When to use it
Use when designing or improving a product or service, when customer research feels surface-level, or when you want to understand why customers switch to or away from what you offer.
It's particularly effective in The Untangle when you need to understand the real motivation behind customer behaviour.
How it works in The Studio
Here's how a session works with WAiDE:
Sample output
Here's what a Jobs to Be Done analysis looks like in practice:
What you get
Clear articulation of the job the customer is trying to get done, the circumstances, and the metrics by which they measure success. Becomes foundation for product, service, or messaging decisions.
Foundation
Developed by Clayton Christensen at Harvard Business School. Core framework at Apple, Intercom, Basecamp, and Y Combinator. Extended by Tony Ulwick's Outcome-Driven Innovation methodology.
Why it works
Jobs to Be Done reframes what a product actually is. A product is not a collection of features — it's something a customer hires to make progress in a specific situation. Clayton Christensen, who popularised the framework (building on earlier work by Tony Ulwick), used the famous example of a milkshake: customers weren't buying milkshakes because they wanted a milkshake. They were hiring the milkshake to make a long, boring commute go faster. That insight — invisible to any demographic analysis — completely changes what product improvements matter.
The framework is powerful because it predicts switching behaviour. People don't switch products because a competitor has a better feature list. They switch when a competitor does the job better. Understanding the job — including its functional, emotional, and social dimensions — tells you exactly what "better" means to your customer, in terms they'd actually use to describe it.
The three job types matter equally. Functional jobs (get the task done) are easy to see. Social jobs (be perceived as competent, progressive, responsible) and emotional jobs (feel confident, reduce anxiety) are invisible to most product teams — and are often the real reason people buy or don't buy.
The best research question: ask customers about the moment they decided to start looking for a solution — not about the product itself. "What happened the week before you first searched for something like this?" The trigger story is where the job lives.
Frequently asked questions
What's the difference between Jobs to Be Done and customer personas?
Personas describe who buys — demographics, role, background. JTBD explains why they buy — the specific progress they're trying to make in a specific situation. Two people with completely different personas might hire the same product for the same job. JTBD is more predictive of purchase behaviour because it focuses on motivation and context, not profile.
What are the three types of jobs?
Functional jobs (what they're literally trying to accomplish), social jobs (how they want to be perceived by others while doing it), and emotional jobs (how they want to feel during and after). The strongest products address all three. Most founders only design for the functional job — which is why emotionally intelligent competitors often win.
How do I find out what job my product is being hired to do?
Ask customers about the moment they decided to start looking for a solution — not about the product itself. What triggered the search? What else did they try? What made them choose? What were they hoping it would feel like to use it? The story of switching is where the real job is hiding.
Is Jobs to Be Done only relevant for consumer products?
No — it's equally powerful in B2B. Enterprise buyers have functional jobs (solve a business problem), social jobs (be seen as making a smart decision), and emotional jobs (reduce personal risk and anxiety). The decision-maker and end user often have different jobs, which is why enterprise sales is complex and why demos that impress users still lose deals.