What is the Jobs To Be Done Framework
“People don’t simply buy products or services, they ‘hire’ them to make progress in specific circumstances.”
– Clayton Christensen
The Jobs To Be Done Framework (JTBD) is a popular and effective tool for thinking about the problems your customers have and how to position your product as a solution.
The core concept of the Jobs to Be Done Framework is that rather than buying a product for its features, customers “hire” a product to get a job done for them … and will ”fire” it for a better solution just as quickly.
Here’s one of many great Jobs To Be Done examples to bring it to life: Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield summed Jobs To Be Done in his famous email “We Don’t Sell Saddles Here”.
Even though the product customers buy is a saddle, the dream you are selling is horse riding. The features of the saddle don’t matter. What’s important is how well you help your customers reach their goals.
Thinking in this way unlocks innovation, resonates with customers and puts your product development in lockstep with your sales and marketing efforts.
In this article, we’ll talk through the Jobs To Be Done framework and share Jobs to Be Done examples, using them to illustrate how the theory works, and why it’s useful.
We’ve even included a free Jobs to be Done template, prepopulated with 2 real world Jobs To Be Done examples from Wise and the Trainline.
Jobs To Be Done Template & Jobs To Be Done Examples
Create a FREE account to access our Jobs To Be Done template, including worked Jobs To Be Done examples
Get our Jobs To Be Done Template, prepopulated with Jobs To Be Done examples here: Google Sheets
In the below template we’ve included Jobs To Be Done examples from Trainline and Wise, to help walk you through the process.
Benefits of the Jobs To Be Done Framework
Using the Jobs To Be Done Framework to understand your customers offers four core benefits:
- Maximizes value created
- Facilitates radical innovation
- Understands the competition
- Identifies your value proposition
Maximizes value created
Jobs To Be Done (JTBD) gives you a really deep understanding of your customers. It focuses on the challenges that your customers have, what alternatives they are considering, and what a better solution would look like. This allows you to prioritize the work you do on your product to maximize the value you create for your users.
Facilitates radical innovation
Problems are more “durable” than solutions. It’s very rare that new needs emerge, but the ways that we solve problems are always evolving. For example, “how do I get from A to B” is a problem that people have had for thousands of years. But the solutions continue to change: Bus -> Taxi company -> Uber -> e-bike
Using the Jobs To Be Done framework as your mental model allows you to come up with really innovative solutions that deliver a step change in user experience; it means you aren’t locked into incremental improvements to an existing solution.
Understands the competition
Understanding the alternatives that customers might hire for a job is a central part of Job To Be Done. Again, rather than focusing on the features that competitors have, you focus on the benefits that customers get from them. This means that by using JTBD, you can effectively position yourself against competitors.
Identifies value proposition
Jobs To Be Done helps you speak the same language as your customers, and say why you’re better than the alternatives. Getting the words right means that the way you speak about your product will resonate with your customers. This is critical to effective marketing.
Applications of the Jobs To Be Done Framework
As a result, Jobs To Be Done can help with several core product management tasks:
- Idea generation – Guiding brainstorming and feature development.
- Prioritization – Assessing which features are likely to have the biggest impact.
- Marketing – Finding the words that resonate with your audience, and clearly stating the value your product offers.
- Insights – Helping interpret customer data and feedback, and allowing you to come up with better hypotheses to drive product development.
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Principles of the Jobs To Be Done Framework
When you’re using Jobs To Be Done, then there are a few principles to bear in mind:
- JTBD describe underlying human needs – they don’t describe features of the product or business objectives.
- JTBD must be grounded in user research – they shouldn’t be based on intuition or belief. You need to get out and speak to real people.
- JTBD over personas – there’s very little of practical use in defining your audience and personas that is not captured by defining your use cases and customer needs.
If you don’t keep these principles top of mind you’re at risk of filling out a Jobs to Be Done template and feeling like you’ve got an output, but not nailing the core requirements of the Jobs To Be Done framework.
How to use the Jobs To Be Done Framework
If you want to use Jobs To Be Done to understand your customers, then we’d recommend thinking through five key steps to get to the best outcome:
- Use case – what is the outcome that people want?
- Alternatives – what solutions are people using now?
- Progress – what is the struggling moment where people are blocked?
- Value Proposition – why would they use your product over the alternatives?
- Price – what would a customer pay for progress against this problem?
Jobs to be Done examples: Use case
“I actually think most of the meat that is actionable, that helps you define, not only what to build from a product perspective, but how your growth motion and growth model should work, is actually defined in the use case that you’re going after, and the different uses of your product.”
– Brian Balfour, CEO Reforge
This is the essence of Jobs To Be Done. You figure out the “job” that your product does for your users. This is the fundamental human need they have, rather than the action they are taking.
Use cases can be articulated in a variety of ways, but the simplest is just to use the format:
Jobs To Be Done Examples: Use Case
[Notion] I want to align with team mates and stakeholders what we’re building and why before we start writing code
[Wise] I want to transfer money overseas
[Trainline] I want to buy train tickets before I travel
You don’t need to get any more sophisticated than this in most cases, but here are a couple of alternative formats you can use if you prefer, which might help you add a bit more detail, or focus on problems over solutions. Let’s go through these variations and share some examples of how they can be applied to Jobs To Be Done.
Use case Alternative 1: Alan Klement’s Job Stories
- When … (situation)
- I want to … (motivation)
- So I can … (expected outcome)
Jobs To Be Done Examples: Job Stories
When I’m in a rush & I want something to eat, I want something to take away, so I make it to my meeting on time.
Use case Alternative 2: Facebook / Instagram format
- When I … (context)
- But … (barrier)
- Help me … (goal)
- So I … (outcome)
Jobs to be Done Examples: Facebook / Instagram format
(Peloton) When I need an option to workout, but I can’t go to my favorite studio, help me to get a convenient and inspiring indoor workout, so I can feel my best for myself and my family.
As you can see, whilst there are minor variations here, in each of these Jobs To Be Done examples, what’s important is that you’re getting a deep understanding of what users want. We’d suggest using whichever of the frameworks you prefer to formulate your user needs, and not getting too hung up on the format.
Working out what these use cases are can be as simple as watching a user doing something, and asking them “why” once or twice. As you ask “why” you’ll quickly dig into the deeper reasons they have for their actions.
Jobs To Be Done Examples: Discovering Use Cases
PM investigating internal document usage for Notion
PM: Tell me about what you use Google Docs for
USER: I use Google Docs every day. It’s the main thing we use for documenting new features, writing business cases… I’m probably in and out of 10 different documents a day.
PM: Let me ask a stupid question here. Why do you even need to write these things down?
USER: We’ve had some bad situations where people on the team weren’t aligned, and what we ended up building wasn’t what everyone thought we should be building. So now we try to document things up front a bit more to flush out any disagreements early.
PM: So you’re using Google Docs to share information, drive internal alignment and ultimately prevent rework?
USER: Exactly.
***
Jobs To Be Done Use case: I want to align with team mates and stakeholders what we’re building and why before we start writing code
If a straight “why” doesn’t feel right then you can also try these questions:
- Why is that important?
- What would happen if you didn’t do this?
- How does this problem affect you?
- How does this help you?
Jobs To Be Done Examples: Alternatives
Understanding the alternatives your customers have to your product is an important part of the Jobs To Be Done framework. It’s very rare that new jobs are created, so you should assume that customers have already “hired” something for the job you’re aiming your product at. Your product won’t get used without displacing the existing solution.
Jobs To Be Done Examples: Alternatives
Product: Trainline
JTBD: I want to buy train tickets before I travel
Alternatives: Physical ticket office, National Rail website
Product: Wise
JTBD: I want to transfer money overseas
Alternatives: International bank transfer, Post Office, Western Union
If you’re speaking to users, then you can ask questions like:
- What would you use instead if [our product] didn’t exist?
- What else did you consider [to solve this problem]?
And indeed, this is a good way to identify Jobs To Be Done – you find people using an existing product and ask them why they use it and what the alternatives are.
Jobs To Be Done Examples: Progress
Customers buy a better version of themselves A big part of Jobs To Be Done is figuring out the “struggling moment” where users are currently blocked. No solution can be perfect, so whatever solution customers are currently using, they will be struggling at its limits.
Your opportunity is to help customers past this struggling moment. You want to offer customers an upgrade from their existing solution, so they feel like they are making progress.
Upgrade your user, not your product. Don’t build better cameras — build better photographers.
— Kathy Sierra
To do this, you’ll need to understand how customers judge whether the job is being done well. There are likely several criteria they measure success against, whether or not that’s explicit. By understanding what these criteria are, you start to understand the benefits you need to offer to help customers past their struggling moment.
Jobs To Be Done Examples: Progress
Use case: I want to buy train tickets before I travel
Current solution: Physical ticket office
Struggling moments:
* I don’t know if I’m getting the best price
* It takes a long time, because I often have to queue
Criteria:
* Cost of tickets
* Convenience of purchase
Trainline 
National Rail So in the above Jobs To Be Done example, if you’re using a physical ticket office or the National Rail website, it’s really difficult to understand if you’re getting the cheapest price for the journey you’re making. This is the struggling moment that Trainline has attacked, by comparing multiple different options side-by-side and highlighting the cheapest option, so customers can see they are getting the best prices.
To uncover people’s struggling moments, you can ask them questions like:
- What do you dislike about … ?
- What’s the hardest / most frustrating part about … ?
- If you had a magic wand, what would you change?
Or, if you’ve already got a product out in the market, another way of approaching this is to explore the benefits they see in your product. These may or may not be what you expect! You can ask questions like:
- What is the main benefit you get from [our product]?
- Why would you choose us over the alternatives?
- What would need to be true for [our product] to be the best solution?
Either way, as you start to understand how customers rate different solutions, you’ll get more insight into:
- How to further segment your target audience – your ideal customer is going to value the benefits you offer, and you’ll want to ignore customers who don’t value what you offer.
- Where to focus developing your product – you’ll want to balance strengthening your core benefits with doing just well enough against criteria that would otherwise be blockers for people
- How to talk about your product – the language you hear people use when they describe their JTBD and the benefits they get from your product is the language you should use in your marketing. This is your value proposition.
Let’s go a bit deeper on this last point.
Jobs To Be Done Examples: Value proposition
Once you’ve established how you help people past their struggling moment, you can talk about your product in these terms. As we’ve mentioned, customers don’t care what features your product has. They care about whether it offers them a better solution to their problems, and you want to talk about your product in terms of these benefits: i.e. your value proposition.
When you articulate your value proposition, you’ll want to boil it down to 1-3 really clear benefits that are easy to remember. Whilst it can be tempting to add more, you don’t want to dilute your message.
Being clear on the value proposition you are offering is a critical step to align with sales and marketing colleagues. You don’t want them selling something which you can’t deliver!
Jobs To Be Done Examples: Value Proposition
Product: Trainline
Use case: I want to buy train tickets before I travel
Alternatives: Physical ticket office, National Rail website
Value proposition: Buy the cheapest train tickets really easily
Trainline app store listing emphasizes value proposition of cheaper tickets repeatedly Jobs To Be Done Examples: Price
The final part of understanding the problem you’re solving is getting users to put a value on it. If people won’t actually pay for your solution, you haven’t found a problem worth solving.
It’s not uncommon for users to make a lot of noise complaining about a problem, but actually be unwilling to spend any money to solve it. Make sure they’re willing to put their money where their mouth is before you go to the trouble of building a solution!
How much they are willing to spend builds on what you’ve already established about the use case, alternatives and value proposition. There are two halves to the value you can capture:
- What the customer is already spending on their existing solution
- What the customer would spend to get even greater benefits
So you can ask questions like:
- How much are you currently spending on this problem?
- Let’s imagine [our product] gives you [value prop] …
- What’s an acceptable price for this?
- What an expensive price for this?
- What’s a prohibitively expensive price for this?
These questions should give you an idea of the budget that people have for this job – which might be a real budget if you’re a B2B product, or an intuitive price point if you’re a B2C product. They’ll also get a sense of whether you can expand this budget by offering them a better solution.
Further Jobs To Be Done examples
Wise Jobs To Be Done Example
Use case: I want to transfer money to another country
Alternatives: Bank transfer, Revolut, Post Office, Western Union
Progress: Cheaper fees, faster transfer, simpler UX
Value Proposition: Transfer money up to 5x cheaper than high street banks
Pricing: variable, but perhaps 0.4%-0.5%
Trainline Jobs To Be Done Example
Use case: I want to buy train tickets before I travel
Alternatives: Physical ticket office, National Rail website
Progress: Cheaper prices, simpler UX, avoiding queues
Value Proposition: Buy the cheapest train tickets really easily
Pricing: £1-2 per ticket
Onfido Jobs To Be Done Example
Use case: I need a way to document processes, insights and decisions at my company
Alternatives: Jumio, Trulioo, Veriff, Persona
Progress: Simpler UX, easier integration and maintenance, faster ID checks, higher pass rate
Value Proposition: Digital identity made simple
Pricing: Variable
Why Use a Jobs To Be Done Template?
Get the Hustle Badger Jobs To Be Done Template, prepopulated with Jobs To Be Done Examples here: Google Sheets
Create a FREE account to access our Jobs To Be Done template, including worked Jobs To Be Done examples
Using the same Jobs To Be Done template across multiple use cases ensures uniformity. It helps make sure that you cover the same suite of questions every time, reducing gaps and bias. Think of your Jobs To Be Done Template as a really great checklist, designed to inform your discovery processes and make sure you work through all your customer needs.
In addition we’ve prepopulated the template with Jobs To Be Done Examples from Wise and the Trainline to help inform how you fill in your Jobs To Be Done scorecard. It’s just as important to phrase your user needs effectively as it is to uncover them in the first place.
Conflicting feedback
The theory of Jobs To Be Done as explained above is relatively simple, but it’s often more complicated in real life. A common problem is when you hear conflicting things from your users. What do you do?
Generally, one of two things will be happening in this situation:
- You’re speaking to two different customer segments. You’ll need to pick one to have a coherent offering.
- You’re speaking to different personas (e.g. finance / management / end-user) at the same company. This is common in B2B SaaS. Here you need to mediate between these different needs to have a really compelling product.
Wrap up on the Jobs To Be Done Framework
Whilst there are lots of interpretations of Jobs To Be Done, the central idea is to focus on understanding the problems your customers have and solving these, rather than building a solution independently of their needs. You’re trying to upgrade your users lives, not upgrade a widget they use.
Your understanding of the problem you are solving – and indeed the customers you are serving – is enhanced by exploring:
- The alternative solutions that customers have
- Where they are currently struggling
- How they think about progress
- What the core benefits you want to offer are
- What customers will pay for these benefits
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References
FAQs
What is jobs to be done?
Jobs to Be Done (JTBD) is a framework used in product management that focuses on understanding and fulfilling the customer’s needs. Rather than concentrating on the product itself, JTBD explores the ‘job’ the customer is trying to accomplish — the problem they need to solve or the need they wish to satisfy. This approach helps you identify and innovate in a customer centric way, leading to products that better meet consumer demands and improve customer satisfaction.
How to write jobs to be done?
The simplest way to write Jobs To Be Done is in the format “I want …” or “I need … “. If you want to add more context, then you could also use a Job Story: “When … (situation), I want to … (motivation), so I can … (expected outcome)” or you can also use the format: “When I … (context), but … (barrier), help me … (goal), so I … (outcome)”. Don’t get too hung up on the format, just concentrate on understanding what the customer really wants, and where they are currently getting blocked.
What is the jobs to be done framework?
Jobs To Be Done (JTBD) is a framework used in product management that helps you take a customer-centric approach to development. The core idea is that customers have a ‘job’ that they are trying to get done, and they ‘hire’ products to do this job for them. If they find a better solution then they will readily ‘fire’ their existing solution to upgrade. Jobs To Be Done helps you think of more innovative solutions and focus on building the product that delivers most value for customers.
What is the relationship between personas and jobs to be done?
Most of the useful information in a persona is captured in the use cases they have, and understanding their Jobs To Be Done – i.e. the needs they have and want to satisfy. It’s generally not helpful to base your personas on superficial characteristics such as demographics, as this doesn’t tell you anything about the values and problems your customers have.
What does jobs to be done help you identify?
First and foremost, Jobs To Be Done (JTBD) helps you identify the underlying needs that customers have. Beyond that, JTBD can help you identify the alternatives they are considering to satisfy those needs and what they would consider a ‘better’ solution to be. This understanding can then be used to help craft your value proposition and establish what your price point should be. All in all, JTBD helps you figure out the product you should build, as well as how you should position and sell it.
