strategic decision making is inherently stronger than many other approaches.

This accelerates good design and enables us to create great experiences, where we are sure that we are designing the right thing, not just designing it the right way.

If JTBD feels obvious to you, then you’re in a good position to work with the approach. I encourage you to learn more and to embrace JTBD to help drive more strategic conversations with greater business impact.

 

Endnotes

1. Christensen, C. et al. Competing Against Luck. HarperBusiness, New York, 2016.

2. Drucker, P. Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

Harper, New York, 1985.

3. Christensen, C. and Raynor, M.E.

The Innovator’s Solution. Harvard Business Review Press, 2003.

4. Christensen, C. The Innovator’s Dilemma.

Harvard Business Review Press, 1998.

5. Ulwick, T. Jobs To Be Done. Idea Bite Press, 2016.

6. Cooper, A. About Face. Wiley, 2003.

7. Young, I. Mental Models. Rosenfeld Media, 2008.

 

Jim Kalbach is an author, speaker, and instructor in user experience design, information architecture, and strategy. He is currently head of customer experience at MURAL, the leading online whiteboard. He has published two books, Designing Web Navigation (O’Reilly, 2007) and Mapping Experiences (O’Reilly, 2016). He blogs at experiencinginformation.com and tweets under @jimkalbach.

→ [e-mail]

solution. In this respect, JTBD calls to mind Indi Young’s work. In her 2008 book Mental Models [ 7], Young details an approach for visualizing people’s motivations and goals.

The method starts by defining the domain, such as “movie going” (see Figure 2). Then, through research and observations, the researcher collects a comprehensive set of insights that reflect a person’s thought process. Like JTBD, mental models are devoid of any reference to technology or methods.

The resulting diagram is a model of all of an individual’s actions, thoughts, feelings, and goals.

Making job the unit of analysis makes innovation more predictable. In a time when businesses are encouraged to “fail fast” and “break things,” JTBD offers a more structured way to find solutions that resonate with customers up front.

Simply analyzing a job map for strategic opportunities may provide sufficient insight for some companies, such as a start-ups. In other cases, organizations may need to know which needs to specifically address. Here, JTBD offers powerful insight.

Figure 3 shows the basic idea of unmet needs with a simple matrix: Find needs that are important but not well satisfied. The vertical axis shows how job performers rate each need statement for satisfaction, from low to high. The horizontal axis shows how important each need is, from low to high.

JTBD isn’t confined to one discipline; it’s a way of seeing that is applicable to an entire organization.

JTBD gives a consistent, systematic
approach to understanding what
motivates people. As a result, it
has broad applicability inside of an
organization, beyond design and
development. Consider some of the
ways in which different teams can
leverage JTBD:
• Sales can leverage JTBD thinking
in discovery calls to probe on
customer needs.

• Marketing specialists can create more effective campaigns with JTBD by shifting language from features to addressing underserved needs.

• Designers can use JTBD to guide
product development by grounding
features in user objectives.

• Customer-success managers can use JTBD to understand why customers might cancel a subscription.

• Support agents are able to provide better service by first understanding the customer’s job to be done.

What’s more, JTBD is compatible with modern methods like design thinking, agile, and lean. For instance, a prioritized need can feed into design thinking exercises as “How might we…?” statements. Or user stories in agile can be generated and organized based on customer jobs. Lean experiments can be framed around hypothesis statements that are grounded in JTBD research as well.

OUR OPPORTUNITY

I believe JTBD presents an opportunity for design and designers. We have the necessary skills to apply JTBD within our organizations: Observing the human condition, understanding needs, and turning insights into action are skills we already possess.

More important, because JTBD is not a design method, it has the potential to elevate our conversations with stakeholders and decision makers. JTBD is not only about creating a great product experience, but also about directing the strategic attention of an organization.

And since JTBD comes from the business community, its relevance to

DOI: 10.1145/3292021 COP YRIGH T HELD BY AUTHOR. PUBLICATION RIGHTS LICENSED TO ACM. $15.00
Figure 3. Find underserved needs and fulfill them for a better chance of success.
Importance
S
at
isfac
tio
n

High
Underserved

High