Jobs to be Done template

About the Jobs To Be Done Framework

Jobs To Be Done (JTBD) is a theory of customer demand that describes why and how people decide to adopt new products or services. JTBD theory states that people shop and buy new products to transform their current situation and make progress on their goals. This is their Job to be done.

Product managers, marketers, and entrepreneurs use this theory to lower the risk of going to market with solutions people won’t buy.

Keep reading to know more about the Jobs to be Done framework template.

When to use the Jobs To Be Done Template

The Jobs To Be Done template makes it easy to put JTBD theory into practice and helps you analyze both the demand creation and hiring processes.

You can use the Jobs To Be Done framework template to directly capture all the necessary data points after conducting customer interviews. Alternatively, you can use it to summarize the series of customer interviews and the conclusions about the Jobs that customers are trying to get done.

By using the Jobs to be Done framework template, you will know why people choose your product or service, and you will be able to better attend to your demand and have more success in terms of sales and expansion.

A Jobs to Be Done example explained

One practical example of the Jobs to Be Done framework is when a Team Lead wants to enable their team to work more creatively and collaboratively. Their Job is not done yet, because there are some constraints.

The Team Lead noticed that people have worked in silos in the past and don’t want to change their ways of working. This interplay between goals and opposing constraints motivates the Team Lead to go and look for new solutions. Goals and constraints together create demand for new solutions. These events or realizations are called catalysts. They create urgency and often trigger the need for new products.

When people look for new solutions to accomplish their goals, they look for everything that helps them achieve their progress. In our example, it could be a tool, a training, a consultant, and so on.  This is called a choice set, and it can be very diverse, going beyond a particular product category.

The process customers go through as they look for new solutions on the market is called hiring. People hire products to get their jobs done, similarly to a manager hiring new employees.

During the hiring process, people compare their current solutions to their considered options. Eventually, they hire a new solution and fire the old one**.** What makes the solution a winning one is when it seems trustworthy, and novel and gets customers to imagine how the solution works. This is what ultimately shapes their willingness to pay.

As customers decide and hire a solution, they continuously look for progress signals that show them if their solution had the desired effect.

How to capture research insights with the Jobs To Be Done template

Start by conducting interviews with recent buyers of your product or service. Talk to people who recently switched to your product, have used it for at least 2 or 3 months, and were in charge of making the final buying decision.

Separate your findings into three stages:

Demand creation

1. Get together to synthesize the unmet needs of your ideal customers. Start by first listing their goals and then constraints that block them from reaching those goals.

2. List all the events, frustrations, experiences, and other catalysts that created urgency during their shopping process.

Desired progress

1. Form groups and summarize your insights in a short story about your ideal customer and why they decided to make a change. Compare the stories of each group and discuss their nuances. Use the story later to inspire new ideas and align your team.

2. From your story, distill a simple Job to Be Done statement that expresses the key benefits customers are looking for. 

3. Capture how the customer knows they are making progress as progress signals.

Hiring

1. List which solutions, products, or behaviors they hired, fired, and considered for their Job To Be Done.

2. Discuss each aspect of the hiring process. Use green and red stickies to highlight elements that increased or decreased trust, made the product seem good or bad value for money, and that helped or didn’t help customers imagine how the product could be used. Lastly, list factors that made the product seem novel or familiar.

After summarizing one or all of your interviews in this way, use the data to inspire changes to marketing, product, or sales. Jobs to be Done data enables you to reveal your ideal customer and design products that appeal to them.