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The Jobs to Be Done Playbook

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The Jobs to Be Done Playbook

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Highlights

  • Peter Drucker reminds us of a good answer: “There is only one valid definition of business purpose: to create a customer... the business enterprise has two—and only these two—basic functions: marketing and innovation.” (Location 207)
  • businesses exist to create value—value as perceived by customers in satisfying needs (innovation) and value for the company by staying profitable (go-to-market). (Location 209)
  • generating business and customer value is about constantly redeveloping your offering. (Location 227)
  • People don’t “hire” products and services because of the demographic they belong to (e.g., 25–31-year-olds, have a college degree, earn a certain salary); instead, they employ solutions to get a job done. (Location 283)
  • first, meet the functional objectives and then layer the aspirational and emotional aspects onto the solution. (Location 311)
  • broadly into two camps. On the one side, there is the so-called “Switch” school of thought, pioneered by Bob Moesta. Through qualitative interviews, the Switch technique seeks (Location 319)
  • Tony Ulwick’s Outcome-Driven Innovation (ODI), (Location 323)
  • your goal is to make products people want, as well as make people want your products. (Location 353)
  • 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. (Location 376)
  • 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. (Location 379)
  • 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. (Location 397)
  • 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. Or user stories in Agile could be generated and organized based on jobs. Lean experiments could be framed around hypotheses statements that are grounded in JTBD research. (Location 422)
  • Clayton Christensen, Taddy Hall, Karen Dillon, and David S. Duncan, Competing Against Luck (New York: HarperBusiness, 2016) “A job to be done is your customers’ struggle for progress and creating the right solution and attendant set of experiences to ensure you solve your customers’ jobs well.” Bob Moesta, "Bob Moesta on Jobs-to-be-Done," interview by Des Traynor, Inside Intercom (podcast), May 12, 2016 “A job is really the process of making progress... It’s helping them understand the struggles they have to go through to get to the progress they want... Remember, it’s not Jobs—it’s Jobs-to-Be-Done. It’s about the thing they want to do better, and that’s where innovation has to be.” Anthony Ulwick, “What Is Jobs-to-be-Done?” JTBD+ODI (blog), February 28, 2017 “The theory is based on the notion that people buy products and services to get a ‘job’ done. A ‘job’ is a statement of what the customer is trying to achieve or accomplish in a given situation.” Sandra M. Bates, The Social Innovation Imperative (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2012) “Jobs are defined as the goals and objectives that people want to accomplish or what they are trying to prevent or avoid... Jobs are what motivate people to buy a product or service such as an iPhone, which enables them to ‘be productive while on the go,’ or auto insurance so they can protect against financial loss in the case of an accident.’’ Lance Bettencourt, Service Innovation (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2010) “What the customer values is the ability to get a job done well. The customer job therefore offers a stable, long-term focal point for the improvement of current services or the creation of new-to-the-world services. Ultimately customers are loyal to the job.” Mike Boysen, “What #JobsToBeDone Is, and Is Not,” Medium (blog), December 2017 “A Job is a goal or objective; or a problem that must be solved in order to create a desired future-state. Yes, it’s progress as we are moving from a current-state to a future-state (in getting the job done). Executing a process or Job is progress. Solving problems is progress. Achieving goals and objectives is progress.” Stephen Wunker, Jessica Wattman, and David Farber, Jobs to Be Done: A Roadmap for Customer-Centered Innovation (New York: AMACON, 2016) “While jobs are the tasks the customers are looking to get done in their lives, job drivers are the underlying contextual elements that make certain jobs more or less important.” Alan Klement, When Coffee and Kale Compete, 2nd Ed. (Self-published, 2018) “A Job to Be Done is the process a consumer goes through whenever she evolves herself through buying and using a product. It begins when the customer becomes aware of the possibility to evolve. It continues as long as the desired progress is sought. It ends when the consumer realizes new capabilities and behaves differently, or abandons the idea of evolving.” Des Traynor in Intercom on Jobs-to-be-Done, (Self-published, 2016) “Jobs-to-be-Done... lets you focus on making things… (Location 448)

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title: The Jobs to Be Done Playbook longtitle: The Jobs to Be Done Playbook author: Jim Kalbach, Micahel Tanamachi, and Michael Schrage url: , source: kindle last_highlight: 2020-07-05 type: books tags:

The Jobs to Be Done Playbook

rw-book-cover

Metadata

Highlights

  • Peter Drucker reminds us of a good answer: “There is only one valid definition of business purpose: to create a customer... the business enterprise has two—and only these two—basic functions: marketing and innovation.” (Location 207)
  • businesses exist to create value—value as perceived by customers in satisfying needs (innovation) and value for the company by staying profitable (go-to-market). (Location 209)
  • generating business and customer value is about constantly redeveloping your offering. (Location 227)
  • People don’t “hire” products and services because of the demographic they belong to (e.g., 25–31-year-olds, have a college degree, earn a certain salary); instead, they employ solutions to get a job done. (Location 283)
  • first, meet the functional objectives and then layer the aspirational and emotional aspects onto the solution. (Location 311)
  • broadly into two camps. On the one side, there is the so-called “Switch” school of thought, pioneered by Bob Moesta. Through qualitative interviews, the Switch technique seeks (Location 319)
  • Tony Ulwick’s Outcome-Driven Innovation (ODI), (Location 323)
  • your goal is to make products people want, as well as make people want your products. (Location 353)
  • 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. (Location 376)
  • 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. (Location 379)
  • 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. (Location 397)
  • 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. Or user stories in Agile could be generated and organized based on jobs. Lean experiments could be framed around hypotheses statements that are grounded in JTBD research. (Location 422)
  • Clayton Christensen, Taddy Hall, Karen Dillon, and David S. Duncan, Competing Against Luck (New York: HarperBusiness, 2016) “A job to be done is your customers’ struggle for progress and creating the right solution and attendant set of experiences to ensure you solve your customers’ jobs well.” Bob Moesta, "Bob Moesta on Jobs-to-be-Done," interview by Des Traynor, Inside Intercom (podcast), May 12, 2016 “A job is really the process of making progress... It’s helping them understand the struggles they have to go through to get to the progress they want... Remember, it’s not Jobs—it’s Jobs-to-Be-Done. It’s about the thing they want to do better, and that’s where innovation has to be.” Anthony Ulwick, “What Is Jobs-to-be-Done?” JTBD+ODI (blog), February 28, 2017 “The theory is based on the notion that people buy products and services to get a ‘job’ done. A ‘job’ is a statement of what the customer is trying to achieve or accomplish in a given situation.” Sandra M. Bates, The Social Innovation Imperative (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2012) “Jobs are defined as the goals and objectives that people want to accomplish or what they are trying to prevent or avoid... Jobs are what motivate people to buy a product or service such as an iPhone, which enables them to ‘be productive while on the go,’ or auto insurance so they can protect against financial loss in the case of an accident.’’ Lance Bettencourt, Service Innovation (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2010) “What the customer values is the ability to get a job done well. The customer job therefore offers a stable, long-term focal point for the improvement of current services or the creation of new-to-the-world services. Ultimately customers are loyal to the job.” Mike Boysen, “What #JobsToBeDone Is, and Is Not,” Medium (blog), December 2017 “A Job is a goal or objective; or a problem that must be solved in order to create a desired future-state. Yes, it’s progress as we are moving from a current-state to a future-state (in getting the job done). Executing a process or Job is progress. Solving problems is progress. Achieving goals and objectives is progress.” Stephen Wunker, Jessica Wattman, and David Farber, Jobs to Be Done: A Roadmap for Customer-Centered Innovation (New York: AMACON, 2016) “While jobs are the tasks the customers are looking to get done in their lives, job drivers are the underlying contextual elements that make certain jobs more or less important.” Alan Klement, When Coffee and Kale Compete, 2nd Ed. (Self-published, 2018) “A Job to Be Done is the process a consumer goes through whenever she evolves herself through buying and using a product. It begins when the customer becomes aware of the possibility to evolve. It continues as long as the desired progress is sought. It ends when the consumer realizes new capabilities and behaves differently, or abandons the idea of evolving.” Des Traynor in Intercom on Jobs-to-be-Done, (Self-published, 2016) “Jobs-to-be-Done... lets you focus on making things… (Location 448)