# Jobs to Be Done

The JTBD framework for understanding markets from the customer's perspective. Grounded in Jim Kalbach's Jobs to Be Done Playbook, Clayton Christensen's theory of disruptive innovation, and Tony Ulwick's Outcome-Driven Innovation.

---

## Core Principles

Five principles unite the various JTBD approaches (Kalbach):

1. **Customer-centricity** — People employ products to get their job done, not to interact with your organization
2. **Stability** — Jobs are stable over time even as technology changes. "Get from point A to point B" hasn't changed in centuries; the solutions have
3. **Progress** — People seek solutions that enable them to get more of their job done, quicker and easier
4. **Predictability** — Making the job the unit of analysis makes innovation more predictable
5. **Universality** — JTBD applies across all organizational functions — product, sales, marketing, support, strategy

---

## The Five Elements

### 1. Job Performer (Who)

The person executing the job. Distinguish from adjacent roles:

| Role | Relationship to Job | Example (Job: "Prepare tax return") |
|------|-------------------|--------------------------------------|
| **Job performer** | Executes the job | Individual taxpayer |
| **Buyer** | Purchases the solution | Same person, or spouse who buys the software |
| **Approver** | Authorizes acquisition | CFO (for business tax software) |
| **Technician** | Integrates the solution | IT staff who installs/configures |
| **Audience** | Consumes the output | IRS, accountant who reviews |

Always research the **job performer**, not proxies.

### 2. Jobs (What)

| Job Type | Description | Format | Example |
|----------|------------|--------|---------|
| **Main job** | Overall functional objective | Verb + object (broad) | "Manage my personal finances" |
| **Related jobs** | Adjacent objectives, significantly different | Verb + object | "File my tax return," "Plan for retirement" |
| **Emotional jobs** | How people want to feel | "Feel + emotion" | "Feel confident about my financial future" |
| **Social jobs** | How people want to be perceived | "Be seen as + attribute" | "Be seen as financially responsible" |

**Writing main job statements:**
- Solution-agnostic: "Listen to music" not "Use Spotify"
- Verb + object: "Prepare a meal" not "Cooking"
- Right level of abstraction: Not too broad ("Live a good life") or too narrow ("Slice an onion")

### 3. Process (How) — The Job Map

Jobs unfold as a process. Ulwick's 8-stage universal job map:

| Stage | Definition | Questions to Ask |
|-------|-----------|-----------------|
| **1. Define** | Determine objectives, plan approach | "How do you decide what to do? What information do you need to plan?" |
| **2. Locate** | Gather materials, information, resources | "What do you need to find or collect before starting?" |
| **3. Prepare** | Organize, set up environment | "How do you set things up? What do you arrange beforehand?" |
| **4. Confirm** | Ensure readiness before executing | "How do you verify everything is ready? What could go wrong at this point?" |
| **5. Execute** | Perform the core activity | "Walk me through the main activity step by step" |
| **6. Monitor** | Evaluate whether it's working | "How do you check progress? What signals tell you things are on/off track?" |
| **7. Modify** | Adjust course as needed | "When things go wrong, what do you do? How do you adapt?" |
| **8. Conclude** | End the process, follow up | "How do you wrap up? What happens after?" |

**Job map rules:**
- Write steps beginning with verbs
- Avoid referencing specific technologies or solutions
- Focus on what the job performer does, not what the product does
- Map the job, not the customer journey (jobs are solution-independent; journeys are solution-specific)

### 4. Needs (Why) — Desired Outcomes

Needs are formulated as desired outcome statements with four elements:

```
[Direction] + [Measure] + [Object] + [Clarifier]
```

| Element | Values | Example |
|---------|--------|---------|
| **Direction** | Minimize, maximize, increase, reduce, avoid | Minimize |
| **Measure** | Time, effort, likelihood, frequency, cost, number | the time |
| **Object** | What is being measured | it takes to find relevant results |
| **Clarifier** | Context that scopes the need | when searching in an unfamiliar category |

**Full example:** "Minimize the **time** it takes to **find relevant results** when **searching in an unfamiliar category**"

**Rules for desired outcomes:**
- One need per statement
- Solution-agnostic (never reference a product or feature)
- Measurable (contains a unit of measure)
- Controllable (the team can design for this)
- Unambiguous (anyone reading it draws the same conclusion)

### 5. Circumstances (When/Where)

Contextual factors that frame job execution:

| Type | Examples |
|------|---------|
| **Temporal** | Time of day, frequency, deadline pressure, first time vs. repeat |
| **Physical** | Location, device, environment (noisy, mobile, desk-bound) |
| **Social** | Alone, with others, being observed, collaborative |
| **Situational** | Emotional state, urgency, stakes (low vs. high consequence) |

Circumstances often matter more than demographics. Two people with identical demographics may hire completely different solutions because their circumstances differ.

---

## Finding Underserved Needs

### The Importance-Satisfaction Framework (Ulwick)

Survey job performers on each desired outcome:

| Question | Scale |
|----------|-------|
| "How important is it to [outcome]?" | 1 (not important) — 10 (extremely important) |
| "How satisfied are you with your current ability to [outcome]?" | 1 (not satisfied) — 10 (extremely satisfied) |

### Opportunity Score

```
Opportunity = Importance + (Importance - Satisfaction)
```

| Score | Interpretation |
|-------|---------------|
| > 15 | Extreme opportunity — major underserved need |
| 12-15 | High opportunity — strong candidate for innovation |
| 10-12 | Moderate opportunity — worth investigating |
| < 10 | Low opportunity — adequately served or not important enough |

### Opportunity Landscape

| | High Satisfaction | Low Satisfaction |
|---|---|---|
| **High Importance** | **Table stakes** — Must maintain. No competitive advantage from improving | **Underserved** — Innovate here. Highest ROI |
| **Low Importance** | **Overserved** — Stop investing. Possible cost reduction | **Low priority** — Ignore. Not worth the effort |

---

## Switch Interviews (Moesta & Spiek)

### The Switch Timeline

Work backward from the moment of purchase/adoption:

```
[First Thought] → [Passively Looking] → [Actively Looking] → [Deciding] → [Consuming] → [Satisfaction]
```

| Phase | What to Ask |
|-------|-----------|
| **First Thought** | "When did you first realize you needed something different?" |
| **Passively Looking** | "What did you start noticing? Were you comparing options yet?" |
| **Actively Looking** | "When did you start actively searching? What did you look for?" |
| **Deciding** | "What was the final trigger? What almost stopped you?" |
| **Consuming** | "What was the first experience like? What surprised you?" |
| **Satisfaction** | "Looking back, did it solve what you hoped?" |

### The Four Forces

| Force | Direction | Interview Signal |
|-------|-----------|-----------------|
| **Push** | Away from current solution | "I was frustrated because..." "It kept failing when..." |
| **Pull** | Toward new solution | "I heard that [new solution] could..." "I saw [colleague] using..." |
| **Anxiety** | Resistance to change | "I was worried about..." "What if it doesn't..." |
| **Habit** | Inertia with current | "I'd already set everything up in..." "My team knows how to..." |

**Strategic implications:**
- To accelerate adoption: Amplify push (make current pain visible) and pull (make new value tangible)
- To reduce churn: Reduce anxiety (offer migration support, trials, guarantees) and increase habit (make your product part of the daily workflow)

---

## JTBD-Driven Personas

Traditional demographic personas ("Sarah, 34, marketing manager, lives in Austin") don't explain behavior. JTBD personas segment by **goals and circumstances** instead.

### Building JTBD Personas

1. **Identify behavior variables** from interviews: How urgently do they need to complete the job? How frequently? How much expertise do they have? What constraints do they face?
2. **Map participants to variables**: Plot interviewees on each dimension
3. **Find clusters**: Groups that share similar goals, circumstances, and behaviors
4. **Describe personas by goals**: Each persona is defined by what they're trying to accomplish and the circumstances that shape how they do it

**Example:**

| Persona | Main Job | Key Circumstance | Hiring Criteria |
|---------|----------|-------------------|-----------------|
| **The Delegator** | Get project visibility | Manages 5+ projects, rarely executes tasks | Speed of overview, automatic roll-up, minimal input required |
| **The Doer** | Track my own work | Individual contributor, 1-2 projects | Simple task management, low overhead, mobile access |
| **The Orchestrator** | Coordinate across teams | Cross-functional role, many stakeholders | Dependencies, timeline views, permission controls |

These personas explain **why** different users need different things — demographics can't do that.

---

## JTBD for Competitive Analysis

JTBD reveals competition that feature-comparison misses:

### Step 1: Determine All Alternatives

Ask: "How do people currently get this job done?" Include:
- Dedicated tools (direct competitors)
- General-purpose tools used for this job (spreadsheets, docs, email)
- Manual processes (pen and paper, whiteboard, sticky notes)
- Workarounds (combining multiple tools)
- Hiring someone (outsourcing the job to a person)
- Not doing it at all (accepting the status quo)

### Step 2: Compare on Job Performance

Rate each alternative on how well it performs each stage of the job map (1-5 scale):

| Job Stage | Your Product | Competitor A | Spreadsheet | Manual Process |
|-----------|-------------|-------------|-------------|---------------|
| Define | 4 | 3 | 2 | 3 |
| Locate | 5 | 4 | 2 | 1 |
| Prepare | 4 | 4 | 3 | 4 |
| Execute | 5 | 5 | 3 | 3 |
| Monitor | 4 | 2 | 2 | 1 |
| Modify | 3 | 2 | 4 | 5 |

This reveals where your product excels AND where "inferior" alternatives outperform you (spreadsheets might be more flexible for modification).

---

## Applying JTBD Across the Organization

| Function | JTBD Application |
|----------|-----------------|
| **Product** | Job mapping to prioritize features by desired outcomes |
| **Marketing** | Messaging based on job and circumstances, not demographics |
| **Sales** | Qualifying leads by the job they're hiring for, not company size |
| **Support** | Listening for the underlying job, not just the surface request |
| **Strategy** | Market definition by job, competitive analysis by alternatives |
| **Onboarding** | Help customers get their first job done, not just learn the product |
