A job is defined as the progress that a customer desires to make in a particular circumstance.
The Theory of Jobs to Be Done requires that we:
- Focus on deeply understanding the customers’ struggle for progress, in specific contexts,
- Understand the trade-offs the customers’ are willing to make, the set of competing solutions that must be beaten, and the anxieties that must be overcome,
- Create the right solution-system with an attendant set of experiences, that satisfies the customers’ functional, social, and emotional requirements, that is, that solves the customers’ jobs well, every time,
- Is not about products [or services] as such.
Competing Against Luck, Clayton Christensen.
Less formally, Jobs To Be Done are the same as needs, as in a need that customers want to satisfy.
An easy to remember mantra is “see a need, fill a need,” Bigweld in the movie Robots, 20th Century Fox.
Read more here: Identifying a Job To Be Done.
