Jobs-To-Be-Done: Uncover Your Customers’ Hidden Needs In 4 Steps
Including free access to a customized JTBD GPT and printable checklist, this is the only guide you’ll ever need for your product discovery.
Over the past few months, I’ve been on a deep dive into the world of customer discovery and the Jobs to Be Done (JTBD) framework. This comprehensive, step-by-step guide is the result of extensive research, several experiments, and even a custom GPT designed for JTBD.
🎙️ What makes this guide extra special? It includes insights from my interview with Tony Ulwick, one of the JTBD framework’s creators, on my podcast.
📋 As a bonus, I’m offering a downloadable checklist for easy reference and access to my custom GPT.
This isn’t just a tool; it’s your personal coach for tailoring the JTBD framework to meet your unique needs. Curious to see it in action? Check the sneak peek video below and scroll to the 📚 resource section to get access!
Note: This guide represents a streamlined adaptation of the framework, to which I have added my own spin. The aim is to remove redundancies and distill it down to only the most essential steps without compromising effectiveness.
First things first, what exactly is Jobs To Be Done (JTBD)?
The JTBD framework is an approach that shifts the focus from products to the customer’s needs. It centers around understanding the ‘job’ or task that a customer needs to accomplish using a product or service. In essence, the customer ‘hires’ the product or service to complete this job.
The JTBD framework’s advantage lies in its ability to concentrate on addressing problems rather than focusing on any specific solutions.
To illustrate this concept, here are two simple examples:
- Ride-Sharing Services (e.g., Uber or Lyft):
- Traditional View: A customer uses a ride-sharing app to book a car.
- JTBD View: The customer’s job is to reach a destination quickly and comfortably, avoiding the hassles of driving or parking. The ride-sharing service is hired not just for transport but for convenience and efficiency.
2. Coffee Shops (e.g., Starbucks):
- Traditional View: Customers visit coffee shops to purchase coffee.
- JTBD View: While buying coffee is one aspect, customers also ‘hire’ the coffee shop as a place to meet friends, work, or relax. The job extends to seeking a pleasant experience and environment.
In each example, JTBD shifts the focus from the product itself (car rides, coffee) to what the customer is really seeking to achieve with these products or services in their daily life.
Three concepts to understand JTBD
To fully grasp JTBD, we need to define three key concepts:
Market = Tony Ulwick redefines a market not as a vertical, geography, or technology but as a group of people and the job they are trying to get done. It’s about discerning what customers truly seek to accomplish with a product or service.
Jobs = In JTBD, a ‘job’ is a task or goal a customer aims to achieve in a particular situation by using a product or service. It’s action-oriented, encompassing functional, emotional, and social dimensions.
Jobs are typically phrased as action-oriented tasks. They should start with a verb and clearly describe what the customer is trying to accomplish. For example:
- “Maintain personal health and fitness.”
- “Plan and enjoy a vacation.”
- “Enhance professional skills.”
Outcomes = These are the desired end-states or goals customers aim for when hiring a product or service for a job. Outcomes are specific, measurable, and define what success looks like for the customer.
Phrasing outcomes should include metrics or standards used by customers to evaluate success. For example:
- “Minimize the time required to plan a vacation itinerary.”
- “Maximize the reliability of maintaining a regular exercise routine.”
- “Ensure the latest industry knowledge is incorporated into skill enhancement.”
How to Apply Jobs-To-Be-Done in 4 steps
Step 1: Initial Market Exploration
Begin by exploring potential markets based on preliminary insights or hypotheses about customer needs. This can involve exploratory research, such as interviews with potential users, market analysis, and studying existing data.
From this exploratory research, identify a range of jobs that potential customers might be trying to get done. These jobs don’t need to be detailed at this stage but should give a broad sense of the tasks or goals your potential customers are trying to achieve.
Based on these identified jobs, narrow down to a specific market that seems most viable or underserved. This is where you define your market in terms of a specific group of people and the core functional job they are trying to get done.
💡 For example, imagine that you are a product manager at Airbnb. By looking at the data and market trends, you notice that a sizable part of your user base is booking stays for longer periods of time (e.g. 1 month or longer) and are traveling solo. You decide therefore to explore this potential market.
So instead of saying “we are targeting the travel industry” (a vertical), say “we are targeting solo travelers looking to connect with local cultures” (a group of people and their emotional job) or “we are targeting solo travelers looking for long term temporary accommodation” (a functional job).
Step 2: Collect all the customer’s Jobs and Outcomes
The second step in applying the JTBD framework is to collect all the jobs customers are trying to get done when interacting with your product and the outcomes they want to achieve for each job. The end result should be two extensive lists, one for jobs and one for outcomes, phrased as we have seen in the examples above.
The best way to collect jobs and outcomes at this stage is through qualitative user interviews, to understand what your users’ goals are and what they are trying to accomplish.
But rather than spending countless hours in user interviews, here is a hack Tony Ulwick suggests to speed things up and make the process more efficient:
Take the top 2–3 experts in your market and organize an interview with them at the same time, either virtually or in person. Divide the session into 2 slots (either the same day or different days) — one for jobs and one for outcomes. For each session, try to get the experts to agree on:
- A list of the jobs they are trying to get done
- How to formulate the job statements
- A list of outcomes they want to achieve for each job
- How to formulate the outcome statements
💡 Here is how I would apply the framework following our example of a product manager at Airbnb exploring the market of solo travelers/digital nomads looking for accommodation:
- Identify top contributors in digital nomad online groups and communities (e.g. Facebook, Reddit, NomadList)
- Invite 3 of them for 2 rounds of interviews on separate days, with all of them together
- In the first round, focus on capturing jobs they try to get done when booking accommodation. Ask questions like:
“Can you walk me through finding accommodation as a digital nomad?”
“What factors do you consider when choosing where to stay?”
4. Turn job findings into job statements (see table below)
5. In the second round with the same experts, focus on outcomes wanted for each job. Ask questions like:
“Let’s discuss finding budget-friendly places with good connectivity. What does success look like here?”
“How do you know if an accommodation meets your needs?”
“What factors determine a successful stay?”
6. Turn outcome findings into outcome statements (see table below)
7. Interview more people to confirm findings or get additional insights if needed.
By the end, I should have properly stated jobs and outcomes lists like:
Side note 1: During this process, you may discover that your product addresses only part of the job. This is common and highlights potential market opportunities.
Side note 2: I can provide more specifics on user interviews for JTBD if helpful. Leave me a comment. You might also want to check this article that illustrates how I structure user interviews.
Step 3: Uncover Unmeet Needs
After compiling your jobs and outcomes statements, the next step is to identify your customers’ unmet needs. The objective here is to determine which jobs are of the utmost importance to most of your audience.
To accomplish this, design a survey that lists each job along with its associated outcomes, asking participants to rate them for importance and satisfaction. Here’s a suggested format:
a. When attempting to [job], how crucial is it for you to [outcome statement]?
- Options range from ‘Not important at all’ to ‘Extremely important.’
b. How satisfied are you with your ability to [outcome]?
- Options range from ‘Not satisfied at all’ to ‘Extremely satisfied.’
Example:
💡 Job: Find accommodations suitable for long-term stays.
Question a: When trying to find accommodations suitable for long-term stays, how important is it to you that you minimize the time required to identify accommodations offering long-term stay discounts for extended travels?
- Not important at all
- Not important
- Somewhat important
- Important
- Very important
- Extremely important
Question b: How satisfied are you with your ability to minimize the time required to identify accommodations offering long-term stay discounts for extended travels?
- Not satisfied at all
- Not satisfied
- Somewhat satisfied
- Satisfied
- Very satisfied
- Extremely satisfied
Survey Sample Size and Conditions:
- B2B: 120–180 clients
- B2C: Around 600 for a single product; 1200 for a portfolio
- Survey Duration: Approximately 20 minutes, with participant compensation recommended.
Step 4: Prioritize Unmeet Needs
Upon receiving the survey results, focus on prioritizing the unmet needs. Look for needs rated as very or extremely important but not very or extremely satisfied.
💡 Using our Airbnb example, let’s visualize the survey results on a graph. Each point represents a job, plotted according to its importance and satisfaction ratings. The red dashed lines at 75% help categorize jobs based on their levels of importance and satisfaction.
Next, calculate the Opportunity Score for each job using the formula:
Opportunity Score = Importance+(Importance−Satisfaction)In our example from the graph, the following jobs stand out:
- Long-term Stay Discounts (importance 70% satisfaction 40%)
- Reliable Internet Connection: (importance 85% satisfaction 50%)
- Social Interaction Opportunities: (importance 65% satisfaction 45%)
- Affordable Comfort (importance 55% satisfaction 40%)
When we calculate the opportunity score, here are our top priorities:
- Reliable Internet Connection (Opportunity Score: 120)
- Long-term Stay Discounts (Opportunity Score: 100)
- Social Interaction Opportunities (Opportunity Score: 85)
- Affordable Comfort (Opportunity Score: 70)
And now? What happens next
With your priorities established, it’s time to shift from problem identification to solution creation. Focus on developing solutions for the top-priority jobs starting with “Reliable Internet Connection,” then moving to “Long-term Stay Discounts” and so forth. The outcome statement of each job will be your measure of success or noth star metric.
For jobs with more complex needs, like ‘Social Interaction Opportunities,’ investigate in greater detail to understand the specific nuances and contexts in which they are performed.
📚 Helpful resources:
- Access to the JTBD custom GPT + the JTBD checklist (Notion Template): a guide to help you step-by-step in applying JTBD specifically to your needs (requires a subscription to ChatGPT Plus)
- Watch my interview with Tony for practical applications of JTBD (including his experience applying the framework at Twitter)
- Explore Tony Ulwick’s JTBD book for an in-depth deep dive
👉 Need personalized assistance for your team? Book a discovery call to work with me.
