thinking-jobs-to-be-donelisted

# Jobs to Be Done ## Overview Jobs to Be Done (JTBD), developed by Clayton Christensen, reframes product thinking around the progress customers are trying to make in their lives. People don't buy products; they "hire" products to do a job. Understanding the job reveals what you're really competing against and what success looks like. **Core Principle:** People don't want a quarter-inch drill. They don't even want a quarter-inch hole. They want to hang a picture of their family. ## When to Use - Product development and roadmapping - Feature prioritization - User research and interviews - Competitive analysis - Market positioning - Understanding "surprising" competitors - Debugging low adoption of features Decision flow: ``` Building/improving a product? → Do you understand the job users hire it for? → no → DISCOVER THE JOB → Are features not being adopted? → yes → CHECK JOB ALIGNMENT → Surprising competitors winning? → yes → IDENTIFY THEIR JOB ``` ## Understanding Jobs ### The Job Formula ``` When I [situation/trigger] I want to [motivation/progress] So I can [desired outcome/better state] ``` **Example:** ``` When I [finish a project milestone] I want to [notify my team without disrupting their focus] So I can [maintain team awareness while respecting their time] Job: "Keep team informed asynchronously" Not: "Use Slack" (that's a solution, not the job) ``` ### Job Dimensions Every job has multiple dimensions: | Dimension | Question | Example (Project Mana