JTBD

Jobs to be done
Uncovering unmet needs

Laurence Veale
Introduction
 Our purpose

1. What are you trying to improve?

2. Who are you trying to improve it for

Design and build services that

improves people’s lives.
 The main questions we need to answer

Who is the user?

What are their goals?
1. What are you trying to improve?
2. Who are you trying to improve it for

Why are they doing

it?

Alan Cooper & goal directed

design
Another is Indi Young’s Mental Models

See Indi Young’s M

ental Models
 Not a map, but a
model.
A model is just a framing or a way of
seeing. Ours is merely a “Model” of
our users and their needs.
Now what? A model.
Now, all models are wrong, but some
are useful. One such model is what we
call a persona. There are, of course,
other models, like Indi Young’s mental
models, or JTBD which we’re talking
about today.
JTBD
“People don’t want to buy a
quarter-inch drill. They
want a quarter-inch hole.”
— Theodore Levitt

You’ll see this quote on

8/10 articles about JTBD.
Innovation

“Studies comparing successful and

80%
unsuccessful innovation have found
that the primary discriminator was
the degree to which user needs
OF INNOVATION
PROJECTS FAIL
were fully understood.”
Harvard Business School Professor, David Garvin
What is a ‘need’?

Is there a shared understanding across the team on how we

define a need?
Or on what exactly & precisely our customers’ needs actually
are?
Is there agreement on which of those needs are unmet?
OF INNOVATION
PROJECTS FAIL
If there isn’t, then how can there be agreement on what we
should build and in what order? 
Concept #1: A different lens for looking at needs

The primary unit* of analysis is the

core functional job, i.e. what people
are trying to get done (an outcome).
OF INNOVATION

Example: Listen to music while working out

PROJECTS FAIL
 Defining the core functional job

Defining the job too Defining the job too

narrowly will limit broadly will result in
the discovery of non-actionable
opportunities. insights.

Too Just Too

narro about broad
w right
A quarter inch A quarter inch To hang a To store To show off a book collection on
drill hole bookshelf books Zoom
Concept #2: Desired outcome statements

“the metrics customers use to measure

success when getting a job done”.A
complete set of desired outcome
statements is an important company
asset for years to come as desired
outcomes don’t change (much) over time
—while the solutions that address them
do.
Job: listen to music, while working out

Minimise the time it

DIRECT
ION
MET
RIC

takes to get songs in

the desired order for OUTCO
ME

listening
SOLUTION
CHANGESOVER
TIME
A little closer to home…
A little closer to home…

Minimise the time it

takes to open a
business bank
account
Example: How we arrive at jobs & outcome statements?
Excerpt from a real interview…

So, tell me how you go about understanding how much

money you have to work with.
I spend half the morning just making all these
payments from our 30 different receivable
accounts into our main operational account so
we can then put it to use.

For outcome statement, we could/should have followed with…

So, we could help improve this situation for you if we

reduced the time it takes to make these multiple
payments? Jesus if you could do that I’d kiss you

BIN
GO!
The job map
The job is deconstructed into its discrete process or job steps, which explain in detail exactly what the user is trying to get done (not
tasks).

Job Synonymns What’s happening

steps
Define Plan, Choose, Define the objectives and plan how to
Determine get job done
Locate Gather, Get, Retrieve Gather any information required to
get the job done
Prepar Prepare, Set-up, Organise the materials to get the job
e Organise done
Confir Validate, Prioritise, Ensure everything is ready to get the
m Decide job done
Execut Perform, Do Do the main part of the job
e
Monit Verify, Check Check that job was done as intended
or
Some of the jobs we’ve identified

1. Pay for the products & services we purchase

2. Maintain accurate financial records
3. Manage account reconciliations
4. Know our cash position
5. Forecast future cashflow
6. Get paid for the services/products we’ve provided
7. Provide evidence of business performance
(reporting)
Identifying
Opportunities.
Okay, we’re not done yet.

Now we need to know if the needs we’ve identified

through our qualitative research interviews are actually
worth pursuing i.e. opportunities.
Again, a more precise meaning of ‘opportunity’ is required because:
We may chase ideas that Monzo, Revolut have implemented (but which our customers
don’t actually care about).
We may spend time & money on outcomes that are already satisfied or over-served.
Identifying opportunities

Knowing what features to add to a product to help customers get more of the job
done and/or get the job done better is the key to success in product innovation.

Adding the right features is dependent on knowing what needs are unmet or
underserved.

Now, through quantitative research, we can figure out which needs are most
important and least satisfied (the definition of an opportunity).
The JTBD opportunity survey
Example:
Reduce the effort required to let the
payee know that they have been paid.

How important is this to

you?
Not at all Extremel
How satisfied are you with how you currently do
importan y it? Opportunity =
t importan Importance
t plus (importance
minus satisfaction )
Very Extremel
dissatisfie y
d satisfied
Plotting the opportunities

STA
RT
HER
E!
Where to read
up on JTBD.
Just one more thing

There are two main proponents,

The Clayton Christensen school
and the Tony Ulwick school.
Our bias leans towards the latter.
Everyone has replaced personas
with JTBD, apparently, but good
models are still good models.
There is lots of nonsense on
Twitter and Medium, so think
critically and exercise sound
judgment when reading about it.
But this is a good critique of JTBD.
 Some good books

https://amzn.to/ https://amzn.to/ https://amzn.to/2 https://amzn.to/

3hCkaMK 2ZZE2n4 WYuRkV AUSTRAL
IA
30OShKL
$345,9842
A good blog post: a worse map does a better job

Read the Intercom post about th

eir map
T.Hanks