Jobs to be done
Theory to Practice
"Jobs to Be Done" presents a systematic approach to understanding customer needs and developing successful products. The book introduces Outcome-Driven Innovation® (ODI), a systematic process for transforming customer jobs into actionable insights for product development.
The book challenges traditional "ideas-first" innovation approaches, arguing instead for a needs-first methodology. It provides specific frameworks for identifying customer jobs, desired outcomes, and unmet needs that can more accurately predict product success.
Ulwick demonstrates how understanding the full scope of a customer's job-to-be-done—including functional, emotional, and social dimensions—enables organizations to create products that deliver measurable value improvements of 20% or more, which he identifies as the threshold for successful innovation.
By reading "Jobs to Be Done," you will:
- Master the complete Jobs-to-Be-Done framework: Understand how to identify core functional, related, and emotional/social jobs to create comprehensive product strategies.
- Apply systematic need-finding methods: Learn to identify 50-150 desired outcomes for any job, enabling thorough market analysis and opportunity identification.
- Implement the Outcome-Driven Innovation Process: Use quantifiable metrics to evaluate product opportunities and guide innovation decisions.
- Develop effective market segmentation strategies: Learn to segment markets based on unmet needs rather than demographics or psychographics.
Books to Follow
- "What Customers Want" by Anthony Ulwick Provides a deeper exploration of the Outcome-Driven Innovation methodology
- "Competing Against Luck" by Clayton Christensen: Offers complementary perspective on Jobs-to-Be-Done theory.
- "The Innovator's Solution" by Clayton Christensen: Explores disruptive innovation in the context of customer jobs
- "Value Proposition Design" by Alex Osterwalder: Provides tools for designing solutions around customer jobs.
Needs-First vs. Ideas-First Approach
Innovation success comes from understanding customer needs before generating solutions. The book shows why starting with ideas is fundamentally flawed and provides a structured approach to uncovering customer needs first.
Job Definition Framework
Every job-to-be-done consists of multiple components:
- Core functional job (main task to be accomplished)
- 50-150 desired outcomes (success metrics)
- Related jobs (supporting tasks)
- Emotional and social jobs (how customers want to feel/be perceived)
- Consumption chain jobs (pre/post product usage tasks)
20% Value Improvement Threshold
To succeed in the market, products must deliver at least a 20% improvement in performance. This metric provides a clear threshold for evaluating innovation opportunities.
Market Segmentation by Needs
Markets should be segmented based on unmet needs rather than demographics or psychographics. This approach reveals distinct groups of customers with similar sets of unmet needs.
Growth Strategy Framework
Four distinct strategies based on serving over/underserved segments:
- Differentiated: Better but more expensive (targeting underserved)
- Disruptive: Cheaper but worse (targeting overserved)
- Dominant: Better and cheaper (targeting all)
- Discrete: Worse but expensive (niche situations)
Q: How do you properly define a job-to-be-done?
A: A job should be stable over time, solution-agnostic, and have no geographical boundaries. It should be written as a single sentence describing what the customer is trying to accomplish without including emotional or social aspects (which are captured separately).
Q: What’s the difference between jobs and outcomes?
A: Jobs describe what customers are trying to accomplish, while outcomes are the metrics customers use to measure success in getting the job done. A job typically has 50-150 associated outcome statements defining success criteria.
Q: How do you know if there’s a real market opportunity?
A: Opportunities exist when important customer needs are unmet. The book systematically measures both importance and satisfaction levels for each outcome, revealing unmet needs that represent innovation opportunities.
Q: How do you decide which growth strategy to pursue?
A: The choice depends on whether you’re targeting overserved or underserved customers and your ability to deliver better performance at different price points. The book provides a framework for matching strategies to market conditions and company capabilities.
- When developing new products: You need a systematic approach to identify real market opportunities and validate product concepts before investment
- During product strategy formation: You’re determining which market segments to target and what value propositions to develop
- When facing market challenges: Your current products aren’t achieving desired market success, and you need a more reliable innovation approach
- Before significant R&D investments: You want to ensure development efforts focus on real customer needs with quantifiable market opportunities
