Jobs to Be Done

Products and services fail regularly to meet customer expectations but what is going wrong? Companies are asking customers what they want and blindly seek to deliver it; yet not so many seem to analyse what they may need and work from that data point.

This is the central argument expressed by the authors, who believe that people purchase products and services to solve a specific problem or need. If a company can focus on the “jobs to be done” by a product or service for a customer, their innovation, development and sales processes can be much more successful.

It all makes for an interesting read. You can be wise and say that it is an obvious argument, but if that’s the case why are so many seemingly overlooking it? By reading this book maybe you can reboot your mindset and start to look at things in a different light. The style of the book was a little challenging and it felt disjointed, meaning that it was a bit easy to skip over sections, but the central theme and guidance is the main thing.

Comprehensive advice is given throughout so the reader can easily use this book as a blueprint or roadmap for future change. It would be something that you would probably be consulting on many occasions, so the complaint about a disjointed feel may fade away with many visits. It probably affects the initial, sequential read and slightly risks reader interaction and engagement.

It is definitely worthy of consideration in any case, assuming that your company does not already look at what customers need!

Jobs to Be Done, written by Stephen Wunker, Jessica Wattman & David Farber and published by AMACOM Books. ISBN 9780814438039. YYYY

As someone who has been responsible for taking products to market that are often tossed over the wall by engineers proud of how smart they think they are, in reading this book, I began to feel as though the JTBD framework and promise is the missing piece and the starting point of every development endeavor. Missing were links to downloadable templates I could use to specifically apply the authors insights to my situation and perhaps a series of implementations 'steps'. The book ending felt sudden and abrupt and left me looking for how and where I might find the steps and perhaps a template to apply the JTBD framework in my endeavors. Now, I'm looking for a resource that adequately does that JTBD for me.