A Jobs To Be Done-based product strategy framework is a structured approach to developing product strategy that uses the core principles of Jobs To Be Done theory to identify market opportunities, prioritize customer needs, and create differentiated product offerings. Unlike traditional product strategy frameworks that often focus on competitive benchmarking or technological capabilities, a JTBD-based framework centers on understanding the fundamental goals customers are trying to achieve.
This framework provides a systematic way to translate customer jobs into actionable product decisions, ensuring that every feature, enhancement, and innovation directly contributes to helping customers achieve their goals faster and more accurately.
Traditional product strategy approaches often lead to feature-focused thinking, resulting in bloated products that don't effectively solve customer problems. A JTBD-based framework offers several key advantages:
The foundation of a JTBD-based product strategy is a clear definition of the customer's job-to-be-done. This involves:
For example, in enterprise software, a job might be "acquire new customers" with steps like "identify potential customers," "engage with prospects," and "convert prospects to customers." Within the "identify potential customers" step, needs might include "determine which prospects are most likely to buy" and "identify the decision makers at target companies."
Once the job is mapped, the next element involves measuring how well customers can satisfy their needs with existing solutions:
These measurements reveal where customers are most underserved by existing solutions and what opportunities exist for new product innovation.
Unlike traditional market sizing based on existing product categories, a JTBD framework sizes opportunities based on:
This approach often identifies larger market opportunities than traditional sizing methods because it's not constrained by existing product definitions.
A JTBD-based competitive analysis focuses on how well competitors help customers execute their jobs:
This analysis provides a more accurate picture of the competitive landscape than feature-by-feature comparisons.
With data on customer needs, market opportunity, and competitive landscape, the framework guides strategic decision-making:
These strategic choices form a coherent product strategy focused on delivering superior customer value.
The framework extends to roadmap development and execution:
Traditional frameworks often start with product features or technologies, then try to find customers who might want them. A JTBD framework reverses this, starting with the customer's job and working backwards to determine what product capabilities will help them execute that job better.
Many traditional approaches rely on static personas or demographic segmentation that doesn't capture why customers make purchase decisions. A JTBD framework focuses on the dynamic elements of customer behavior—their goals, struggles, and success criteria—which more accurately predict purchasing behavior.
Traditional frameworks often define markets by product categories, leading to narrow thinking about competition and innovation. JTBD frameworks define markets by customer problems, opening up broader strategic possibilities and revealing non-obvious competitors.
Feature-based strategies often chase short-term trends or competitive feature parity. Job-based strategies build on stable customer goals, creating more sustainable competitive advantages.
Bring together product, marketing, sales, and customer-facing teams to share observations about customer goals and struggles. This collaborative approach ensures a comprehensive understanding of customers and creates buy-in for the resulting strategy.
Interview customers focusing on:
Look for patterns in these interviews that reveal the underlying job customers are trying to accomplish.
Develop surveys to measure:
This data quantifies market opportunities and guides prioritization decisions.
Create product concepts that address high-priority unmet needs, then test these concepts with customers based on:
This validation step reduces development risk before significant investment.
Ensure that marketing messaging, sales enablement, and product development all align with the customer job and prioritized needs. This consistency creates a coherent customer experience and maximizes the impact of strategic choices.
Organizations accustomed to feature-focused or technology-driven development may resist adopting a customer job perspective. Overcoming this resistance requires demonstrating how the JTBD approach leads to better customer outcomes and business results.
Companies sometimes define jobs too broadly ("be productive") or too narrowly ("use our software"). Finding the right level of specificity requires practice and iteration.
With hundreds of potential needs to address, teams can become overwhelmed by data. Success requires clear prioritization criteria and decision-making frameworks.
While focusing on the job helps identify breakthrough innovation opportunities, companies must balance these with incremental improvements to maintain competitive parity.
thrv provides specialized tools, methodologies, and expertise to help companies implement Jobs To Be Done product strategy frameworks. Through proprietary software and consulting services, thrv helps companies map customer jobs, quantify unmet needs, size market opportunities, and develop strategies that create sustainable competitive advantages based on superior job satisfaction.
The thrv approach helps product teams move beyond feature-focused thinking to create strategies that truly deliver value to customers and drive long-term growth for the business.