This is the introduction to a series about how Jobs-to-be-Done (JTBD) can change your product development mindset. Part 1 explains the first five rows of our Jobs-to-be-Done worksheet using the example of an educational publisher. Part 2 discusses idea generation, pricing, and market sizing. Part 3 covers roadmapping, aligning the team, and scoping a minimum viable product.

Having the ability to accelerate your company’s growth implies everyone on your team understands what your customer’s unmet needs are and how you are going to build, market and sell a product that satisfies those unmet needs better than your competitors. With jobs-to-be-done (JTBD), developing a product roadmap becomes so much easier. You can satisfy your customers and give your marketing and sales teams the content they need to differentiate from competitors with more effective targeted messaging and less risk.

Jobs-to-be-Done Theory

Jobs-to-be-done is often presented from a theoretical point-of-view: your customers aren’t buying your product, they’re “hiring” your product to get a job done. To help you apply this concept to your everyday life in product development, we've created a Jobs-to-be-Done worksheet: the “Product Growth Cheatsheet.” This jobs-to-be-done worksheet illustrates the practical difference between a traditional approach to product management, and the JTBD approach from thrv. If you find the theory overwhelming, this breakdown may help.

To ground the concepts, we imagine how Microsoft could have used JTBD to think differently when competing with the iPod. If you were a Product Manager at Microsoft and focused on the customer's unmet needs in the job of curating music, would you have proposed the Zune?

Innovation with JTBD

Covered in depth in this blog series, our jobs-to-be-done worksheet has 11 components:

1. Defining your market

2. Identifying your customers

3. Sizing your opportunity

4. Identifying unmet needs

5. Segmenting your customers

6. Analyzing competition

7. Generating feature ideas

8. Calculating customer value

9. Prioritizing your roadmap

10. Creating targeted messages

11. Projecting revenue

This cheatsheet is the beginning of product innovation. Download it, print it out and refer to it when you’re about to do something in the traditional way. Share it with your product, marketing, and sales colleagues to spread this approach across your team. Think of the worksheet as a first step towards setting yourself apart from all other product managers and companies who don't know about Jobs-to-be-Done so that you can start winning in your market.

To apply JTBD to your market, get in touch with us today and try thrv for free.