Jobs to be done
Definition
Jobs to be done (JTBD) is a theory of customer motivation, popularized by Clayton Christensen, that frames customer decisions as "hiring" a product to do a specific job — the underlying progress the customer is trying to make in their life — rather than buying a set of features.
The Jobs to Be Done framework emerged from Clayton Christensen's work at Harvard Business School, refined through collaborations with Bob Moesta and Chris Spiek. The famous framing: "People don't buy a quarter-inch drill. They buy a quarter-inch hole." The "job" is the underlying goal, not the tool.
The core insight: Customers don't buy products — they hire them to make progress in a specific situation. When you understand the job, you understand what the product needs to do, who the real competitors are (including non-consumption and workarounds), and why customers switch.
Types of jobs:
- Functional jobs: The practical task the customer needs to accomplish ("get whiteboard notes into my project management tool before the meeting ends")
- Emotional jobs: How the customer wants to feel ("feel confident I didn't miss anything")
- Social jobs: How the customer wants to be perceived ("look organized and on top of things to my team")
The job statement format: When [situation], I want to [motivation], so I can [expected outcome].
JTBD vs. user personas: Personas describe who the customer is. JTBD describes what they're trying to accomplish. The same job can be shared across very different personas — a student, a consultant, and a product manager might all share the job of "quickly capture meeting output so nothing gets lost."
How teams use JTBD: Interview customers about moments of switching — when they decided to hire a new solution and fire the old one. Those switching interviews reveal the real jobs, the forces that pushed customers away from the old solution, and the triggers that made them look for something new.
Examples
- Milkshake research: McDonald's discovers commuters hire milkshakes to make a boring commute more entertaining and last longer — the job has nothing to do with hunger
- JTBD interview reveals users hire BoardSnap to "not lose the output of a meeting I organized" — the emotional job is fear of looking unprepared
- Team discovers their real competitor isn't another app — it's a photo saved to Camera Roll that nobody ever acts on
- Product team uses switching interviews to learn that users fired their previous tool because it required too many steps after the snap
- Feature request reframed as a job: 'users want dark mode' becomes 'users want to use the app in low-light meetings without disturbing others'
Snap a jobs to be done. Ship its actions.
BoardSnap turns any whiteboard — including this one — into a summary and action plan.