Jobs-to-be-Done

Your customers rarely buy a product or service simply for what it is. They buy it because they are trying to make progress in a particular situation: solve a problem, achieve an outcome or avoid an unwanted result.

Jobs-to-be-done is a framework that helps you describe that underlying reason for buying. It shifts your attention away from product features and towards what your customer is actually trying to accomplish.

The familiar adage is that customers do not want a drill; they want a hole. Jobs-to-be-done goes further. A customer may want the hole so they can hang a picture that decorates their home and reminds them of important people or moments. Or they may want to hang a shelf that helps them organise their workshop.

In other words, jobs-to-be-done helps you identify what your customer really wants or needs, and the problem they are trying to solve.

Look beyond the functional job

The job is not only the practical task a customer needs to complete. It also includes the gains they hope to achieve and the pains they want to avoid while satisfying that need.

Take the drill example. For someone hanging a picture, the functional job may be to create a secure fixing in the wall. The gains they want could include:

• Making their home look more attractive
• Impressing friends and family
• Displaying a memory, person or moment that matters to them

The pains they want to avoid could include:

• Making a mess while drilling
• Damaging the wall
• Drilling in the wrong place
• Finding that the picture is uneven or insecure

When you understand the full job, including the desired gains and avoided pains, you can see opportunities that would be missed by focusing only on the drill itself. Could your offering make the task cleaner, safer, quicker or more accurate? Could it help the customer achieve a more satisfying result?

Why jobs-to-be-done matters for strategy

Jobs-to-be-done helps you make sure that your offering satisfies customer needs as completely as possible. It can help you:

• Design products and services around the outcomes customers value
• Identify useful additional features, services or support
• Spot opportunities for new products and services for existing customers
• Improve how you position and promote your offering
• Challenge assumptions based on customer demographics or existing product categories

This makes the framework particularly useful when you are looking for better ways to create customer value. Rather than asking, “How can we sell more of what we already make?”, ask, “What is the customer trying to achieve, and how can we help them do it better?”

Capture jobs-to-be-done in StratNav

In StratNavApp.com, you can capture jobs-to-be-done in Customer Value Maps within the Customer Segment pages. These can be accessed from the Business Model Canvas.

By recording customer jobs, gains and pains alongside your wider business model, you can make clearer strategic choices about where to focus your innovation, product development and marketing effort.

Try StratNav to connect your understanding of customer value with the strategic actions needed to deliver it.