Why does Jobs to Be Done (JTBD) matter?
It changes who you think you are competing with, which changes almost everything downstream. If you describe your product by its category, your competitors are the other products in that category. If you describe the job, your competitors are everything the customer currently hires to get it done, including a spreadsheet, an assistant, and doing nothing. Most early startups lose to the last of those, and never see it coming because nothing in a competitive matrix represents inertia.
What does Jobs to Be Done (JTBD) look like in practice?
A dental practice does not want scheduling software. The job is closer to "stop losing patients who called while I was with someone." Framed that way, the competition is not other scheduling tools. It is the receptionist's notepad, the answering machine, and accepting the loss. That reframing usually tells you what the product must do on day one, which is rarely the feature list you started with.
What are the common mistakes with Jobs to Be Done (JTBD)?
- Writing the job as a feature request. "Wants an integrated calendar" is a solution; "stop double-booking" is a job.
- Making it so abstract it stops being useful, "wants to grow their business" describes everyone.
- Forgetting that doing nothing is a competitor, and usually the strongest one.
- Assuming one product serves one job. Most serve several, and they are not equally urgent.
Where the term comes from
The milkshake study behind the idea was field research, not a thought experiment. Clayton Christensen's account is that a colleague stood in a McDonald's for eighteen hours taking notes, found about half of all milkshakes were bought before 8:30am by solo customers who left immediately, and on interviewing them discovered the job: a long boring drive to work, and the need for something to stay awake and occupied with.
Clayton Christensen, HBR IdeaCast, December 2016 ↗Related concepts
- Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)A description of the specific kind of customer your product serves best, precise enough that you can tell whether any given company or person qualifies.
- Painkiller vs. VitaminA painkiller solves a problem someone is actively suffering from; a vitamin offers an improvement they agree would be nice. Painkillers get bought, vitamins get postponed.
- Problem Validation vs. Solution ValidationTwo separate tests: whether the problem is real and painful enough that people already do something about it, and whether your particular solution is one they would use and pay for.