Jobs To Be Done

What the framework is

Jobs to be done looks at what customers are trying to get done, and at the needs, frustrations and outcomes around it, rather than at the product. Clayton Christensen popularised the idea that people "hire" a product to do a job. The template compares those needs on five criteria: Customer Importance, Current Dissatisfaction, Strategic Alignment, Revenue Potential and Frequency of Need. The criteria can be changed, added to and weighted.

What the result looks like

When it earns its place

Use it after customer interviews or research, when you have a list of needs and must decide which to address first. The most promising needs are usually important to customers and badly served today.

The trap is writing solutions as needs. "A mobile app" is not a job; "check my order status while out" is. Phrase every item as something the customer is trying to do.

How to run it with a group

1. List the needs, frustrations or desired outcomes from your research, each phrased from the customer's side.
2. Agree the weights. Customer Importance and Current Dissatisfaction together point at the gaps.
3. Participants compare the needs two at a time on each criterion. Participants do not need an account to respond. Three to six options keep it manageable: with five options and five criteria, each person makes 50 comparisons.
4. Read the overall ranking, then the ranking per criterion. A need that ranks high on importance and dissatisfaction but low on alignment is a strategic question, not just a backlog item.

More templates like this

• ICE Scoring

  Prioritise options by Impact, Confidence and Ease. The criteria can be changed, added to and weighted.

• Multi-Criteria Analysis

  Prioritise options across five criteria: Impact, Feasibility, Cost-effectiveness, Equity, and Political Acceptability. The criteria can be changed, added to and weighted.

• RICE Prioritisation

  Prioritise options by Reach, Impact, Confidence, and Effort. The criteria can be changed, added to and weighted.

• Value vs Effort

  Prioritise options by Value versus Effort to surface quick wins and avoid time sinks. The criteria can be changed, added to and weighted.

• WSJF

  Prioritise by Cost of Delay (User & Business Value, Time Criticality, Risk Reduction & Opportunity) against Job Size. The criteria can be changed, added to and weighted.

• Assumption Prioritisation

  Identify which assumptions, uncertainties, or hypotheses are most important to test first. Useful for innovation, startups, strategy, and experimentation. The criteria can be changed, added to and weighted.