Week 28 -🕵️♀️ Uncover Your Customer’s Deepest Needs 💡: How Jobs-to-be-Done Can Revolutionize Your Product Strategy
Week 28 -🕵️♀️ Uncover Your Customer’s Deepest Needs 💡: How Jobs-to-be-Done Can Revolutionize Your Product Strategy
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"Jobs to be done is like being a detective, but instead of solving crimes, you're solving customer cravings. It's the Scooby Doo of business strategy." 🕵️♀️ 🍔 🍟
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💯 Framework // Concept // Mental Model
Uncover Your Customers' Deepest Needs 💡: How Jobs-to-be-Done Can Revolutionize Your Product Strategy
In today’s world, companies are constantly competing to deliver the best products or services that capture their customers’ hearts. But how do they achieve this feat? How do they know what their customers truly want? Enter the Jobs-to-be-Done (JTBD) framework. 🕵️♂️ 🔍
The JTBD framework is a powerful tool for understanding customer needs and identifying opportunities for innovation. This framework is now widely adopted across various industries.
Image Source: https://www.techmagic.co/blog/jobs-to-be-done/
In simple terms, the JTBD framework asks, “What job is your product hired to do?” A product is not merely a collection of features or benefits, but rather, it is a tool that customers use to get a specific job done. For example, people don't buy a lawnmower just to cut the grass, but rather to maintain a beautiful lawn. Understanding the higher purpose of a product enables companies to focus their efforts on meeting customer needs and developing innovative solutions that satisfy those needs.
In this post, Lets go through the steps of using the Jobs to be Done framework, and provide a real-life example that showcases its effectiveness. 📝 💯
Here are eight steps to follow when applying the JTBD framework
🕵️♀️ Identify the Jobs Customers Want to Get Done
To begin, you should look beyond their products and services and identify the jobs their customers are trying to accomplish. This requires studying customers and understanding their goals and pain points. By identifying jobs that have ad hoc solutions or no good solutions, companies can uncover opportunities for innovation.
Let's say you're running a fitness tracking app. Some jobs that customers may be trying to accomplish when they use your app could include:
Monitoring their progress towards fitness goals
Staying motivated to exercise regularly
Getting personalized exercise recommendations
Tracking the amount of calories burned during a workout
Connecting with friends to compete and collaborate on fitness goals
📊 Categorize the Jobs to be Done
Once you have identified the jobs customers want to get done, the next step is to categorize them. There are two types of JTBDs: main jobs to be done, which describe the task customers want to achieve, and related jobs to be done, which customers want to accomplish in conjunction with the main jobs. Within each of these two types of JTBDs, there are functional job aspects, which are the practical and objective customer requirements, and emotional job aspects, which are the subjective customer requirements related to feelings and perception. Emotional job aspects are further broken down into personal and social dimensions.
https://www.productboard.com/glossary/jobs-to-be-done-framework/
For the fitness tracking app, we could categorize the jobs to be done like this:
Main jobs to be done:
Monitor progress towards fitness goals
Stay motivated to exercise regularly
Related jobs to be done:
Get personalized exercise recommendations
Track the amount of calories burned during a workout
Connect with friends to compete and collaborate on fitness goals
Functional job aspects:
Accurate tracking of exercise and progress
Relevant and personalized exercise recommendations
Emotional job aspects:
Feeling accomplished and motivated after completing a workout
Feeling connected to a community of like-minded people with similar fitness goals
Personal dimension:
Feeling proud of progress and accomplishments
Feeling confident and empowered by exercise
Social dimension:
Feeling supported and encouraged by friends and community
Feeling validated and respected by others for making a commitment to fitness
👥 Define Competitors
It is important to define competitors based on the jobs they are hired to do. This helps companies understand what products are in a customer’s consideration set for a specific job and which products are competing with their own.
Some competitors for the fitness tracking app could include:
Other fitness tracking apps (such as Fitbit or MyFitnessPal)
Personal trainers or fitness coaches
Gyms or fitness studios
Workout videos or online fitness programs
📊 Analyze the Competition
Once companies have identified their competitors, they need to analyze them. This involves understanding their strengths and weaknesses and the jobs they are hired to do. Companies should also analyze the gaps in the market and identify areas where they can differentiate themselves from the competition.
📝 Create Job Statements
Job statements are a critical part of the JTBD framework. A job statement should include an action verb, the object of the action, and clarification of the context in which the job is performed. For example, a job statement for a music streaming service could be: "Organize and manage music for personal use while on the go."
Job statements for the fitness tracking app could include:
"I want to monitor my progress towards my fitness goals so I can see the results of my hard work."
"I want to stay motivated to exercise regularly so I can feel good about my health and fitness."
"I want to get personalized exercise recommendations so I can challenge myself and make progress."
"I want to track the amount of calories burned during a workout so I can see the impact of my exercise on my body."
"I want to connect with friends to compete and collaborate on fitness goals so I can stay accountable and motivated."
📌 Prioritize the JTBD Opportunities
After identifying and categorizing the jobs customers want to get done, companies need to prioritize the opportunities. They can do this by using a Likert scale to ask customers how important a job is and how satisfied they are with existing solutions or can dig deep to uncover what is a priority to the customer. This helps companies identify under-served and over-served JTBDs.
Using a Likert scale, the fitness tracking app could ask customers how important each job is and how satisfied they are with the app's current ability to help them accomplish that job. This could help the app identify which jobs are most important and which ones need improvement.
💡 Develop Solutions
With a clear understanding of customer needs and the competition, companies can now begin to develop solutions. The focus should be on creating solutions that satisfy the customer's unmet needs and that are better than existing solutions.
Based on the prioritized JTBD opportunities, the fitness tracking app could develop solutions to improve customer satisfaction with the app. For example, if customers identified "getting personalized exercise recommendations" as an important job, the app could develop a feature that uses machine learning to recommend workouts based on the customer's fitness level and preferences.
🧪 Test and Refine Solutions
Finally, companies need to test and refine their solutions. This involves getting feedback from customers and making necessary changes to the solution to reflect that.
The fitness tracking app could test the new feature with a small group of customers to see how it improves their satisfaction with the app. Based on feedback, the app could make changes and iterate on the solution to make it even better.
Measure and Monitor Success
Finally, the fitness tracking app could measure and monitor the success of the new feature by tracking customer satisfaction and usage metrics. If the feature is successful, the app could consider expanding it or developing new features to help customers accomplish other important jobs.
Conclusion
The Jobs to be Done framework is a powerful approach to product management that allows you to focus on the goals and outcomes your customers want to achieve. It helps you identify the underlying motivations of your customers and create products that address those motivations. This framework is based on the idea that customers "hire" products to do a specific job or task, and they "fire" them when they fail to deliver.
Once you have gone through these steps, you will have a better understanding of the needs of your customers and be in a better position to develop products that meet their needs. By using the Jobs to be Done framework, you can create innovative solutions that address real customer problems and differentiate your products from the competition. With a deep understanding of customer needs and the right strategies in place, you can unlock the potential of your product and create a successful product strategy.
🎧 Youtube - Milkshake example
Innovation can be a tricky thing. Companies often look to improve upon their existing products, but how can they be sure they're actually solving a real problem for their customers? This is where the Jobs to be Done (JTBD) framework comes in.
Take the case of McDonald's milkshakes. When McDonald's approached Clayton Christensen, a Harvard Business School professor and disruptive innovation expert, for help in innovating their milkshake line, Christensen asked them a simple question: what is the "Job" of a McDonald's milkshake?
At first, the answer seemed obvious: people want a tasty, refreshing drink. But through the JTBD framework, Christensen and his team dug deeper and identified the real Jobs to be Done by a McDonald's milkshake. They found that the milkshake was actually "hired" by morning commuters looking for something filling and easy to consume during their long drive to work.
By focusing on this specific Job to be Done, McDonald's was able to redesign their milkshake to better meet the needs of their target market. They made the shake thicker and more filling, with a wider straw that allowed commuters to drink it one-handed while driving. This not only satisfied their customers' needs, but also led to an increase in sales, as the market for milkshakes was actually seven times larger than McDonald's had previously thought.
This example highlights the power of the Jobs to be Done framework. By understanding the real Jobs that their products are hired to do, companies can create more effective and innovative solutions that truly meet their customers' needs. So the next time you're looking to improve your product, ask yourself: what is the Job that your product is hired to do? The answer might just surprise you!
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