What is the Jobs to Be Done Framework

I recently have become interested in the Jobs-to-be-done framework outlined in The Innovator’s Solution by Clayton Christensen. To start to apply it at Atalasoft, I wrote this blog about how an SDK’s job might be understood and described the framework this way:

Briefly, you look at a product as the job it was hired to do, rather than its category, features, benefits, who bought it, etc. Christensen makes the argument that jobs are enduring over time (as products and customer segments change).

and concluded:

Applying this insight gives SDK makers a way to target features, not at just the job the SDK does for their developer customer, and not just at what their application does, but also at the job that the end-user is trying to do.

Today, I was sent a quora link where the JTBD framework is being discussed. I’m looking for JTBD tactics, so I loved this part from Chris Spiek:

If we were doing jobs research around the Starbucks offering, it would start with something like: “tell me about the moment when you first considered going to Starbucks. Where were you? What were you doing? Who were you with? What time of day was it?” The interview would move through the decision making process (what else did they consider?), the consuming process (being at Starbucks), and the end with “looking back” and understanding their concept of value (what it did for them) upon reflection.

By conducting a number of these interviews, you can begin to see “jobs” emerge.

To see an example of jobs being discovered and filled with Social Media sites, read Whitney Johnson’s What Job Does Social Media Do?

If you hire social media, especially to promote your business, you will likely have your own reasons, but ask yourself the question, “What problem am I trying to solve?” This will likely get you to the functional element. To peer into your emotional and social why, also ask “what progress am I trying to make?”

These are all great starting points to getting to know JTBD — I will be posting much more on this to help myself learn more about it.