Little Glossary · Brand and product
Jobs to be done (JTBD)
Jobs to be done (JTBD) is a framework for understanding why people buy a product: not for its features, but to make progress on a specific task or situation in their life or work. That progress is the "job" they "hire" the product to do.
Origin
The idea was popularized by Clayton Christensen, a Harvard Business School professor, in the article "Know Your Customers' 'Jobs to Be Done'" (Harvard Business Review, 2016) and the book Competing Against Luck (2016). Tony Ulwick had earlier developed a related approach, Outcome-Driven Innovation, from the 1990s.
The best-known example is the milkshake: research for a fast-food chain found that many milkshakes were bought in the morning to make a long commute more bearable. The competitor wasn't another milkshake, but a banana or a snack bar.
How to phrase a job
A common format is the job story: "When [situation], I want to [motivation], so I can [expected outcome]". For example: "When I close the month, I want to see which campaigns generated pipeline, so I can defend the budget to leadership".
A good job:
- Describes progress, not a product feature.
- Is stable over time: solutions change, the job doesn't.
- Includes the functional dimension and often the emotional and social ones, such as looking good to the boss or not getting it wrong.
How to research it
Through interviews with customers who bought recently, reconstructing their decision: what made them start looking, what they used before, which alternatives they considered, what held them back and what made them decide.
What it's used for in B2B tech companies
- Writing the homepage and landing pages in the language of the problem, not features.
- Identifying non-obvious competitors.
- Prioritizing the roadmap around the worst-served jobs.
- Complementing buyer personas: the persona says who buys; the job says why.
Related terms
Sources
- Clayton M. Christensen, Taddy Hall, Karen Dillon and David S. Duncan, Know Your Customers' "Jobs to Be Done", Harvard Business Review (2016).
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