Jobs-to-be-Done (also known as JTBD or Jobs Theory) is an innovation method that is rapidly being adopted for good reason: it is proven to work. The method and theory have a long history. Some of JTBD is not new, but the power of the method is that it brings together all the elements that your product, marketing and sales teams need to win consistently in your market. It is a complete innovation method that starts and ends with the most important person: your customer.
JTBD is a method to coordinate your product, market, and sales teams. It centers your work on your customer and helps your team agree on your product roadmap prioritization, your marketing messages, and your sales strategies. It enables executives to confidently make product roadmap investment decisions and mitigate the risk that your roadmap does not generate the growth and profitability you need to create equity value and increased share price.
This page explains JTBD theory and illustrates the techniques using detailed examples in consumer, business, and medical markets. You can apply the theory and techniques in your market as well.
A good way to test if a method and theory will work, is to apply it to a real-world situation. Imagine you are on a product, marketing, or sales team and your mission is to beat Apple and Google Maps? How would you do it?
In the introductory video below, we show you how you could use Jobs Theory and our methods to beat Apple and Google Maps. This seems like an impossible task since Apple and Google have about 100% market share in this market and they are fierce competitors with combined $2 Trillion (yes Trillion with a T) market caps and $200 Billion in cash. But it is possible by focusing on how and why customers struggle to get their job done when using Apple and Google Maps.
This video is a great way to start with JTBD. It includes detailed examples of how to use the method to beat your competitors.
"Your customers are not buying your products. They are hiring them to get a job done."
Defining your customer correctly is critical. There are many different types of customers (job beneficiaries, job executors and purchasers), and companies often fail because they choose the wrong customer for innovation. In our customer definition video, we will show you how Nest succeeded by targeting a different customer in the thermostat market than the incumbents.
Identifying the critical customer in your market is the key to avoiding customer mistakes that have ruined once great companies.
Defining your market correctly is critical to your product roadmap success. In this video, we will show you why market definitions are critical to your success and how to define your customers job-to-be-done (which is your market).
We will show you examples where companies have defined their markets incorrectly and how this led directly to product and company failure. We will show you the techniques you can use to avoid these mistakes.
Sizing your market accurately is critically important because your revenue growth is a direct function of the size of your market. In this video, we will show you how to use JTBD techniques to size your market more accurately.
Satisfying customer needs better than competitors is the key to product roadmap success. But most teams don't even agree on what a customer need even is.
In this video, we will show you how to define your customer's needs using their Job-to-be-Done. And we will show you the techniques to identify all your customer's needs so that you have a full understanding of the problem you need to solve for your customers.
