Building Team Alignment with JTBD

Private equity success depends heavily on aligning teams - both portfolio executives and sponsors - around shared goals. Misalignment can derail value creation, while a united team can drive growth, execute strategies, and deliver strong returns.

Quick Steps to Align Teams:

1. Set clear equity targets with measurable goals.

2. Build decision-making systems that tie actions to outcomes.

3. Foster team unity through open communication and shared objectives.

4. Use tools like thrv to integrate JTBD frameworks and track performance.

By focusing on customer needs and structured alignment, PE teams can unlock growth opportunities and build equity value efficiently.

Using JTBD in Private Equity

JTBD helps PE firms uncover market gaps and align their teams on delivering value. Parker Gale's investment in Biscom highlights its impact. By repositioning Biscom to address healthcare's need for secure information handling, they identified 17 critical job steps and over 100 customer needs. This approach led to a tripling of their growth rate ^[4].

The JTBD framework is especially effective in PE settings because it:

• Defines markets based on customer jobs, not just products

• Identifies unmet needs that signal growth opportunities

• Aligns portfolio company teams with PE sponsors

• Drives measurable results through customer-focused improvements

5 Steps to Align PE Teams

Private equity teams need a clear framework to align their efforts around equity value creation. Below are practical steps to help translate shared goals into actionable strategies.

Setting Clear Equity Targets

Building Decision-Making Systems

Once targets are set, the next step is creating systems that turn goals into actionable decisions. These systems ensure accountability while allowing executives to maintain flexibility.

Key elements of effective decision-making systems include:

• Building roadmaps that connect actions to goals while preserving executive independence

• Using transparent performance tracking with regular feedback loops

• Setting up clear accountability structures

These systems ensure that every decision contributes to equity value creation.

Creating Team Unity

Team unity is more than just agreeing on goals - it's about cohesive execution. Gap International describes alignment as "the leader's work of art" ^[5].

Focus areas for building unity:

• Encourage open, constructive conversations

• Promote transparent communication across teams

• Drive cross-functional initiatives

• Celebrate collaborative successes

• Ensure decision-making remains clear and inclusive

When clear targets, strong decision-making systems, and genuine team unity come together, private equity teams can concentrate their energy on achieving equity value through well-executed strategies.

Software Tools for Team Alignment

Private equity teams are increasingly using software platforms to integrate structured JTBD frameworks into their everyday operations. These tools help streamline strategy execution and track progress effectively.

thrv's platform offers tools designed to uncover growth opportunities and align execution across portfolio companies:

Making Team Alignment Work with JTBD

To integrate JTBD (Jobs-to-be-Done) into team decisions, focus on addressing customer needs rather than just enhancing product features. This process works best when broken into clear phases:

This phased approach ensures decisions consistently contribute to building equity value, aligning teams and sponsors to achieve highly successful outcomes.