The numbers are staggering – 95% of new products fail in their first year. What’s more surprising? Most products fail because companies create solutions without really knowing what their customers want.
We’ve all experienced it. Our users ignore the features we build. The products we launch don’t fix actual problems. Sometimes we watch helplessly as competitors succeed with what seems like similar ideas. The jobs to be done framework offers a better way.
This powerful approach reveals not just what customers purchase, but their true motivations behind buying. Major players like Intercom, Spotify, and Amazon have successfully used this framework to create products their customers truly value.
Here’s the best part – you don’t need deep pockets or extensive experience to use the JTBD framework effectively. This piece breaks down this tested methodology into 5 practical steps that will change your approach to product development.
Want to better understand your customers and create products they’ll actually love? Let’s take a closer look.
Understanding the Core Principles of JTBD
The jobs to be done framework has proven itself in product development. Companies that use JTBD principles report an 86% success rate
What is Jobs to be Done Theory
The jobs to be done framework builds on a straightforward yet powerful concept. People don’t just buy products – they “hire” them to get specific things done. This viewpoint helps us understand why customers make purchases, beyond the usual demographic analysis.
Tony Ulwick developed this theory, and Clayton Christensen made it popular. The theory moves our attention from the product to why customers want to make progress in their lives [1]. Picture it as knowing what job your customer needs done, rather than listing features they might want.
Key Components of the Framework
Everything in the JTBD framework falls into three dimensions that drive customer decisions:
- Functional Components: The practical tasks customers need to complete
- Emotional Components: How customers want to feel while using the product
- Social Components: How others notice them when they use the product
The framework’s value comes from its stability over time. Products and technologies change faster, but customers’ basic needs stay mostly the same. This stability makes the framework ideal for long-term product strategy.
Benefits for Product Teams
Product teams gain real advantages when they use the JTBD framework. Teams work better together because they share the same understanding of customer needs. Better teamwork leads to more focused product development.
The framework changes how we think about innovation. We stop obsessing over features and focus on what customers really need to accomplish. This new viewpoint makes innovation more predictable and profitable .
The framework helps us spot opportunities that competitors often miss. We map out everything customers need and find gaps in current solutions. This knowledge helps us build products that solve customer problems better .
This approach answers vital questions about our products. We can see if our solutions handle the whole job or just parts of it. We find gaps where customers piece together multiple solutions.
Identifying Customer Jobs and Needs
Let’s put the JTBD framework into practice now that we understand the theory. Success depends on knowing how to uncover and document customer needs in a systematic way.
Conducting Effective Customer Interviews
JTBD interviews need a different approach than traditional user research. We don’t ask about product features. Instead, we try to understand the progress customers want to make in specific situations.
These steps help us conduct effective JTBD interviews:
- Set the context by learning about daily routines
- Identify specific pain points and challenges
- Uncover what drives and motivates customers
- Define success criteria from the customer’s viewpoint
- Capture emotional and social aspects
A single one-hour interview can yield between 20 and 30 desired outcomes from one customer. This valuable data builds our understanding of customer needs.
Creating Job Maps
Job maps go beyond simple process diagrams. They show what customers want to achieve visually. We look at the ideal process flow to get the whole job done rather than how customers use existing solutions.
Most jobs break down into between 10 to 20 distinct steps. Job mapping helps us spot opportunities that competitors might miss. Breaking down jobs into specific steps reveals gaps in current solutions and areas where customers face challenges.
Documenting Customer Desired Outcomes
Customer desired outcomes stand at the heart of our JTBD research. These outcomes show how customers measure success when completing a job. Each market we study typically reveals between 75 and 150 different outcome statements.
Our outcome statements must be:
- Measurable and controllable
- Solution agnostic
- Stable over time
- Tied to the job-to-be-done
These outcome statements remain valuable because they stay constant even as technologies and solutions evolve. This stability creates reliable foundations for long-term product strategy and innovative efforts.
Companies that really understand their customers’ desired outcomes create successful products that win in the marketplace. This happens through a structured approach to identifying customer jobs and needs.
Categorizing Jobs and Outcomes
Customer jobs and needs must be organized effectively to learn about practical solutions. Research shows that teams need to carefully sort different job types and their results to make the jobs-to-be-done framework work.
Functional vs Emotional Jobs
Customer needs typically fall into three distinct categories:
- Functional Jobs: Core tasks customers want to accomplish
- Emotional Jobs: How customers want to feel
- Social Jobs: How customers want others to see them
This categorization’s power comes from its ability to capture every aspect of customer motivation. Research shows that customers express between 20 to 30 emotional and social jobs [7] for any given functional job. This detailed view helps create solutions that appeal on multiple levels.
Prioritizing Customer Needs
Effective prioritization needs both importance and satisfaction metrics for each outcome. Research identifies between 50 to 150 outcomes that customers use to measure success.
Success in prioritization depends on knowing which outcomes are:
- Most important to customers
- Currently underserved
- Stable over time
- Controllable through product design
These factors help calculate opportunity scores that show which needs need immediate attention. This evidence-based approach helps focus innovation efforts where they’ll affect the most change.
Creating Job Statements
A vital part of implementing the jobs-to-be-done framework is creating effective job statements. A well-laid-out job statement must be:
Solution-agnostic: The focus stays on what customers want to accomplish, not how they currently do it. “Maintain oral health” works better than “brush teeth”.
Measurable: Each statement includes metrics customers use to gage success. Companies that define needs as measurable outcomes make innovation nowhere near as unpredictable.
Job statements follow this structure: “At the time [situation], I want to [motivation], so I can [expected outcome]”. This format captures both context and desired results.
Well-defined job statements remain stable over time, even as technologies and solutions change. This stability creates reliable foundations for long-term product strategy.
Teams that properly categorize jobs and outcomes create clear roadmaps for innovation. Data shows that this structured approach helps teams move from disagreement about customer needs to lining up on what needs exist and which ones matter most.
Developing Solutions Using JTBD
The core team has defined customer jobs and outcomes. Now we can turn these insights into practical solutions. The jobs to be done framework gives us powerful tools to develop innovative products.
Ideation Techniques
Our research reveals that traditional ideation methods achieve only a 17% success rate for new product ideas. This led us to adopt an outcome-driven approach that targets confirmed customer needs.
Here’s our proven process for JTBD-based ideation:
- Start with confirmed customer outcomes
- Focus on one underserved need at a time
- Use creativity triggers to generate solutions
- Build team consensus around the best options
- Document detailed implementation requirements
This approach works because it solves known, unmet needs instead of generating random ideas. Teams can develop solutions for 10-15 underserved outcomes in a single day-long session.
Solution Validation Methods
Solution validation needs a well-laid-out approach that measures progress against specific customer outcomes. Our validation methods include:
- Job-centric testing: We assess solutions based on how well they help customers complete their core job
- Outcome measurement: Each feature gets assessed against specific desired outcomes
- Progress validation: We track customer progress in speed, predictability, and efficiency
Teams can validate solutions in a single day of testing . This helps us assess solutions before investing heavily in development.
Measuring Success Metrics
Success in the jobs to be done framework goes beyond feature adoption. It helps customers make measurable progress. Each market study identifies between 75 and 150 distinct outcome statements that customers use to measure success.
We track three main dimensions to measure solution effectiveness:
- Time: How much faster can customers complete their job?
- Predictability: How reliably can they achieve their desired outcome?
- Efficiency: How much waste or loss gets eliminated?
These customer-centric metrics help teams move from subjective feature discussions to informed outcome-based decisions. Every feature we develop directly contributes to customer progress.
This framework makes innovation more predictable. We focus on creating superior solutions that address known and quantified unmet customer needs instead of brainstorming hundreds of ideas and hoping for success.
Implementing JTBD in Your Organization
The jobs to be done framework needs more than understanding the methodology. Organizations must line up and execute systematically. Let me show you how we can make JTBD work with our current business processes.
Getting Team Buy-in
Support from leadership and team members is crucial to implement JTBD. Through collaboration with product managers, designers, marketers, customer support, and engineers, we’ve learned that cross-functional teamwork leads to success.
These steps will help build momentum for JTBD adoption:
- Present clear benefits to leadership
- Show how it lines up with strategic goals
- Start with small pilot projects
- Share early wins and success stories
- Connect JTBD to existing KPIs
This approach works because it breaks down functional silos. Teams unite around a shared understanding of customer’s needs.
Integration with Existing Processes
JTBD complements modern techniques like Design Thinking, Lean, and Agile naturally Teams need a common language to discuss customer jobs, which bridges different viewpoints.
We embed JTBD into daily workflows:
- Product Planning: Job statements become part of feature requests and user stories
- Design Sprints: Solutions focus on specific customer jobs
- Post-Launch Evaluations: Job completion metrics measure success
- Sprint Reviews: Teams discuss JTBD insights in regular meetings
JTBD needs to become part of everyday processes rather than exist as a separate initiative.
Training and Documentation
Teams need systematic training and documentation to build JTBD capabilities. Effective training programs typically have:
- Structured Learning: Masterclasses and custom training programs ground participants in JTBD thinking
- Practical Application: Teams discuss key concepts through real business challenges
- Knowledge Sharing: Team members present findings and success stories regularly
- Continuous Improvement: Pilot projects and coaching refine understanding
Training works best with real-life applications. Organization-wide digital training programs help teams create intuitive, customer-centric solutions .
Regular JTBD activities maintain momentum. Cross-functional meetings help discuss insights and shape the product roadmap. Customer insights guide our product decisions because JTBD stays part of our workflow.
This implementation approach creates lasting organizational change. JTBD becomes a fundamental capability through training, pilot projects, coaching, and process design .
Common Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them
The jobs to be done framework can revolutionize your product development process. However, we’ve seen several common pitfalls that can derail even the best initiatives. Let me share these challenges and show you how to tackle them.
Typical Implementation Mistakes
Our work with many organizations has shown several mistakes teams make when they adopt the JTBD framework:
- Confusing Buyer’s Journey with User’s Job: Teams mix up the buyer’s journey with the user’s actual job-to-be-done
- Focusing Only on Functional Jobs: Teams miss emotional and social aspects that lead to incomplete solutions
- Confirmation Bias: Teams filter information through their existing assumptions
- Scope Creep: Teams try to fix too many jobs at once
- Surface-Level Analysis: Teams don’t dig deep enough into customer motivations
These mistakes often come from good intentions. Teams excited about JTBD sometimes rush through vital steps because they’re eager to see results.
Overcoming Resistance to Change
JTBD needs a big change in mindset and organizational culture. We’ve found that resistance shows up in three key areas:
Teams often feel comfortable with their current processes and see JTBD as extra work. The solution is to show clear benefits and get stakeholders involved early.
Employees at every level might push back against new methods. Successful organizations give their teams the ability to experiment and own the process. This bottom-up approach works well to drive adoption.
There’s also pushback against changing old decision-making processes. We’ve had success by showing how JTBD works with existing frameworks instead of replacing them.
Maintaining Momentum
After you start using the JTBD framework, keeping the momentum becomes vital. Organizations succeed when they follow these strategies:
- Regular Updates: Share progress and wins consistently
- Stakeholder Engagement: Keep the core team invested
- Clear Objectives: Stay focused on main goals and outcomes
- Measured Progress: Share success metrics often
- Continuous Learning: Build an environment that encourages improvement
Teams naturally tend to go back to their old ways of working . Organizations that keep strong momentum build a culture of continuous improvement rather than treating JTBD as a one-time project.
Set up regular checkpoints to check progress and fix problems. Teams that keep JTBD activities and discussions going are more likely to succeed in the long run .
A word of caution: JTBD isn’t just another framework or method. It’s a basic theory about how customers make progress in their lives . This difference helps teams focus on what matters during implementation.
Being aware of these common pitfalls and actively avoiding them ensures JTBD implementation delivers value. Note that successful implementation isn’t about being perfect – it’s about learning and adapting to serve your customers better.
Conclusion
The jobs to be done framework changes our understanding and service to customers. A proper implementation helps us move beyond surface-level feature requests and create influential solutions that address deep customer needs.
JTBD success demands understanding of customer jobs across functional, emotional, and social dimensions. Teams committed to this well-laid-out approach achieve remarkable improvements in their product success rates and customer satisfaction scores.
Note that JTBD implementation is a continuous trip that evolves over time. Your team should start small and gather quality insights before expanding the framework throughout your organization. The core principle remains unchanged – helping customers make meaningful progress in their lives.
