---
name: jobs-to-be-done
description: Analyze customer needs by identifying the 'job' they hire a product to do, covering job statements, forces of progress, and competitive landscapes.
license: MIT
---

# Jobs to Be Done Framework

Framework for discovering innovation based on a fundamental truth: customers don't buy products -- they "hire" them to do a specific job in their lives.

## Core Principle

**Job to Be Done** = the progress a customer wants to make in specific circumstances.

Key elements of the definition:
- **Progress** (not goal, not solution) -- the customer wants to move from the current state to a better one
- **Circumstances** -- context determines the job, not customer attributes (demographics are useless)
- **Hiring/Firing** -- the customer actively chooses a product for the "job"

## Scoring

**Goal: 10/10.** Score 1 point per satisfied row in the Quick Diagnostic (7 rows) plus up to 3 points for depth: +1 if all three job dimensions are evidenced, +1 if the job statement avoids any product/solution name, +1 if competition includes non-consumption. Bands: **9-10** = job stated without the product, all four forces mapped, three dimensions evidenced, non-obvious competition and Little Hire tracked; **5-6** = job named but one or two diagnostic rows fail (usually missing forces or emotional/social dimensions); **<=3** = product-first framing, demographic segmentation, or Pull-only thinking. Always state the current score and the specific diagnostic rows to fix.

## Three Dimensions of Every Job

Every job has three inseparable dimensions -- omitting any means failure:

| Dimension | Question | Example (milkshake) |
|-----------|----------|---------------------|
| **Functional** | What does the customer need to do? | Occupy myself during a boring commute |
| **Emotional** | How do they want to feel? | Have a small treat for myself |
| **Social** | How do they want to be perceived? | As a sensible parent (not buying donuts) |

## Framework

### 1. The Job Statement

**Core concept:** A job statement captures the progress a customer seeks in a specific circumstance, in a structured format separating context, desired progress, and expected outcome.

**Why it works:** Because jobs are stable while solutions churn, anchoring on the job protects a roadmap from chasing features that the next technology shift makes irrelevant.

**Key insights:**
- Format: "When [circumstances], I want to [progress], so I can [outcome]"
- Circumstances matter more than demographics -- the same person has different jobs in different situations
- A well-written job statement never mentions your product or any specific solution
- Jobs are stable over time; solutions change but the underlying job persists

**Product applications:**

| Context | Application | Example |
|---------|-------------|---------|
| New product ideation | Define the job before brainstorming features | "When I'm commuting alone, I want something to occupy me and satisfy hunger, so I'm not hungry until lunch" |
| Feature prioritization | Evaluate whether a feature serves the core job | Features that advance the stated job beat nice-to-haves |
| Positioning & messaging | Use job statement language in copy | Lead with circumstance and progress, not product specs |

**Copy patterns:**
- "When you're [circumstance], you need [progress] -- that's exactly what [product] does"
- Lead with the situation the customer recognizes, not the product category
- Mirror the emotional and social dimensions alongside the functional one

See [references/innovation-process.md](references/innovation-process.md) when running an innovation project end-to-end -- the job-hunting methodology, the job atlas, and fill-in statement templates.

### 2. Forces of Progress (Push, Pull, Anxiety, Habit)

**Core concept:** The decision to "hire" a new product results from four forces: Push (frustration with the current situation), Pull (attraction of the new solution), Anxiety (fear of the new), and Habit (comfort with the current behavior). Change happens only when Push + Pull > Habit + Anxiety.

**Why it works:** Most innovation efforts only increase Pull while ignoring the anti-change forces -- which is why great products still fail to gain adoption.

**Key insights:**
- Push: "this annoys me"; Pull: "I want this"; Habit: "I've always done it this way"; Anxiety: "what if it doesn't work?"
- Reducing anxiety and habit is often more effective than increasing push and pull
- Passive seekers (vaguely aware of a problem) are easier to influence than active seekers who already have criteria

**Product applications:**

| Context | Application | Example |
|---------|-------------|---------|
| Onboarding design | Reduce anxiety with trials, guarantees, social proof | Money-back guarantee answers "what if it doesn't work?" |
| Switching campaigns | Make migration effortless to defeat habit | One-click data import from competitor |
| Content marketing | Awaken push in passive seekers by naming the frustration | "5 signs your current tool is costing you hours every week" |

**Copy patterns:**
- Address anxiety directly: "No lock-in, cancel anytime, your data is always yours"
- Name the push: "Tired of [frustration]? There's a better way"
- Reduce habit friction: "Switch in 5 minutes -- we import everything automatically"

See [references/competitive-strategy.md](references/competitive-strategy.md) when mapping competitors or writing positioning -- forces analysis, the non-obvious-competition tables, and the jobs-based positioning formula with worked examples.

### 3. The Big Hire & Little Hire

**Core concept:** Two distinct decision moments: the Big Hire (purchase/signup, happens once) and the Little Hire (decision to use in the moment, happens repeatedly). Winning the Big Hire does not guarantee the Little Hire.

**Why it works:** Many products win the sale but lose the customer because they optimize only the purchase decision -- understanding both moments reveals where retention problems truly originate.

**Key insights:**
- Big Hire is driven by marketing, onboarding, and first impressions; Little Hire by product quality, UX, and ongoing value
- Big Hire anxiety is purchase risk; Little Hire anxiety is effort and learning curves
- Retention problems are almost always Little Hire failures -- purchased but never used

**Product applications:**

| Context | Application | Example |
|---------|-------------|---------|
| Retention analysis | Separate Big Hire from Little Hire metrics | Track "first use after signup" and "weekly active usage" apart from signup conversion |
| Product design | Optimize repeated usage, not just first impressions | Reduce daily-workflow friction even when onboarding is smooth |
| Customer success | Monitor Little Hire signals to predict churn | Declining usage frequency signals upcoming churn |

**Copy patterns:**
- Big Hire copy sells the promise: "Transform how you [job]"
- Little Hire copy sells ease: "One click and you're done"
- Re-engagement copy addresses the failure: "We've made [specific friction] easier"

See [references/case-studies.md](references/case-studies.md) when you need a worked precedent to reason from -- full Big Hire / Little Hire breakdowns of SNHU, American Girl, and Intuit.

### 4. Competitive Landscape (Non-Obvious Competition)

**Core concept:** True competition is everything a customer can "hire" for the same job, often from completely different categories. Competitors are defined by the job, not by industry classification.

**Why it works:** Category-based analysis creates blind spots: a milkshake competes with bananas, bagels, and podcasts; Netflix competes with TikTok, sleep, and family conversation. Mapping the full landscape around the job reveals threats and opportunities traditional analysis misses.

**Key insights:**
- Non-consumption (doing nothing) is often the biggest competitor
- Workarounds and compensating behaviors reveal unserved jobs -- people hack, combine, and improvise
- Integrate where performance is "not good enough" for the job; modularize where it's "good enough"
- The best positioning answers "what job are we the best hire for?", not "how do we compare to similar products?"

**Product applications:**

| Context | Application | Example |
|---------|-------------|---------|
| Competitive analysis | Map all hires for the same job across categories | A PM tool competes with spreadsheets, sticky notes, email, and memory |
| Positioning strategy | Position against the real alternative | Position against "doing it manually", not a named competitor |
| Pricing strategy | Price against the job's value | If the job saves 10 hours/week, price against that time, not similar SaaS |

**Copy patterns:**
- "Stop using [workaround] for [job] -- there's a purpose-built solution"
- "You wouldn't hire a [bad fit] to [job] -- so why are you using [current hack]?"
- Position around the job outcome, not feature comparison charts

### 5. Customer Discovery Interviews

**Core concept:** Don't ask customers "what do you need" -- they don't know. Instead, reconstruct the purchase timeline (first thought, search, purchase, usage) to uncover the real job.

**Why it works:** Customers rationalize decisions after the fact and can't articulate latent needs; walking backward through concrete events reveals the true circumstances, forces, and tradeoffs that drove behavior.

**Key insights:**
- First thought: "When did you first look for a solution? What was happening in your life? What frustrated you?"
- Search: "What alternatives did you consider? What eliminated options? Who did you talk to?"
- Purchase: "Where were you? What ultimately convinced you? What were you afraid of?"
- Usage: "Is it doing what you expected? What surprised you? What's still missing?"
- Signals of undiscovered jobs: workarounds, non-consumption, compensating behaviors, negative emotions toward current solutions
- Ask only about past events, never hypotheticals ("would you...", "do you wish...") -- a question that names your solution or a benefit leads the subject and produces confirmation, not discovery

**Product applications:**

| Context | Application | Example |
|---------|-------------|---------|
| New market entry | Interview recent switchers | Reconstruct what pushed them away and pulled them in |
| Churn reduction | Interview churned customers on their timeline | Was it Big Hire (wrong expectations) or Little Hire (poor daily experience)? |
| Feature discovery | Interview customers using workarounds | Spreadsheets alongside your product reveal an unmet job dimension |

**Copy patterns:**
- Use exact customer language from interviews in marketing copy
- "We heard you say [verbatim quote] -- so we built [feature]"
- Frame benefits in the circumstances and emotions customers actually described

### 6. Designing for the Job

**Core concept:** Build the entire experience -- features, metrics, organization -- around helping the customer accomplish their job, not around internal capabilities or feature parity.

**Why it works:** When every decision answers "will this help the customer better accomplish their job?", teams avoid feature bloat and build coherent products; if you can't answer it, you don't understand the job yet.

**Key insights:**
- Replace customer satisfaction metrics with "did the job get done?"
- Replace NPS with "reasons for hiring and firing"; replace feature usage with "progress on the job"
- Organize teams and processes around jobs, not internal capabilities or product components

**Product applications:**

| Context | Application | Example |
|---------|-------------|---------|
| Metrics design | Measure job completion | "Time from problem to resolution", not "features used per session" |
| Product roadmap | Prioritize across job dimensions | A functional fix that ignores the emotional dimension may not move the needle |
| Organizational alignment | Structure teams around jobs | A "morning commute job" team owns content, packaging, and distribution |

**Copy patterns:**
- "Built for [the job], not for [the category]"
- "Everything you need to [job] -- nothing you don't"
- Emphasize outcome and progress, not features and specifications

See [references/organizational-change.md](references/organizational-change.md) when adoption is the bottleneck rather than the analysis -- escaping the feature-factory trap, winning executive buy-in, and managing the change.

## Common Mistakes

| Mistake | Why It Fails | Fix |
|---------|-------------|-----|
| Defining jobs narrowly around your product | Misses the real competitive landscape | Define the job from the customer's perspective, never mentioning your product |
| Ignoring emotional and social dimensions | Functional-only jobs miss why customers choose and stay | Always complete all three dimensions |
| Confusing jobs with goals or tasks | Goals too abstract ("be healthy"), tasks too specific ("click button") | Jobs = progress in specific circumstances |
| Only increasing Pull | Great products fail when switching costs and fear stay high | Map all four forces; design interventions for Anxiety and Habit |
| Winning the Big Hire, ignoring the Little Hire | High acquisition, high churn -- purchased but never used | Track and optimize repeated usage separately from purchase |
| Asking customers "what do you want?" | Rationalization and incremental feature requests | Use timeline-based interviews reconstructing actual behavior |
| Defining competition by category | Blind spots from adjacent categories and non-consumption | Map every alternative hire for the job, including doing nothing |

## Quick Diagnostic

| Question | If No | Action |
|----------|-------|--------|
| Can you state the job in one sentence without mentioning your product? | Product-focused, not job-focused | Write: "When [circumstances], I want to [progress], so I can [outcome]" |
| Have you mapped all four forces? | Over-investing in Pull, ignoring barriers | Design specific interventions for Anxiety and Habit |
| Do you know the emotional and social dimensions? | May win functionally but lose on experience | Run discovery interviews on feelings and social context |
| Have you identified non-obvious competitors? | Competitive blind spots | List everything hireable for the job, including non-consumption |
| Are you tracking Little Hire separately from Big Hire? | Can't tell acquisition problems from retention problems | Separate purchase-conversion and repeated-usage metrics |
| Can your team explain how each feature serves the job? | Building without strategic grounding | Require proposals to name the job dimension served |
| Have you interviewed customers about their purchase timeline? | Job understanding based on assumptions | Run 10+ interviews reconstructing first-thought-to-usage |

When the inline Quick Diagnostic above is not enough -- you are diagnosing a *symptom* (low signups, high churn, "used wrong") or need JTBD-specific metrics -- see [references/diagnostics.md](references/diagnostics.md): the "why aren't they buying" symptom table, churn-pattern tables, and traditional-vs-JTBD metric swaps.

## Further Reading

For the complete methodology, case studies, and deeper insights:

- [*"Competing Against Luck: The Story of Innovation and Customer Choice"*](https://www.amazon.com/Competing-Against-Luck-Innovation-Customer/dp/0062435612?tag=wondelai00-20) by Clayton M. Christensen, Taddy Hall, Karen Dillon, and David S. Duncan

## About the Author

**Clayton M. Christensen** (1952-2020) was the Kim B. Clark Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, best known for the theory of disruptive innovation introduced in *The Innovator's Dilemma* (1997). He developed Jobs to Be Done as a practical innovation methodology in *Competing Against Luck* (2016) and was repeatedly ranked the world's #1 management thinker by Thinkers50.