The Core Tenets of Jobs-to-be-Done Theory
With decades of scrutiny in both academic and practitioner settings, these core tenets of Jobs Theory have emerged as the building blocks of predictable growth.
Science is about process: observing, making inferences about those observations, and then performing tests to see if the inferences are indeed true. Toward that end, science employs a particular vocabulary for describing how ideas are proposed, tested, and supported or disproven. And that’s where we see the difference between a hypothesis and a theory.
In scientific reasoning, a hypothesis is constructed before any applicable research has been done. A theory, on the other hand, is supported by evidence: it’s a set of principles or tenets formed as an attempt to explain things that have already been substantiated by data.
The Hypothesis
When IBM announced the PCjr in 1983, it was immediately declared a flop in the press — and as it turned out, they were right. As a humbled engineer on the IBM product team, I wondered how they were able to quickly and accurately predict the product would fail. I wondered what metrics they used to judge the value of IBM’s new home computer and how they knew they were the right metrics.
Months after contemplating the PCjr debacle, I constructed this hypothesis:
It seemed to me that if a product team could know what metrics its customers were going to use to judge its new offering well in advance of product development, it could design the product to address those metrics and predictably deliver a winning solution.
Proving this hypothesis raised a number of challenging questions: What metrics should be captured, and from whom? How do we make sure the metrics remain valid/stable throughout a multi-year development cycle? Do we need to prioritize the metrics? Will all customers agree on the priority of the metrics, and if not, how will that be reconciled?
Solving these challenges led to the creation of Outcome-Driven Innovation® (ODI), a strategy and innovation process that was first used outside of IBM in 1991 to help Cordis Corporation introduce a new line of angioplasty balloons. This led to a dramatic increase in market share (from about 1% to over 20%) and was the first of many successes.
In 1999, I introduced ODI to Clayton Christensen (see here) as a possible solution to “the innovator’s dilemma”. He went on to popularize the underlying ODI theory in his best seller, The Innovator’s Solution, labeling it “jobs-to-be-done theory”. Since that time, we have independently worked to advance the theory— Clay through the lens of a well-respected Harvard Business School professor, and I through the lens of a practitioner.
Jobs-to-be-Done Theory
A theory is a set of tenets that has been formed as an attempt to explain things that have already been substantiated by data.
Jobs-to-be-Done Theory is comprised of a group of principles or tenets that explain how to make marketing more effective and innovation more predictable by focusing on the customer’s job-to-be-done.
The core principles and tenets behind Jobs-to-be-Done Theory detail a sound and proven theory because they are based on evidence, verification, and repeated testing by the Strategyn team over a 26-year period. Using ODI, the theory was applied over 1000 times in applications such as: (i) product, software, service and operational innovation, (ii) product improvement and new product creation, (iii) business-to-business and business-to-consumer applications, and (iv) in over 30 industry verticals.
Consequently, when companies apply Jobs Theory to better inform their strategy, marketing, innovation, development and M&A initiatives, they can confidently use these Jobs-to-be-Done Theory tenets as the building blocks for predictable growth:
- People buy products and services to get a “job” done.
- Jobs are functional, with emotional and social components.
- A Job-to-be-Done is stable over time.
- A Job-to-be-Done is solution agnostic.
- Success comes from making the “job”, rather than the product or the customer, the unit of analysis.
- A deep understanding of the customer’s “job” makes marketing more effective and innovation far more predictable.
- People want products and services that will help them get a job done better and/or more cheaply
- People seek out products and services that enable them to get the entire job done on a single platform
- Innovation becomes predictable when “needs” are defined as the metrics customers use to measure success when getting the job done
The implications of each of these tenets on a company’s efforts to create and market breakthrough products and services are far-reaching. Each of these tenets brings new insights into a company’s business practices. (Also see, What Is Jobs-to-be-Done).
Tenet 1: People buy products and services to get a “job” done
People have underlying problems they are trying to resolve. They have goals they are trying to achieve and tasks and activities they are trying to complete. They may be faced with situations they are trying to avoid. In each of these cases, people often turn to products and services to help them get a “job” done.
A “job” is not a description of what the customer is doing, the solution they are using, or the steps they are taking to get a job done. Rather, the “job” statement embodies what the customer is ultimately trying to accomplish.
The way we (the team at Strategyn and I) put this tenet of the theory into practice is to define the customer and the job as a market: a group of people and the functional job they are trying to get done. For example, parents (a group of people) who are trying to “pass on life lessons to children” (the functional job-to-be-done) constitute a market. Surgeons (a group of people) who are trying to “repair a torn rotator cuff” (the functional job-to-be-done) constitute a market. When a company defines a market in this manner, it clarifies its target customer and the job it is going to help the customer accomplish with a product or service offering it creates.
Tenet 2: Jobs are functional with emotional and social components
As a customer uses a product to get a functional job done, they often want to feel a certain way and be perceived in a certain light by their peers and/or friends and others. The way they want to feel and be perceived constitutes their emotional and social jobs-to-be-done. For example, when parents are trying to pass on life lessons to children (the functional job-to-be-done), they may also want to feel like they are contributing to the advancement of society and/or want to be perceived as good parents by their peers. These are the emotional and social components they attach to the functional job, respectively. Understanding the emotional and social components of the functional job brings companies rich insights that can lead to the creation of a value proposition that resonates with customers at both a functional and emotional level.
The way we put this tenet into practice is to first work with customers to define the market, and then work with them to define the emotional and social jobs associated with the functional job-to-be-done. When conducting qualitative research with a cross-section of job executors, it is common for people to express 20 to 30 emotional and social jobs. The job statements can be captured, quantified and used to inform a variety of marketing and development decisions.
Tenet 3: A Job-to-be-Done is stable over time
A functional job-to-be-done is often a job that customers have been trying to accomplish for years, decades and in some cases even centuries. Parents, for example, have been trying to pass on life lessons to children since the beginning of humanity. A functional job is stable over time. What changes over time are the products and services that companies offer to help get the job done better.
Because the job-to-be-done is stable over time, it is an attractive focal point around which to create customer value. It provides a stable target for market insights, strategy formulation, innovation, R&D and M&A investment, and growth. It also offers insights that can help prevent disruption.
In practice, we leverage this tenet by recognizing that a company’s short- and long-term strategy should never change: the strategy should always be to help customers get the entire job done better and more cheaply on a single product platform. This is the long-term strategy that Amazon has pursued since its inception. A stable target and a stable vision bring focus and purpose to an organization.
Tenet 4: A Job-to-be-Done is solution agnostic
The core functional job is solution agnostic — independent of any solutions or technologies. This tenet is vital to the theory’s claims of success for breakthrough innovation.
Innovation isn’t about “a faster horse,” rather it is about getting a job done better. A “horse” is a solution to get a job done. The job (transporting yourself from point A to point B) must be defined independent of the solution (the horse) so altogether new, breakthrough solutions can be conceptualized (e.g., the automobile).
Customers don’t know what solutions will get a job done best. So why ask them? Customers couldn’t envision the automobile or the microwave or the smartphone. They are not experts at product definition and design; they are not materials experts and scientists — so asking them what solutions they want is a failed approach to innovation. However, customers do know what job they are trying to get done, independent of the solution they are using or what alternative solutions are possible. Defining the job-to-be-done independent of solutions opens the door to breakthrough thinking.
In addition, when a job is defined in this manner, it enables a company to view its competition through a new lens. Instead of competition including only products of a similar nature, competition can (and should) be viewed as any product or home-grown solution that is being, or can be, used to get the job done. Viewing competition through this lens can help a company avoid disruption through technological advancement.
Tenet 5: Success comes from making the “job” the unit of analysis
Making the job-to-be-done the unit of analysis means it is the job — not the product, the customer, the circumstance, or customer demographics — that is studied, dissected and understood at a granular level of detail.
Note: Christensen’s view on this tenet differs from ours. In addition to saying the “job” is the unit of analysis, Christensen sometimes says the “circumstance” is the unit of analysis — but he defines the circumstance to be inclusive of the functional, emotional and social jobs the customer is trying to get done.
When we analyze the job-to-be-done, we begin by creating a job map. A job map is different than a process map or a customer journey map in that it describes, step by step, just what the customer is trying to get done (a needs perspective), not what the customer is doing (a solution perspective).
To understand the job at a granular level we then define customer “needs” as the metrics customers use to measure success when getting each step in the job done. We call these statements the customer’s desired outcomes. The desired outcome statement, which we created over 25 years ago, is a specially constructed need statement that has a unique set of characteristics: desired outcomes are devoid of solutions, stable over time, measureable, controllable, structured for reliable prioritization in a quantitative customer survey, and tied to the underlying job the customer is trying to get done (see Inventing the Perfect Customer Need Statement and Giving Customers a Fair Hearing).
Desired outcome statements describe customer metrics for getting the job done faster, more predictably (without variation) and with high throughput/output. They form the foundation for the Outcome-Driven Innovation process and have many downstream applications. Trained ODI practitioners capture desired outcome statements in qualitative customer interviews and construct them without the customers’ help.
With the customer’s desired outcome statements in-hand, companies are able to: (1) identify where and why customers are struggling to get the job done, (2) brainstorm ideas for new offerings, and (3) determine in advance of development which ideas will help customers get the job done best.
Tenet 6: A deep understanding of the customer’s job makes marketing more effective and innovation far more predictable
In Clayton Christensen’s latest book, Competing Against Luck, he says:
“Innovation becomes much more predictable — and far more profitable — when it begins with a deep understanding of the job the customer is trying to get done.”
Here’s why: a deep understanding of the customer’s desired outcomes for a given job enables companies to know, often for the first time, all the customers needs. Companies are able to transition from a place where a cross-functional team can’t agree on what a “need” is to a place where they not only agree on what a need is, but they also agree on what all the customer’s needs are (the 100+ desired outcomes tied to the job-to-be-done). This is truly transformational as most companies (and most VoC practitioners) don’t even agree on what a need is (learn more here) and end up using customer inputs that derail the innovation process.
The fundamentals of marketing and innovation are straight forward: if a team can agree on what a need is, what the customer’s needs are and which are unmet, they are able to (1) better position and sell more of the company’s existing products, (2) improve existing products and services, (3) create new products and services. Jobs-to-be-Done Theory makes this possible.
In practice we leverage this tenet by conducting quantitative research that is specifically designed to reveal under- and overserved customer desired outcomes and segments of customers with different unmet outcomes. This unique research, which we have perfected over 2 decades, overcomes the issues associated with traditional market research methods (see Reinventing Market Research To Put Jobs-to-be-Done Theory Into Practice).
Tenet 7: People want products and services that will help them get a job done better and/or more cheaply
We have learned that people aren’t loyal to companies or brands. They are loyal to getting a job done better (faster, more predictably and with higher output/throughput) and/or more cheaply. They replace existing products and services with those that help them achieve these goals. We have learned that some people are willing to pay more to get a job done better, while others are willing to pay less to get a job done worse. Knowing what types of customers exist in your market (and in what proportions) forms the foundation for a new way to think about growth strategy.
With a focus on this tenet, we have created the Jobs-to-be-Done Growth Strategy Matrix — a powerful framework that helps to explain the dynamics of disruptive innovation and 4 other growth strategies. A webinar detailing this tenet and the matrix can be found here:
Tenet 8: People seek out products and services that enable them to get the entire job done on a single platform
We have discovered that many products and services available in the market only get part of a job done and that customers are left to cobble together solutions in order to get the entire job done. Customers don’t want to cobble together the solution. They want it presented to them. This finding has important implications.
First, your product strategy shouldn’t be ever-changing. In fact it should never change. Your goal should always be to help your customers get their entire job done on a single platform. Nespresso is a great example. The company worked for years with a single strategy in mind: to enable customers get the job of “preparing a hot beverage for consumption” done on a single platform.
More importantly, products and services naturally (but slowly) evolve to help customers get the entire job done on a single platform. A company can accelerate this process once it knows what steps comprise the job. In this sense, a Job Map can be used as a blueprint that informs a company what product improvements to make and what M&A and R&D investments to make to create the ultimate solution — years before its competition does.
Tenet 9: Innovation becomes predictable when “needs” are defined as the metrics customers use to measure success when getting the job done
In order to determine if a new product idea/concept will be able to get a job done better and/or more cheaply, it must be possible to evaluate competing ideas against a stable set of metrics. The metrics we use to conduct this evaluation are the customer’s desired outcomes.
Since the customer’s job-to-be-done is stable over time, the customer’s needs, when defined as desired outcome statements, are also stable over time. (See the Medium article, Define Customer Needs As Constants). With a stable set of “needs” in hand, a company is able to:
- Quantify which needs are underserved and overserved.
- Discover segments of customers with different unmet needs.
- Use the metrics as a baseline against which they can test product ideas and concepts before they are developed.
Knowing which product or service concept will get the job done best early in the product planning stages (prior to development), is the key to predictable and profitable innovation.
Learn more: download a FREE PDF or AUDIO version of my latest Jobs-to-be-Done book, JOBS TO BE DONE: Theory to Practice.
In addition, you can now access ODIpro, our online innovation strategy platform, where you can:
- Get certified in putting Jobs Theory and Outcome-Driven Innovation (ODI) into practice.
- Apply the process to your markets using Strategyn’s latest tools and templates.
- Align your team around a winning product strategy.
To learn more about Strategyn’s consulting offerings and customized programs for innovation, go to Strategyn.com.
