Jobs to be done

What it means

Jobs to be done is a framework holding that customers buy a product not for its features but to get a particular job done or to make progress in some way. They effectively hire the product for that job, and when they find a better way to do it, they fire it and move on.

The framework was popularised by Professor Clayton Christensen. His best-known example is a milkshake that people bought in the morning not for the taste but to keep them occupied and full during a long drive to work. Its competition was not other milkshakes but bananas, bagels and snack bars.

A job has functional, emotional and social dimensions. A business owner chooses an accounting firm not only to have the books kept, but also to have peace of mind, not fear an audit and look credible to the bank. These motives often matter more than price or the list of services.

How it works in practice

The best source is interviews with customers who have recently bought or cancelled the product. Ask about the situation before the purchase: what happened, what they tried before, what bothered them and what finally made them decide. This reveals the real job, not just what people say in surveys.

The output is a job statement, for example: when I start a company, I want to be sure I miss nothing, so I can focus on customers. The value proposition, website copy and feature priorities follow from it, and the value proposition canvas complements it well.

Whereas a buyer persona describes who the customer is, jobs to be done explains why they buy. The two views can be combined: the persona helps target advertising, while the job helps you understand which story and which arguments will convince that customer.

What to watch out for

The job must be stated independently of the solution. If the team writes that the customer wants an invoicing app, it is merely describing its own product. The real job might be getting paid on time, and a completely different product may do that better, which is valuable information about the competition.

The framework is no substitute for testing. Hypotheses about the job must be validated, for example through an MVP or offer experiments, while tracking whether product-market fit improves. Otherwise jobs to be done becomes just a new label for old assumptions.