There are hundreds or thousands of innovation and creativity tools that you can use to develop innovative ideas. In today’s post, I will talk about the tool “jobs to be done” framework.

You can use this framework for various aspects related to improvements that you can implement in your business. In this series of posts about tools, apart from innovation and creativity, I will also cover product development, product launch, productivity, sales, marketing, management, and specific tools designed for startups.

The construction of this post is in the following parts:

• Introduction. For each tool, I will cover the introduction, in which I discuss the basics of the tool, its needs, why this tool is important, and when you can use it.
• Examples. I will describe each tool with several real-life examples that can help you to understand it more easily.
• Action Steps. All these posts related to tools will cover easy-to-follow action steps that you can put in place in your business.
• Toolkit. You can download a toolkit in a PDF version related to the tool with all the necessary forms to put in place action steps for the particular tool.

Let’s start doing things now.

Jobs to Be Done (Jobs Theory): Introduction

As you know, the innovation process has two general parts. The first one is conceptualization, where you want to bring the best ideas to the table. The second one is operationalization, where you will bring innovation to the market. Conceptualization without operationalization will not bring innovation to your company. Because of that, you need to understand that when you have ideas, you will need to implement them.

On the other side, you cannot start with operationalization if you don’t have fresh ideas that you need to implement. So, you will need tools to ensure that you will have the best possible ideas as a starting point for your innovation. But, the starting point should not be from your company’s viewpoint but from the customer’s perspective to craft effective business strategies.

What is the Jobs to Be Done?

The “job to be done” is a powerful tool. It will help you innovate through ideas about the subject of innovation from the customer’s perspective.

The “Jobs to be done” framework can help you understand that customers don’t buy products and services. They hire different solutions at different times to finish a variety of jobs to be done.

In The Innovator’s Solution, Clayton Christensen argues that customers (humans and companies) have specific “jobs” that arise regularly and must be done. When customers become aware of a job they need to do, they look around for a product or service they can “hire.” Also, Harvard Business School professor Theodore Levitt said that people don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole!

So, observing someone in a particular situation or analyzing customer data can lead you to insights about customer jobs and possibly better ways to do it if you satisfy unmet customer needs.

Jobs Theory

The “Jobs to be done” framework, sometimes called the jobs theory, is a fundamental business theory or concept that categorizes, defines, captures, and organizes customer needs through customer jobs.

When you focus on the jobs to be done by customers, you will create products and services that truly meet customer needs and expectations and, at the same time, deliver customer satisfaction.

The core principles of Jobs Theory include:

1. Customer-centric approach: Jobs Theory highlights understanding customers’ needs and desires rather than just their demographics or characteristics. This approach ensures that, in such a way, your business will focus on what truly matters to customers.
2. Jobs-to-be-done: Customers “hire” products or services to get a specific job done. Understanding this job is crucial for innovation, as it helps your business create solutions that effectively address customer needs.
3. Desired outcomes: Customers have specific desired outcomes when ” hiring” a product or service. These outcomes are crucial to deliver customer satisfaction and ensure that your product or service meets customer expectations.
4. Job mapping: Job mapping is a process of understanding the customer’s job to be done and identifying the specific tasks and activities involved in getting that job done. Such a view through job maps will help you understand your customer needs comprehensively.
5. Outcome-driven innovation: Jobs Theory provides a framework for outcome-driven innovation, which focuses on delivering specific outcomes related to customers and the company itself. This approach ensures that the new product development process will be aligned with the right customer needs and expectations.

Types of Jobs to Be Done

There are different types of jobs from a customer’s perspective: functional jobs, emotional jobs, and consumption chain jobs. Understanding the job executor, the primary individual responsible for executing these jobs, is crucial in designing products that better serve these unique customer roles.

Core Functional Job

A core functional job describes the tasks that a particular customer wants to achieve with your product or service. These jobs are the basis for all products and services because they are the primary function of why they exist on the market. But, often, they are not the most important jobs.

In my experience, many entrepreneurs focus only on a core functional job. They forget the following two types of jobs that often can be more important from the customer’s viewpoint.

Emotional jobs

Emotional jobs are related to feelings and perception. So, they are subjective in their nature. These types of jobs can be the following: feeling safe, looking good, and being connected with others.

As you can see, emotional jobs can take different forms. For example, how they want to be perceived by others as a social job or how they want to feel about themselves as a personal job.

Social jobs are specific categories here related to how a product or service helps a customer fit in or stand out within their social group. These jobs can include things like status, belonging, and influence.

As an entrepreneur, it’s your job to not only focus on the core functional job but also consider the emotional and social jobs that your product or service can fulfill for your customers.

Ancillary jobs

Ancillary jobs are other jobs that customers want to do before, during, or after their core job is done. So, these jobs are anything else in addition to functional and emotional jobs.

Understanding these ancillary jobs is crucial as they often overlap with consumption chain jobs, which include tasks like installation, setup, maintenance, and disposal throughout the product’s lifecycle.

Examples of Jobs to be Done Theory

Now, when we discuss the “Jobs to be Done” (JTBD) framework, let’s look at practical examples for different types of businesses.

Marketing consulting services

For example, if your company sells marketing consulting services, your customers don’t buy your marketing services. They are hiring solutions to increase their own customer base. So, they want more customers, and they need to do the job. Here, the service must enable more customers to be brought into the sales funnel. This is a functional job.

Clothing business

For customers who buy clothes from luxury brands, the functional job is the same as other cheaper clothing products. However, the emotional and social dimensions drive these people to buy these products. So, for luxury brands, the functional job is important, however it is not as important as the emotional and social dimensions.

A Mobile App

Another example is the company that sells a mobile app for invoicing on mobile platforms. They charge monthly usage fees. In this case, the company doesn’t sell the invoicing app. It sells services for mobile entrepreneurs or salespeople who want to create and send invoices without a computer. So, people here are buying services that this mobile app will help them to do the job.

As you can see from these examples of jobs to be done, different jobs will be required at different intensities for different companies based on what they want to achieve. If they want to achieve more luxury perception, emotional and social jobs will be more required. Related jobs will also add additional value to your product or service offerings. You need to do the research and be creative about how you will incorporate these jobs in developing products.

Remember that innovation and creativity are not the same things. However, you can’t be innovative without creativity. Also, creativity will not be valuable if you are not using it properly in the innovation process. This video is a great TED Talk presentation by George Land, who talks about the failure of success. I highly recommend you watch this presentation. We probably need to think much more about what happened to our kids who lost their creativity as they grew.

Steps you need to take to implement “Jobs to Be Done.”

1. Select Your Target Market

As a first step using the jobs-to-be-done framework, you will need to select and describe the target market that will define a job that will need to be done. Also, you will conduct preliminary market research here and clearly define your target audience and customer segments.

Related: How To Reach Your Target Audience and Sell Your Product

Startups can start with something close to an entrepreneur’s competence (knowledge, experience, and skills). On the other side, existing companies will need to consider the next incremental growth of their current market.

For example, if your business sells computers, think about the software and apps market. If your company sells marketing services, you can consider expanding them. For example, sales improvement services can be included.

So, you will need to expand close to your current market. In such a way, you will quickly use your current customer base to discover different jobs.

Also, you can think about your current products and services in the current market to bring innovation to them.

2. Identify Jobs and Customer Needs

In this step of the JTBD framework, you will need to analyze your customer segments to find what they are trying to do related to the selected target market.

Your job is to find a niche that doesn’t exist solutions yet.

What jobs have no existing solutions, or are they not so good for the customers? If you discover jobs required for more than ten customers, you will know you are on the right path.

Here is something that you will need to do to complete this step required by the tool “Jobs to Be Done.”

Observation.

When you know your target market and audience, you need to analyze them to gain as much as possible insights about them. This is important because you want to meet their needs in the future with your innovative solutions.

In my experience, observing job executors from one side and interviews, meetings, and questionnaires, on the other hand, are different in accuracy.

Why? Simply put, customers often don’t want to talk about or answer your questions with total honesty. But, if they don’t know that you are observing them while they are trying to do the job, they will act in reality, and these customer data will become true insights for you.

When it comes to the observation, you will need to:

• Watch people in different situations who are trying to do a job and gain insights about what jobs they want to do;
• Observe processes, companies, and technologies used by people to do a job to find the possible better solutions that you can apply later.

10 Questions while observing customers

Jeff Dyer, Hal Gregersen, and Clayton M. Christensen, in their book “The Innovator’s DNA – Mastering the Five Skills of Disruptive Innovators,” propose ten questions to ask while observing customers:

1. How do customers become aware of a need for your product or service? Is there a way to make it easier or more convenient for them to find your offering?
2. For what customers use your product or service? What job is the customer hiring your product or service to do?
3. What does the customer ultimately consider to be the most important feature when selecting a final product or service? (If the customer has a hundred points to allocate all the features he considers important, how would he allocate them?)
4. How do consumers order and purchase your product? Is there a way you can make it easier, more convenient, or less costly?
5. How do you deliver your product or service? Can you do it faster, cheaper, and in a completely different way?
6. How do customers pay for your product or service? Is there a way to make it easier or more convenient?
7. What frustration do your customers have when trying to use your product? Do they use your product in a way you didn’t expect?
8. What do consumers need help with when they use the product?
9. Do customers do things that hurt the longevity or reliability of your product or service?
10. How do customers repair, service, or dispose of your product? Are there opportunities to make this easier or more convenient (or teach the customer how to use the product so it requires less maintenance or to do self-maintenance)?

Social media, forums, blogs, review sites.

These tools are the potential source of customer data related to the job they are trying to do. Find where they are going to these websites. What are they doing there? What information are they sharing related to their problems, frustrations, needs, and possible solutions?

Also, don’t underestimate the review website or reviews on e-commerce websites such as Amazon. All of them can give you great information about the customer needs that you can use in the JTBD framework.

Here is an example from TrustPilot:

Also, here is another example of customer data from Amazon:

Interview and meetings.

When you collect enough information from previous tools, start using interviews and meetings with your customers. Check the relevancy of already collected data.

Also, you can put in place focus groups with selected current and potential customers to collect extra information.

Marketing and sales department.

Your marketing and sales departments have the most information about your buyers firsthand. They already talk to them. They already know why they buy your products and services or why they decline to buy them.

So, speak with the representatives from these departments to better visualize the jobs of your job executor (customer).

Analyze your internal databases.

You already have your internal databases. There, you can see complaints from your current customers, or frequency, recency, and the amount of money they spend in your company.

You can use all this information to look for insights related to your customers and the job they are trying to do with your products and services.

3. List the Jobs to Be Done

The output from the previous step will be the list of possible jobs. Think about two situations when you create a list of jobs:

• Current solutions – What current solutions do customers use to get the job done?
• New solutions – What can be improved or innovated as a possible new solution that will be better than the current solution?

You have access to all tools and forms required to do tasks related to this tool, which can be downloaded at the end of this article.

4. Categorize the Jobs to Be Done

In this step of the jobs-to-be-done framework, you will need to categorize jobs to be done already discovered with previous steps.

In the list, you will probably have primary jobs and some related jobs to the core jobs. For example, if a person wants to manage their finance more easily, the related job can be easily accessed to the application from all devices. Or, if you find out that the global digital payments market will continuously grow in the following years, you can add additional jobs inside your app for global payments.

There is no standardized way to categorize jobs to be done. Different industries and markets will have different needs when it comes to categorizing. Think about the possible scheme that makes sense for you and your industry. If you can’t categorize discovered jobs, use functional, emotional, and ancillary jobs.

So, try to find a relationship between already discovered jobs and categorize them into no more than five categories.

5. Prioritize Jobs to Be Done

Sometimes, customers are trying to get hundreds of jobs done in a particular industry or market. So, now that you have a list and categories of jobs to be done, the question is which one will need to be the priority for you. Which ones provide the biggest opportunities for you?

You can prioritize the jobs to be done using the importance-satisfaction matrix that will focus on:

• Importance of the job – How much importance do customers place on a specific job to be done?
• Satisfaction with the current solution – How many customers are satisfied with the current solution?

First Quadrant – Poor Opportunity

The first quadrant of the matrix is where the importance and satisfaction are low. Even though there are some possible opportunities, these jobs aren’t something you need to focus on because of low importance. Because of that, this quadrant is classified as a poor opportunity.

Second Quadrant – Big Opportunity

The second quadrant of the matrix is where importance is high and satisfaction is low.

This quadrant is a big opportunity for you. These customers see identified jobs as important for them, and at the same time, the current solution isn’t satisfactory.

So, here is the place for a big win for you. These jobs to be done must be a high priority for you.

Third Quadrant – Poor Opportunity

The third quadrant of the matrix has a high level of importance and satisfaction.

Although it is of great importance, customers are still satisfied with the current solutions. So, they will probably not need or be thirsty for new solutions. These jobs can be your second priority.

Fourth Quadrant – Poor Opportunity

The fourth quadrant of the matrix is of low importance and a high level of satisfaction. These jobs can generate poor opportunities for you. So you need to escape them for future consideration.

6. List the Metrics Customers Use to Measure Success With the Job Done

Now, the last step is to ensure that you will know if and how much progress you have achieved with including jobs to be done into your products.

So, the question is, what metrics do customers use to measure success with the job done? Or how they measure desired outcomes from the job.

There are several metrics that customers may use to measure success with the job done. Some of these include:

1. Time saved. Customers may measure success by how much time they save when completing the job using your product. If your product helps them complete the job faster and more efficiently, they will see it as a success.
2. Cost Savings: Another important metric is how much money they can save by using your product to complete the job. This could include lower costs for supplies or resources needed to complete the job or overall cost savings in their business operations.
3. Health improved. For some jobs, the desired outcome may be related to improving health or wellness. In these cases, customers may measure success by how much their health has improved as a result of using your product.

The Universal Job Map

The Job Map is a tool you can use to understand the customer’s job to be done and identify the tasks and activities involved in getting that job done. It provides a structured approach to understanding customer needs and desired outcomes, helping businesses to innovate effectively.

What is the Job Map?

A Job Map is a visual representation of the customer’s job to be done, including the specific tasks and activities involved in getting that job done. It provides a deep understanding of the customer’s needs and desired outcomes and helps you to identify opportunities for innovation. By mapping out the job, you can see the entire process from the customer’s perspective, uncovering pain points and areas for improvement.

How to Apply the Universal Job Map?

According to Lance A. Bettencourt and Anthony W. Ulwick, who have provided a systematic approach for the development of the customer-centered innovation map, all jobs have a universal structure. In their article in Harvard Business Review, they said:

That universal structure, regardless of the customer, has the following process steps: defining what the job requires; identifying and locating needed inputs; preparing the components and the physical environment; confirming that everything is ready; executing the task; monitoring the results and the environment; making modifications; and concluding the job. Because problems can occur at many points in the process, nearly all jobs also require a problem resolution step.

To apply the Job Map Framework, follow these steps:

1. Define the job to be done

At this stage, you must identify the specific job that the customer is trying to get done. This involves understanding the customer, the core functional job, and any related emotional and ancillary jobs.

For example, for the mobile entrepreneur, an invoicing app will need to allow you to create invoices, make payments, record financial data, etc.

2. Locate

Now, you will have to locate all inputs, including the specific tasks and activities involved in getting that job done. You will base this on the data you have collected about customer needs and pain points. This helps to break down the job into manageable parts and provides a clear picture of the entire process.

3. Prepare

Next, you will create a customer journey map covering all the preparations they will need to make to start doing the job.

For example, if you want to use an invoicing app, you must prepare data from the order before you open the app and create an invoice.

This step is crucial as it allows you to pinpoint specific areas where your product or service can provide additional value through improving the customer experience.

Regarding the same example, you can consider options to take data from your current ordering system or scan the order details list and automatically use it for invoicing. You see how you go through these steps, you simply connect the dots and get ideas for improvements or totally new solutions.

4. Confirm

This stage is a checkpoint where the customer confirms or verifies everything is in place before he proceeds with the job. The customer must ensure that everything he needs is there to execute the job.

For example, when using an invoicing app, the user must confirm that all client details are accurate, check that invoices have been correctly formatted, and ensure that payment methods are set up and functional before sending out bills.

5. Execute

The execute stage of jobs to be done theory is where the customer actually completes the task or job at hand. This could involve physically completing a task, such as building a piece of furniture from an instruction manual, or digitally completing a task, like submitting an online form.

When it comes to our example about the invoicing app, in the execution stage of the jobs to be done framework, the customer will need to log in, click create a new invoice button, create the invoice, check the accuracy of data, and send out the invoices to their clients. This step is crucial as it is the final stage of completing the job and achieving the desired outcome.

6. Monitor

At this stage in the job-to-be-done theory, the job executor monitors the results to ensure that the job is successfully done. Simply, they want to know whether they have successfully done the job.

For the invoicing app, the job executor will monitor the invoices to ensure they have been successfully sent out and received by clients. They may also check if any payments have been made based on the invoices sent.

This monitoring stage is important as it allows the customer to assess the effectiveness of the product or service in helping them complete their job efficiently and accurately.

7. Modify

The modification stage of jobs to be done involves the customer making any necessary modifications or adjustments to their completed job based on their satisfaction level with the product or service.

In the case of our invoicing app, the customer may modify their invoices by adding more details or changing the layout to better suit their needs. They may also make modifications based on feedback from clients or changes in their business processes.

8. Conclude

The final stage of jobs to be done is the conclusion. This involves the customer completing their job and reaching their desired outcome with the help of your product or service.

In our invoicing app example, this would mean the customer sending out their completed invoices to clients and receiving payment on time. This successful conclusion ultimately leads to customer satisfaction, loyalty, and positive word-of-mouth marketing for your business.

JTBD Framework Toolkit

For easy incorporation of the Jobs to Be Done (JTBD) framework, you can download and use the following toolkit: