What is Jobs To Be Done?

The core of the Jobs To Be Done framework is the notion that:

People hire products to complete a job

The classic illustration of this is the milkshake example by Clayton Christensen. He was studying people who bought milkshakes from a fast food chain. If you were asked to quickly come up with new product ideas based only on this information you might come up with ideas like a healthier milkshake, juice drink, or protein drink for example.

His studying uncovered that people bought milkshakes because:

They needed something filling on a long commute
They needed something easy to consume while driving

With this new information, competing products are things which also meet this criteria. This means that a high calorie snack bar is competing with the milkshake, not a juice drink that would leave you feeling empty after a few minutes.

Breaking down a job

Jobs can be written down using the following framework:

Rough job outline
Situational context
Emotional part of job
Social part of job
Functional part of job

Rough job outline

After the user has finished telling you about their solution and their problem, dig a little deeper to find out what the core problem is. The 5 why’s will do the trick, but remember, each level of why has information contained within it. Don’t rush asking why, otherwise you will lose information you need for the sections below.

Situational context

Where were you when you made the decision to embark on the job? Were you alone? At home? Is price sensitivity an issue? You are looking for external and internal triggers that cause the emergence of a job to be done — so you know where to find your potential customers, and what state they are in.

Emotional spec

This is deeply personal. This is the why you want that or how you want to feel. It doesn’t matter what the job is, there is always a why, a belief, an imagined world where things are better, bridged by your product. This part of the spec only involves their emotion, their want.

If you like responsibly source things, then walking round in a t-shirt made from carefully sourced cotton will make you feel good. Doubly so if it says this in giant letters so everybody else knows what you believe. This is how they want to be perceived by others.

Functional spec

This part of the spec is all about the low level machinery. I don’t go to the gym because I like treadmills, I go because using a treadmill makes me more fit, and that has an intrinsic value. I am collecting fitness. You have to beware though, selling a product on functionality alone might make you a commodity.

Examples

A job has a varying level of importance in the three categories (emotional, social, functional), for example:

I’m hungry and want a snack — this job has a high functional value (the food), low social value (maybe organic ingredients to show off), and an small emotional value (does eating healthy make you feel good?).

I want to look good so I buy expensive clothes — this job has a low functional value (a shirt is a shirt), high emotional value (high quality products makes me feel good) and a very high social value (I’m trying to impress).