| Smart Structuring Methode | Job-to-be-done |
| Category | Growth |
| Short overview | Clayton Christensen (Hall, Dillon, Duncan) brings a customer-centric view of products and services in her comprehensive book “Competing Against Luck”. The customer purchases a product or service to get a particular job done. This job is detached from the classic target group models or usage personas. It can occur completely independent of demographic criteria and can then be understood as a need by a wide variety of target persons. The customer “hired” a product or service analogous to a company that hires an employee for a certain task. Accordingly, applicant and advertiser come together when job description and skill profile/expertise match perfectly. |
| Developed by | Clayton Christensen, Taddy Hall, Karen Dillon, David S. Duncan |
| Online Reference | https://www.christenseninstitute.org/books/competing-against-luck/ |
| Book | Competing Against Luck: The Story of Innovation and Customer Choice |
| Community | https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/finding-the-right-job-for-your-product/ |
| Video | Professor Clayton Christensen spoke at the 2017 National Summit on Education Reform on Thursday [51:46] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V603pf9s5WA |
| Key words | Growth, target groups, insights, customer, Persona, Job-to-be-done |
| Insights | The methodology puts the “job” of a customer at the centre. For this job he “hired” a problem solution. Especially with innovative problem solutions, the user may find it difficult or even impossible to describe how the solution could look like. Therefore, observation instead of questioning is an elementary component.
Christensen and his co-authors describe a job as progress that a person tries to make under certain circumstances. The progress is made towards a goal or a request. It is thus more than just a problem for which a solution is sought. The circumstances define the context of the job. Circumstances can be related to a stage in life, family status, financial status, work environment, housing situation or many other things. In order to understand the progress a person wants to make, it is necessary to analyse the circumstances in which the person wants to make that progress. Finally, Christensen emphasizes that it is not only the functional, practical side that needs to be considered. The social and emotional dimension is also relevant. When it comes to a job-to-be-done, the social and emotional dimension can influence the customer’s decision whether to “hired” a particular product or service much more. The procedure based on specific questions to identify the job-to-be-done
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| Best usage for… | Expansion of the problem-solving space, strong user/customer view, the task (the “job-to-be-done”) in the centre |
| Weak result when… | Target group focus or strong product/service fixation |
| Template | A series of method sheets or templates are also available for this method. https://jobs-to-be-done.com/tagged/template or http://www.180360720.no/?p=5126 (good structure) |
| Needed time span | Experience shows that it takes 2+ rounds to communicate the underlying idea and enrich it with observations |
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| Size of group | / |
Job-to-be-done – Growth
