Jobs to Be Done

Emotional jobs define how customers want to feel or avoid feeling as a result of executing the core functional job. Social jobs define how the customer wants to be perceived by others.

Innovation does not necessarily require invention. Innovation is the ability to use technology (existing or new) to address an unmet customer need.

new products and services win in the marketplace if they help customers get a job done better (faster, more predictably, with higher output) and/or more cheaply.

To avoid defining the job to narrowly, work directly with customers to understand not why they bought your product, but how your product fits into what they are trying to accomplish. Ask, “Why are you using that product, what job are you ultimately trying to get done”.

To create a winning value proposition, a company must know why a segment of customers is underserved, along which dimensions they are underserved, and to what degree. Once a company knows those three things, it can define a value proposition in a way that communicates its intent and ability to address all the unmet needs.

Outcome statement = direction of improvement + performance metric + object of control + contextual clarifier

Job statement = verb + object of the verb (noun) + contextual clarifier

While defining the functional job correctly is important, uncovering the customer’s desired outcomes (the metrics they use to measure success when get the job done) is the real key to success at innovation.

in nearly every market, customers do not agree on what needs are unmet. Some customers in nearly every market struggle more than others to get a job done.