Jobs to Be Done
Customers "hire" products to make progress—motivation over persona.
People don't buy products—they hire them to make progress in their lives. Jobs to Be Done reframes innovation around the customer's struggle, not the product's features. When a customer "hires" a product, they're trying to accomplish something, overcome a constraint, or reach a goal. Understand the job, and you understand what to build.
The job statement captures context, desire, and goal—not demographics or features.
The Job
The progress a customer is trying to make in a specific circumstance. Not what they want to buy—what they want to achieve.
Example (Milkshake): "Keep me full and entertained during my boring morning commute."
The Circumstance
The context in which the job arises. When and where does the customer need progress? The same job in different circumstances requires different solutions.
Example (Milkshake): Early morning, long drive, one hand on the wheel, need something that lasts the whole commute.
Functional, Emotional, Social Dimensions
Jobs have layers. Functional: what it does. Emotional: how it makes me feel. Social: how it makes me look to others.
Example (Milkshake): Functional = fills me up. Emotional = makes the commute less boring. Social = feels like a responsible breakfast choice.
Competing Solutions
Products don't just compete in their category—they compete with anything that does the job. A milkshake competes with bananas, bagels, boredom, and coffee.
Example (Milkshake): Customers weren't choosing between milkshake brands—they were choosing between milkshakes, donuts, bananas, and nothing.
JTBD forces you to see the world from the customer's perspective, not the product's. It's not about your features—it's about their progress. The best innovations happen when you understand the job better than anyone else and design a solution that does it better than the alternatives.
Clayton Christensen, Harvard Business School professor and author of "The Innovator's Dilemma," popularized Jobs to Be Done in the 2000s. The framework emerged from his research on disruptive innovation and why customers switch products.
The famous example: a fast-food chain hired Christensen to figure out why milkshake sales weren't growing. After observing customers, he discovered the "job"—commuters hired milkshakes for long drives because they were filling, took time to consume, and fit in a cup holder. Competitors weren't other milkshakes—they were bananas, bagels, and boredom.
Tony Ulwick independently developed a version of JTBD focused on outcome-driven innovation, contributing methodologies for identifying and prioritizing jobs. Together, Christensen and Ulwick's work made JTBD a standard product strategy framework.
2000s Product Strategy: Companies were drowning in customer data—demographics, psychographics, purchase history. But data didn't explain why customers made the choices they made. Personas described who people were, not what they were trying to do. JTBD shifted focus from identity to motivation.
The Persona Problem: Traditional market research created personas—"Sarah, 35, suburban mom, drives an SUV." But Sarah hired different products in different situations. She hired a milkshake on Monday's commute and a banana on Wednesday when she was rushed. Personas missed context.
Disruption Theory Connection: JTBD emerged from Christensen's work on why incumbents fail. Disruptors succeed by doing a job better for a specific circumstance—often a job incumbents ignore. Christensen realized innovation wasn't about better features; it was about better job performance.
Why It Endures: JTBD survives because it's universal. Every product solves a job. Every customer has progress they're trying to make. The framework works for startups building MVPs and enterprises launching new categories. Focus on the job, and the product decisions become clearer.