One of the main cause of most Innovation failures is a lack of understanding of client requirements.
With the abundance of data available today, organizations should have no trouble understanding what their customers want to achieve. But this is not the case. In virtually all cases, data is used to find correlations rather than causes.
The Jobs-to-Be-Done (JTBD) Theory assists in comprehending client preferences by concentrating on what drives a purchase. The JTBD Theory approaches the innovation process scientifically. The framework provides an accurate way to pinpoint clients' requirements and issues. JTBD Theory does this by identifying the jobs that clients desire to carry out by buying a product.
The JTBD approach enables acquiring a profound understanding of the clients' needs. The focus of the approach is on the customer’s job rather than the product. JTBD defines products as items that people use to complete a task or address a problem. The strategy, for instance, directs us to concentrate on drilling a perfect quarter-inch hole rather than on the quarter-inch drill.
JTBD Theory allows organizations to create products and Business Models that have a substantial impact on their target market. The framework exhibits an Innovation success rate of 86%, which is higher than the typical 17% success rate of conventional Innovation approaches. When implemented correctly, JTBD provides businesses with a variety of benefits:
- Identifying unmet or over-met customer requests, selecting the best approaches to use, creating concepts, and carrying out concept testing.
- Developing robust yet adaptable organizational processes.
- Creating innovative products that offer a delightful Customer Experience and are difficult to replicate.
- Draw customers away from the products and services offered by rivals.
According to Tony Ulwick, the founder of the Jobs-to-be-Done Theory and the company, Strategyn, a consumer typically has between 50 and 150 needs in any particular market and out of these somewhere between 5% and 80% of unfulfilled needs.
There are 5 key stages in the JTBD approach. The stages of the JTBD Theory make it easier to recognize unmet customer needs and allocate the resources needed to come up with innovative solutions.
- Hypothesize the Initial Job Statement and Job Map
- Uncover Customer Requirements
- Endorse Data
- Visualize Data to Identify Opportunities
- Develop Viable Value Propositions
Now, let's go into details of some of these stages.
Stage 1: Hypothesize the Initial Job Statement and Job Map
During the early stage of implementing the JTBD framework, it is necessary to create a specific Job Statement, a list of the customer's unmet jobs, and a Job Map to demonstrate the precise actions customers take to meet their needs.
An objective, succinct, and recorded description of the improvements customers demand in terms of features to alter or processes to simplify, should be included in the Job Statement. While creating this brief Job Statement, the needs and perspective of the customer should be taken into account.
Stage 2: Uncover Customer Requirements
At this stage, the project team should conduct qualitative interviews to collect input directly from the clients. As a consequence of the interviews, the Job Statement and the Job Map should be refined and finished. In the job Statement, the verb should appear before the object and any contextual elaborations. Consider the phrase, "Get breakfast while commuting to work." The clarifier "while commuting to work" brings clarity to the job.
The Job Map is a graphical representation of the customer’s jobs to be done, divided into several phases. Gathering data, defining the expectations of the clients, establishing hypothesis, and carrying out the selected activities, all fall under the finalized Job Map milestone.
Stage 3: Endorse Data
In this stage, quantitative customer surveys are utilized to validate the qualitatively derived customer criteria that are used to assess customer job completion.
Interested in learning more about the other stages of the JTBD Theory? You can download an editable PowerPoint presentation on Jobs-to-be-Done Theory here on the Flevy documents marketplace.
Do You Find Value in This Framework?
You can download in-depth presentations on this and hundreds of similar business frameworks from the FlevyPro Library. FlevyPro is trusted and utilized by 1000s of management consultants and corporate executives.
For even more best practices available on Flevy, have a look at our top 100 lists:
Comments