What Is Jobs-to-be-Done?

What is Jobs-to-be-Done Theory? What is a job-to-be-done? A desired outcome? It’s all explained in this article.

JOBS-TO-BE-DONE is best defined as a perspective — a lens through which you can observe markets, customers, needs, competitors, and customer segments differently, and by doing so, make innovation far more predictable and profitable.

When Einstein engaged in his thought experiments, he pictured himself riding on a beam of light and traveling through the universe. From this perspective he was able to view the universe through a new lens, enabling him to see things in a different and meaningful way and to develop a theory that others could not.

Similarly, when you look at marketing and innovation through a Jobs-to-be-Done lens, everything looks different:

The unit of analysis is no longer the customer or the product, it’s the core functional “job” the customer is trying to get done.

Markets aren’t defined around products, they are defined as groups of people trying to get a job done.

Customers aren’t buyers, they are job executors.

Needs aren’t vague, latent and unknowable, they are the metrics customers use to measure success when getting a job done.

Competitors aren’t companies that make products like yours, they are any solution being used to get the job done.

Customer segments aren’t based on demographics or psychographics, they are based on how customers struggle differently to get a job done.

When a company thinks about a market from this perspective, it is much more likely to create and deliver extraordinary products and services. Why? While products come and go, the customer’s job-to-be-done is stable over time. With a focus on a stable unit of analysis, it becomes possible to define customer needs that are stable over time as well, giving companies unique, robust targets for value creation. In short, jobs-to-be-done offers a new framework and lens through which a company can take its understanding of customer needs to the next level — and bring predictability to innovation.

The first documented success achieved by a company applying this thinking was detailed in the 2002 Harvard Business Review article: Turn Customer Input into Innovation. The article describes how in 1993 Cordis Corporation used this thinking to increase its angioplasty balloon market share from 1 percent to over 20 percent.

Jobs-to-be-Done is best defined as a perspective — a lens through which customer needs can be effectively defined and communicated, making marketing more effective and innovation far more predictable.

When looking at marketing and innovation through a jobs-to-be-done lens, a theory begins to emerge.

JOBS-TO-BE-DONE THEORY is comprised of a group of principles or tenets that form a foundation for making marketing more effective and innovation more predictable by focusing on the customer’s job-to-be-done. The theory is based on the notion that people buy products and services to get a “job” done. Jobs Theory goes on to say that by understanding in detail what that “job” entails, companies are far more likely to create and market solutions that will win in the marketplace.

The core tenets of Jobs-to-be-Done Theory are summarized as follows:

People buy products and services to get a “job” done. Jobs are functional, with emotional and social components. A Job-to-be-Done is stable over time. A Job-to-be-Done is solution agnostic. Success comes from making the “job”, rather than the product or the customer, the unit of analysis. A deep understanding of the customer’s “job” makes marketing more effective and innovation far more predictable. People want products and services that wil help them get a job done better and/or more cheaply People seek out products and services that enable them to get the entire job done on a single platform Customer needs, when tied to the job-to-be-done, make innovation predictable

To learn more about these tenets, see the Medium article, The Core Tenets of Jobs-to-be-Done Theory. For a more comprehensive understanding of the theory and its evolution, see What Customers Want (2005), the first book written on this subject.

In order to study a job-to-be-done, the job must be correctly defined:

A JOB-TO-BE-DONE is a statement that describes, with precision, what a group of people are trying to achieve or accomplish in a given situation. A job-to-be-done could be a task that people are trying to accomplish, a goal or objective they are trying to achieve, a problem they are trying to resolve, something they are trying to avoid, or anything else they are trying to accomplish.

A job statement is written as [verb] + [object of the verb] + [contextual clarifier] (optionally). For example, pass on life lessons to children, repair a torn rotator cuff and prevent a shooter from entering a school, are all jobs-to-be-done.

To gain a deep understanding of the customer’s job-to-be-done, a company must be able to discover the customer’s “needs” associated with getting that job done. When looking at a market through a jobs-to-be-done lens, customer needs can be discovered by studying the customer’s core functional job as a process. Tactically, the core functional job can be broken down into steps using what we call a job map as described in the 2008 Harvard Business Review article, The Customer-Centered Innovation Map. With the job map in place, companies can then seek to discover the metrics customers use to measure success as they try to get each step in the job done. These metrics are the perfect way to think about and define the customer’s “needs.” These need statements, which we call “desired outcomes,” bring predictability to innovation.

A DESIRED OUTCOME STATEMENT is a specially constructed need statement that has a unique set of characteristics: desired outcomes are devoid of solutions, stable over time, measureable, controllable, structured for reliable prioritization in a quantitative customer survey, and are tied to the underlying process (or job) the customer is trying to get done (see the Medium article, Inventing the Perfect Customer Need Statement and the 2008 MIT Sloan article, Giving Customers a Fair Hearing).

Since the customer’s job-to-be-done is stable over time, the customer’s needs, when defined as desired outcome statements, are also stable over time. (See the Medium article, Define Customer Needs As Constants). With a stable set of “needs” in hand, a company is able to:

Quantify which needs are underserved and overserved.

Discover segments of customers with different unmet needs.

Use the metrics as a baseline against which they can test product ideas and concepts before they are developed.

Knowing which product or service concept will get the job done best early in the product planning stages (prior to development), is the key to predictable and profitable innovation.

This case study shows how Bosch applied Jobs Theory to product innovation .

. This case study shows how Arm & Hammer applied Jobs Theory to marketing innovation .

. This case study shows how AMO applied Jobs Theory to service innovation.

Jobs-to-be-Done Theory is applicable along many fronts

To explain how to put Jobs-to-be-Done Theory into practice, let’s start by asking, “Who are the potential users of Jobs-to-be-Done Theory and what are the jobs they are trying to get done?” Four jobs are of particular interest: (1) market selection (deciding what markets to enter), (2) product planning (deciding what products to create), (3) product development (deciding how to best design a product), and (4) buying process (deciding how to improve the customer’s buying process).

1. Market Selection: deciding what markets to enter. First, Jobs-to-be-Done Theory is being embraced by entrepreneurs in startups and managers in corporations and corporate venturing units who are trying to discover, evaluate and select markets that are attractive for them to enter/pursue.

When looking through a jobs-to-be-done lens, a market is defined as a group of people (job executors) and the job they are trying to get done. As entrepreneurs and managers engage in the market discovery and selection process, they start by trying to discover a number of unique jobs that job executors are struggling to get done. Their goal is to discover and define the jobs at a level of abstraction that makes the job a uniquely attractive target. To learn how to define jobs at the right level of abstraction, see JOBS TO BE DONE: Theory to Practice (Ulwick, 2016).

Once a number of markets are identified, the next step in the market selection process is to determine which is the most attractive to pursue. A job, for example, that is executed by many people, frequently, and is highly underserved would be a more attractive target than one that is executed by fewer people, infrequently and is already appropriately served. Strategyn’s clients use a market evaluation tool that includes 42 criteria to help make the market selection decision (see Figure 2). This worksheet can be downloaded from Strategyn’s home page.

Figure 2: Jobs-to-be-Done Market Evaluation and Selection Template

2. Product Planning: deciding what products to create. Second, Jobs-to-be-Done Theory has been embraced by product, marketing and innovation managers in established companies who are trying to grow and expand their core markets. Their goals are to typically (i) create a value proposition that resonates with customers, (ii) improve existing products, and (iii) conceptualize altogether new products that will address core or adjacent market opportunities. These activities, executed by the product planner, comprise the innovation process.

To apply Jobs-to-be-Done Theory to assist in marketing and innovation, Strategyn developed Outcome-Driven Innovation® (ODI). The innovation process originated in 1991 and has been simplified and improved through hundreds of applications within Fortune 500 companies since. Strategyn introduced ODI to Clayton Christensen in 1999. Six successes arising from the process are described in detail in a book recently released, JOBS TO BE DONE: Theory to Practice (Ulwick, 2016).

The ODI process is comprised of the following 6 steps (Figure 3):

Figure 3: The Outcome-Driven Innovation Process

While the first step overlaps a step in the market selection process (market discovery and definition) the remaining steps in the process are different and so are the tools required to execute them.

To win at innovation a company must know what a customer need is, what the customer’s needs are, which are unmet and if segments of customers exist with unique sets of unmet needs. With the target well defined, creating a winning solution becomes far more likely.

ODI reveals the required insights using unconventional qualitative and quantitative market research techniques. The process uniquely employs predictive data and a sophisticated market segmentation methodology that helps companies discover and prioritize hidden market opportunities. Strategyn has developed a comprehensive set of tools to help its clients execute each step in the process. Additional information on the ODI innovation process can be found here.

3. Product Development: deciding how to best design a product. The third application involves developers and UI and UX designers who are trying to develop products that have been approved for development (their job-to-be-done). These developers may work in lean or agile environments. Their goal is to ensure that the products they create and the code they write not only delivers on the product specifications, but also guarantees a positive user experience.

Those trying to apply Jobs-to-be-Done Theory to the product development process typically have the benefit of knowing what product they are trying to create: the product is already conceptualized and defined as part of the innovation process. What developers and UI and UX designers struggle with are design issues and understanding the customer’s needs that relate to what we call consumption chain jobs, such as learning how to use and interfacing with the product (see Figure 4).

Figure 4: Consumption Chain Jobs and Outcomes

As an extension of the ODI process, our clients apply steps 2 and 3 of the ODI process (outcome gathering and prioritization) to better understand the outcomes of users as they learn how to use, interface with the product and engage in the remaining consumption chain jobs that must be considered in the design phase. We have collected outcomes in all consumption chain jobs multiple times over the years.

If a company uses ODI for the innovation process, developers will have the prioritized outcomes associated with the core functional job. These inputs are needed for development/design as well. These insights can then be communicated to developers or UX and UI designers in the following Job/Outcome Story format:

Figure 1: The Job/Outcome Story for Developers/Designers

If a developer does not have access to the customer outcomes associated with the core functional job-to-be-done, then they tend to want to execute the innovation process in conjunction with the development process — learning more about the required product function as they create the product. Combining the development process with the innovation process creates confusion when using and implementing Jobs-to-be-Done Theory. A product concept should be well defined and proven to win in the marketplace before it is approved for development. The ODI process makes this possible.

4. Buying Process: deciding how to improve the customer’s buying process. The forth application of the theory involves marketing team members who are trying to understand the process that customer’s go through when buying a product so they can enhance the customer’s buying experience. Confusion over Jobs-to-be-Done theory results from thinking that understanding the customer purchase decision will somehow inform the innovation and development processes as well, but it does not. The purchase “process” is an altogether unique job the customer is trying to get done, and is best studied as a separate job.

We have studied the purchase “job” on a number of occasions over the years, most recently with Harte Hanks where we studied customers of retailers who were engaged in the purchase process. The results of that work can be seen in this article: Can Bricks and Mortar Compete With On-Line Retailing.

The article shows that the purchase process involves the customer working to understand the problem they are trying to solve and then researching and evaluating possible solutions, selecting the best solution, deciding where to buy it, and finally, engaging in the physical transaction required to acquire the product. Gaining customer insights across this job at the desired outcome level can lead to improvements in the customer’s purchase experience.

While each of these four jobs is clearly different, they can all benefit from Jobs-to-be-Done Theory. It’s just a matter of picking the right tool for the job. You can obtain additional resources at Strategyn.