To be transparent, my approach is a loose interpretation of ODI, but it is not presented here as practiced by Ulwick’s firm Strategyn. I’ve also practiced Switch techniques, and I follow the work of Bob Moesta closely. In working with both approaches, I have found a growing group of practitioners who benefit from a wide variety of JTBD techniques. This book strives to bring both perspectives together under one broad practice of JTBD.
Overall, JTBD is not a single method: it’s a lens, a way of seeing. JTBD lets you step back from your business and understand the objectives of the people you serve. To innovate, don’t ask customers about their preferences, but instead understand their underlying intent. Ultimately, JTBD seeks to reduce the inherent risk in innovation and ensure product-market fit from the outset.
There are many techniques that fall under the JTBD umbrella, and we’ll look at many of the more popular ones that have surfaced over the past three decades throughout this book.
Principles of JTBD
At its core, JTBD is a way for organizations to look at needs and objectives rather than demographic and psychographic characteristics. JTBD theory predicts human behavior: individuals are motivated to make progress toward an objective. If an organization knows in advance what drives customer behavior, it has a better chance at creating successful solutions. Regardless of technique or interpretation of JTBD, there are five common principles many people in the field agree upon.
1. People employ products and services to get their job done, not to interact with your organization.
JTBD doesn’t look at the relationship that people have to a given solution or brand, but rather how a solution fits into their world. The aim is to understand their problems before coming up with solutions.
To be clear, JTBD is not about customer journeys or experiences with product, which assume a relationship to a given provider. Customer journey investigations seek to answer questions such as: When do people first hear about a given solution? How did they decide to select the organization’s offerings? What keeps them using it? These are all important questions to answer, but they also don’t get to the underlying job.
JTBD, on the other hand, focuses on the relationships that people have with reaching their own objectives. A given solution may or may not be employed in the process, but the job exists nonetheless, independent of any one provider. From this perspective, companies should also consider whether or not customers even want what they provide. Innovation often comes when a current means to an end is avoided altogether or absorbed into another process, thus eliminating the rationale for having the product or service to begin with.
2. Jobs are stable over time, even as technology changes.
The jobs people are trying to get done are not only solution agnostic, but they also don’t change with technology advancements. References to solutions (products, services, methods, etc.) are carefully avoided in JTBD vernacular. Consequently, JTBD research typically has a long shelf life. It is foundational insight that can be applied across projects and departments over time.
For instance, 75 years ago when people prepared their taxes, they used pen and paper for all calculations and submissions. Later, they used pocket calculators to help with the numbers and sums. These days, completing taxes is done with sophisticated software and online filing solutions that didn’t exist 50 years ago. Though technology changed, the job remains the same: file taxes.
3. People seek services that enable them to get more of their job done quicker and easier.
New opportunities come from investigating the process of what people are trying to achieve. Mapping the job, not the buying journey, provides unique insight. Customers value getting a job done better.
The Apple digital music ecosystem, for example, allows music enthusiasts to streamline how they listen to music. Not only can they listen to music on an iPod or iPhone, but they can also acquire and manage music with the iTunes system. Integrating various jobs—acquiring, managing, and listening to music—all in a single platform provided incredible market advantage. These days, streaming music services get that job done even better, but the job is the same.
4. Making the job the unit of analysis makes innovation more predictable.
In a time when businesses are encouraged to “fail fast” and “break things,” JTBD offers a more structured way to find solutions that resonate with customers in advance. Although there is no guarantee, understanding individuals’ objectives and needs provides more targeted insight from the beginning. Product success isn’t just left to luck or experimentation.
Additionally, making factors like “empathy” the unit of analysis, as seen in Design Thinking, is problematic. When does empathy begin and end? How do you know when teams have achieved empathy? Instead, JTBD provides a concise focus: the job as an objective. Aspects like empathy, emotions, and personal characteristics of users can then be added later in a second phase when developing a particular solution.
5. JTBD isn’t limited to one discipline: it’s a way of seeing that can be applied throughout an organization.
JTBD detaches up-front understanding from implementation. It gives a consistent, systematic approach to understanding what motivates people. As a result, JTBD has broad applicability inside of an organization, beyond design and development. Various teams inside an organization can leverage JTBD:
• Sales can leverage JTBD thinking in customer discovery calls to uncover the objectives and needs that prospects are trying to accomplish.
• Marketing specialists can create more effective campaigns around JTBD by shifting language from features to needs.
• Customer success managers can use JTBD to understand why customers might cancel a subscription.
• Support agents are able to provide better service by first understanding the customer’s job to be done.
• Business development and strategy teams can use insight from JTBD to spot market opportunities, e.g., to help decide the next acquisition target.
Ultimately, JTBD can guide decisions and help craft solutions for any aspect of the business.
Benefits of JTBD
Overall, JTBD provides a human-centered way of viewing people you serve. The approach lets you connect with customers on their own terms. Use JTBD to focus your business on customer needs for improved performance and success.
JTBD is a foundational activity that enjoys longevity. Findings can be valid for years to come, helping you avoid the volatility of opinion-based research. As a result, you should find it is easier to future-proof your offering: since jobs are stable in time, they typically don’t change at a rate faster than solutions do.
More importantly, JTBD shows causality: people act and decide in ways that help them achieve their objective. This, in turn, reveals real opportunities. Your ultimate aim is to use jobs thinking to find those solutions that have a good product-market fit and increase demand.
The effect is that JTBD helps break down silos between units within an organization. The common language fosters cross-departmental collaboration and aligns different teams to consistent targets. JTBD can be part of an overall mindset shift and cultural transformation.
Finally, JTBD is compatible with modern techniques, such as Design Thinking, Agile, and Lean. For instance, take an unmet need from JTBD research and turn it into a “how might we...” statement to kick off empathy-building exercises and ideation.