Jobs-to-be-done Analysis

Understand what forces drive your customers.

Learn about Situation and Motivation

One of the first steps in the JTBD framework is to have a conversation with your future customers. Uncover what they currently do to solve their problem and why they do it.

Job to be done: What jobs are they trying to get done in their current situation?

• The main job itself
• Adjacent jobs: Preparation and clean-up activities that "enable" the main job

Example: You want to build some software for them. This can only work if you know what they are trying to achieve, and why they shouldn't simply "use Excel", or "ask an intern to do it". Otherwise, you wouldn't know what to build and how to do marketing for it.

Interviewing future customers

So, hop on a video line with them and have them explain what really happens (not what "would be"):

• Their current situation:
  • "Walk me through what happened the last time you did X, please."
  • "On what kind of day did you do this?"
  • "Are there more days like that? Does it occur regularly?"
  • "Please tell me more."
  • "Could you elaborate on this, please?"
  • "What do you do, just before you do X? What do you need to prepare for X?"
  • "What do you do after X is done? Do you need to clean up?"
• Their main goal:
  • "What do you need to get done with X?"
  • "What makes it so important for you?"
• Things they find painful or time-consuming while doing that:
  • "Was there anything difficult when you did X?"
• Alternatives they have been using already:
  • "What solutions did you try already?"
• Amount of time or money that the alternatives cost them:
  • "How much time does it take you when you do X?"
  • "May I ask you how much you currently pay for the existing solutions you use? Is it a one time payment, or recurring?"
• Amount of motivation they have for change:
  • "Do you want to keep everything as it is? What would you like to change here if you could?"

Keep a record of your learnings

Now that you know everything about their job called "doing X", about the pain they have, and about how much time and money they spend, you can design a product that will help them so well that they will be happy to pay for it!

Keep a record of your JTBD interviews and write the essence of each job into one JTBD box of your positioning diagram.