The Jobs To Be Done Playbook. Jim Kalbach
as an aspiration or a description of an experience. “Be thoughtful” or “Be the best I can be” is too abstract: your innovation teams won’t be able to act on it. It’s okay to recognize aspirations, but keep the main job simple and functional. A rule of thumb is to focus on the “what” main job—a functional objective—more than the “why” in terms of aspiration.
Also strive to keep a causal impact of your business on the job. For instance, a drill bit manufacturer might explore a main job and realize that people don’t want a hole, they want to hang a painting. But why do they do that? To decorate their homes and preserve family memories. Realistically, a team responsible for the development and sale of drill bits won’t have a direct impact on creating a better home life, and practical innovation won’t happen with a focus on a main job that is causally separated from the business.
Reflect on a few simple questions to get started:
• What business are you in? Consider your overall playing field by noting the sector, industry, and offering category you want to operate in.
• What customer problems do you want to solve? Write down all of the challenges you want to overcome for customers.
• What impact do you hope to generate? Write down the benefits you hope to bring customers.
Then create a simple ladder of objectives that people are trying to achieve, similar to the one in Table 2.6. Using the example of parking a car, you can see how this job might fit into a hierarchy of jobs.
TABLE 2.6 GET THE RIGHT LEVEL OF ABSTRACTION FOR THE MAIN JOB
| LEVEL | EXAMPLE |
| Aspiration | Enjoy the freedom of mobility |
| Big job | Get to a destination on time |
| Little job | Park the vehicle |
| Micro-job | Find a free parking spot; feed the meter, etc. |
If you already have access to people in your domain, talk with them to explore the main job informally. A short phone call or quick meeting with a few known individuals carrying out the job will help you understand the main job. Ask them what they are trying to accomplish. Bring this feedback into your team discussion.
Once you have the target domain and appropriate level of abstraction, formulate a main job statement following the rules outlined in the previous chapter. Start with a verb, avoid technology, and strive for stable jobs over time. Table 2.7 illustrates how to get the right scope of your main job, avoiding some of the common pitfalls.
TABLE 2.7 FORMULATE THE MAIN JOB AT THE RIGHT LEVEL
| WRONG EXAMPLE | ISSUE | APPROPRIATE MAIN JOB |
| Select music to listen to | Stage in a big job; too small | Listen to music |
| Enjoy the arts | Aspirational job; too broad | Listen to music |
| Play music on computer | Mentions a method and a specific outcome | Listen to music |
| Save time by creating a list of songs | Indicates an outcome (save time) Refers to a method | Listen to music |
You also want to identify related jobs and get a sense of the potential variety of goals that people have. So not only do you have to move up and down in granularity, you also need to move from side to side and recognize adjacent goals. Related jobs can help you break up a big job into more meaningful sections. In fact, some solutions (e.g., complex software programs) may address several related jobs, and it’s more practical to view these individually, rather than rolled up into one.
Here are some points to consider when formulating the main job:
• Get the phrasing right. JTBD provides a common language for an organization, and getting the labels right is key. Iterate and refine your definition of the main job. Use a thesaurus to find the best labels. Keep it simple and one-dimensional.
• Ensure that there is a purpose. Main jobs should be purposeful and not actions or tasks. Strive to reflect an outcome from the individual’s point of view. For instance, look at a painting is an action, while understand artwork is a JTBD with an objective.
• Reflect an end state. Avoid framing main jobs as ongoing activities. It’s problematic to start a main job with words like manage, maintain, keep up, and learn because they don’t have a clear end state. For example, learn all there is to know in a given field isn’t a good main job. When is learning done? Similarly, formulating a job as manage financial portfolio is problematic because it’s hard to point to an end: managing is ongoing. Instead, phrase the job as grow financial portfolio, which is stronger because there is a way to be “done.”
• Separate jobs from needs. Don’t mix up needs or desired outcomes with the main job. For instance, the main job of a street vendor with a hotdog cart is to sell food on the street. Of course, the vendor wants to maximize the amount of hungry people she attracts, but that’s considered a need.
Test your main job statement against these questions:
• Does the statement reflect the job performer’s perspective?
• Does the job statement begin with a verb?
• Is there a beginning and end point of the goal?
• Might the job performer think, “The [object] is [verb]-ed”? (e.g., did the financial portfolio grow? Or was food sold on the street?)
• Are the statements one-dimensional without compound concepts?
• Would people have phrased the job to be done like this 50 years ago?
Getting the main job right requires some thought, discussion, and negotiation with your team. It’s a fundamental decision of the scope of the customer’s job and, consequently, the needs your entire business will target. Framing the main job sets your field of vision for subsequent activities. Spend time in getting the right level of granularity and formulating the job statement properly.
Define the Job Performer
Ask yourself, “Who holds the insights we need to uncover?” In some cases, it may be obvious who the primary job executor is, for instance, with simple consumer products. In B2B situations, you may need to sort out the potential roles you can target and get agreement from the team. Ultimately, you’ll want to consider a range of different functions as a system of job performers, but at first the primary concern is sorting out the job performer.
Very often, the term for the job performer is directly related to the main job. Keep it simple. For instance, if the main job is to attend a conference, the job performer is a conference attendee. Or, if the main job is to prepare a meal, the job performer is a meal preparer.
Keep