Jobs-To-Be-Done Framework for Product Managers

When was the last time you bought something?

Why did you buy it?

Now think deeper, why did you really buy it?

Whenever a consumer buys something, they don’t just buy it, they hire that product to do a job for them.

If you hire a fry pan, why do you do it? You don’t buy it only because you want a fry pan, you need a fry pan to cook stuff.

Cooking is a job that needs to be done, and you hire the pan to do it for you.

Why did Peter buy the snickers?

Below is an excerpt from a HBR article:

After decades of watching great companies fail, we’ve come to the conclusion that the focus on correlation — and on knowing more and more about customers — is taking firms in the wrong direction. What they really need to home in on is the progress that the customer is trying to make in a given circumstance — what the customer hopes to accomplish. This is what we’ve come to call the job to be done.

JTBD framework tells us that users use products in certain situations when they want to achieve a specific outcome because of some reason that acts as their motivation.

Writing a JTBD statement

The core value of this framework is that it provides an approach to gathering an understanding of who your user is, and what their motivations and hopes are.

How to implement this framework?

Building better products start with a great JTBD statement. A jobs to be done statement concisely describes the way a particular product or service fits into a person’s life to help them achieve a particular task, goal, or outcome that was previously unachievable.

Here’s a JBTD statement template that is commonly used amongst Facebook and Instagram product teams:

When I…… (context)

But…… (barrier)

Help me…. (goal)

So I….. (outcome)

With those principles and end goal in the background, follow these four steps to gather all the info you’ll need to fill out your JTBD template:

1. Start by defining your audience clearly: Think about the defining characteristics that help you develop a crystal-clear image in your head of your audience. Without a clear definition, you risk going too broad or gathering signal from the wrong kinds of people.
2. Ground yourself in market research: Understand as much as possible about this audience’s behavior: what they currently are using to solve this specific problem and where they feel the most pain in the customer experience.
3. Talk to your users: Using surveys and interviews, get a firsthand account about your user’s mindset and decision process (related to what you are building).
4. Prioritize: There are many customer jobs your product could tackle, but focus is paramount here. From user interviews, look for themes that emerge in jobs to be done. Narrow down jobs and prioritize those with the most demand and the largest gap to be filled.

How to think about which jobs to tackle in the JTBD framework? This image might help you.

How to prioroitize problems

Examples of JTBD Statements — Discord JTBD

When I want to jump into my favorite game, but I don’t know if there are people around to play, help me safely coordinate with a group of like-minded gamers, so I can easily find a way to enjoy my favorite multiplayer game.

This suggests that we should make it easy to find people through public or private servers and switching easily from text to voice chat as the users organize and jump into a game.

Do you want to become a PM?

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