How to run a Jobs to Be Done interview that finds the real motivation.

JTBD interviews are not user research in the traditional sense. You're not asking what features customers want. You're reconstructing the causal story of why they switched from one solution to another — and what job they were actually trying to get done.

Recruit right. Interview recent switchers — people who bought or adopted your product within the last 60–90 days, or people who switched away from a competitor. Long-tenured customers have rationalized their purchase and will give you post-hoc reasons. Recent switchers still remember the real one.

The timeline of events technique (Bob Moesta's method). Open with: "Tell me about the last time you bought [product/category]." Then walk backward through four moments:

1. First thought — "When did you first think, 'I should look for something new?'" This surfaces the trigger. It's rarely about features; it's usually about a life change, a frustration that crossed a threshold, or an external event.

1. Passive looking — "How did you start looking? Did you ask anyone?" This surfaces the pull of the new solution and the anxiety about switching.

1. Active looking — "When did you get serious about finding something? What did you try?" This reveals the alternatives they considered and what disqualified each one.

1. The purchase moment — "Walk me through the day you actually decided to buy. What happened right before?" This is the job firing — the specific moment the old solution failed badly enough to force action.

Listen for four forces: the push of the old situation (what made them leave), the pull of the new solution (what attracted them), the anxiety about switching (what almost stopped them), and the habit keeping them in place (the inertia of the familiar). These four forces explain every switch.

What not to do: Don't ask "What features do you wish you had?" Don't ask hypotheticals. Don't lead with demographics. Opinions and hypotheticals are cheap — stories of specific events are expensive and far more accurate.

After the interview. Write up the timeline of events on a whiteboard: trigger → passive looking → active evaluation → purchase moment → outcome. Map the four forces against each stage. After 5–8 interviews, patterns emerge — the same triggers, the same anxieties, the same disqualifiers.

Snap the whiteboard with BoardSnap after each interview debrief. The AI reads the timeline and force annotations and produces a summary you can paste directly into a JTBD canvas or product brief.