define and Target a Market
The Jobs to Be Done framework is a powerful tool for businesses looking to precisely define and target their market segments. By focusing on the jobs customers are hiring products and services to complete, companies can move beyond traditional demographic or psychographic segmentation to a more nuanced understanding of customer needs and motivations.
Identifying Customer Jobs
JTBD theory encourages companies to delve into the “user story” behind each purchase, revealing the underlying need or problem the customer is trying to solve. This approach allows businesses to identify common jobs across seemingly disparate customer groups, offering a more effective way to target market segments based on shared goals or challenges.
Segmenting the Market
Once the key jobs have been identified, companies can segment the market according to the different ways customers seek to get these jobs done. This segmentation might be based on the specific circumstances under which the job arises, the importance of various “desired outcome statements” for the job, or the extent to which a current solution meet their needs.
Tailoring Product Development and Marketing
With a clear understanding of the jobs to be done, businesses can tailor their product development and marketing efforts to address these jobs more effectively. This might involve designing features that better meet the functional requirements of the job, enhancing the user experience to address emotional or social aspects, or using messaging that resonates with the desired outcomes customers are seeking.
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is a “job” in the context of JTBD?
In the JTBD framework, a “job” refers to the task or goal a customer is trying to achieve when they purchase or use a product or service. This job can be functional (e.g., cutting a piece of wood), but it often includes emotional and social dimensions (e.g., feeling competent or gaining respect from peers).
- How can pre-revenue startup entrepreneurs find customers to interview?
Pre-revenue startup entrepreneurs can find customers to interview by looking at the customer base of their competitors existing solution. Identifying and reaching out to users of existing solutions allows entrepreneurs to gain insights into what customers value in current offerings and where there are gaps. This process can involve searching for online forums, social media groups, or review sites where users discuss their experiences with similar products. For more detailed guidance on conducting these interviews, entrepreneurs can refer to the Pre-Vision Interview section on Businessplan.com.
- What is the difference between a functional job and an emotional job?
A functional job refers to the practical task that the customer needs to accomplish, while an emotional job encompasses the feelings or emotional states the customer wants to achieve or avoid as a result of getting the job done. For example, the functional job might be to quickly commute from home to work, while the emotional job could be to do so while feeling relaxed and stress-free.
- How does JTBD theory differ from traditional market segmentation?
Traditional market segmentation typically groups customers based on demographic factors (age, gender, income) or psychographic factors (lifestyle, values). In contrast, JTBD theory segments the market based on the specific jobs customers are trying to get done, regardless of their demographic or psychographic profile. This approach can reveal opportunities to serve customers who might otherwise be overlooked or misunderstood.
- Can JTBD theory be applied to service industries as well as product development?
Yes, JTBD theory can be applied to service industries just as effectively as to product development. In service design, understanding the customer’s job helps in crafting service offerings that more precisely meet customer needs. This approach, often integrated with design thinking principles, focuses on creating services that deliver the desired outcomes customers are seeking, enhancing both the functional and emotional aspects of the service experience.
Related Terms
Value Proposition: Value Proposition design is closely aligned with JTBD in crafting offers that resonate deeply with customers. By understanding the “user story” and the “underlying need,” businesses can formulate a “desired outcome statement” that articulate the unique benefits of their products or services. This process ensures that the value proposition is directly linked to the job customers are hiring the product to do, making it more compelling and relevant.
Customer Segmentation: Traditional customer segmentation categorizes potential users based on demographic or psychographic traits. In contrast, Jobs To Be Done focuses on the diversity of “consumption chain jobs” that different customers need to be done, irrespective of their demographic profile. This approach can uncover hidden segments of the market that are underserved by “current solutions,” offering opportunities for “disruptive innovation.”
Innovation Management: Innovation management involves overseeing a company’s innovation process to foster growth and maintain competitive advantage. Integrating JTBD into this process helps focus efforts on creating products that meet real, often unarticulated customer needs. It provides a structured approach to “market research,” ensuring that new product ideas are grounded in the jobs that customers are struggling to get done.
Product-Market Fit: Achieving product-market fit means developing a product that meets the needs of a specific market segment so well that it sells itself. JTBD enhances this pursuit by ensuring that product development is closely tied to fulfilling the jobs customers are trying to get done. By aligning the “business model” and product features with these jobs, companies can achieve a tighter product-market fit, leading to higher customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Lean Startup: The Lean Startup methodology emphasizes rapid, iterative product development cycles to test business hypotheses and learn from customer feedback. JTBD complements this approach by providing a framework for identifying which features to build and test first. It focuses on understanding the “user story” and “desired outcome statement” from the outset, allowing startups to quickly pivot or persevere based on whether their solution effectively addresses the customer’s job.
Also see: Value Proposition, Customer Segmentation
