Customers Can Tell You What They Want
You’re Invited! If you’re in Central Ohio on the evening of May 2, come join me at the next ProductTank Meetup Columbus.
I’ll be leading an interactive presentation on how companies are using the Jobs-to-Be-Done growth strategy to:
- Find hidden market opportunities
- Create differentiated value
- Drive revenue growth in a reliable manner
To learn more and register, CLICK HERE.
Separately, but related, there’s an interesting ongoing debate among “customer research” professionals.
People in the Jobs-to-Be-Done (JTBD) camp often proclaim that “there is no such thing as latent unarticulated needs.”
My friends in Design Thinking, Lean Startup, and Agile often vehemently disagree. That’s why they’re big believers in observational research. So who’s right?
They’re both right.
A more accurate way to understand both sides of this issue is to recognize that, yes, people have latent unarticulated needs UNTIL we ask them the right questions to make those needs conscious so people can articulate them.
Jobs theory enables companies to ask the right questions to make latent unarticulated needs conscious and easy to articulate.
It turns out people can tell us what they want if we ask them what they want to accomplish rather than asking them for product or service specifications.
That isn’t to say that observational research doesn’t have great value; it does and probably always will. That’s because, with JTBD, you have to know what market area you want to explore. JTBD is like sonar; it will find the treasure at the bottom of the ocean if you know what market(s) you want to explore.
Observational research can tip us off concerning where to point our JTBD questions.
But what do you think? Does that resolve the debate or is there more? Hit reply and let me know.
