How Jobs-to-Be-Done Changes the Game of Innovation and Growth Strategy
In a recent article, How “Shared Language” Creates Breakthrough Innovation, I made the case that any organization that wants to turn innovation into a repeatable business process must redefine “innovation” and its related terms according to new knowledge to create an innovation lexicon.
Today, I offer you a definition for “innovation” that I find very helpful as well as an overview of the Jobs-to-Be-Done (JTBD) innovation approach. I will conclude by offering a few words about why it changes the game and a dozen ways it can help organizations save time, save money, avoid waste, avoid failure, and consistently generate revenue.
So, What Is Innovation?
One problem that sabotages many innovation efforts right from the start is not having an accurate and agreed-upon definition for “innovation.” If you Google “innovation” you’ll find many definitions with a common theme around “creating something new that adds value.” That’s certainly on the right track, but I have found the most useful definition to be:
“The process of discovering the target customers’ unmet needs and then developing solution ideas to address them.”
I like this definition because it both defines innovation and explains how to execute it. Notice that innovation is a process, not an event, not creativity, and not the result of random bursts of inspiration. And, at a high level, the two steps are 1) to discover the target customers’ unmet needs and then, 2) develop solution ideas to address them. This sequencing is critical.
Just as doctors diagnose a patient’s condition to guide the development of the treatment plan, solution providers should diagnosis their target customers’ condition (i.e., discover their unmet needs) to guide the development of product/service solutions. Otherwise, you will be forced to play a guessing game that leads to high failure rates, frustration, wasted time and resources, opportunity costs, and even reputation damage – all of which are unnecessary. But you must know what type of information to obtain from customers.
The inability to conduct an accurate customer diagnosis (i.e., misunderstanding customer needs) has been the number one impediment to innovation for a long time. The Jobs-to-Be-Done (JTBD) innovation approach dramatically improves innovation outcomes by enabling organizations to make an accurate customer diagnosis. It’s like a blood test for innovation professionals or any leaders seeking to accelerate their organizations’ revenue growth. It enables companies to pinpoint their target customers’ important unsatisfied needs with unprecedented precision so they can develop reliable product/service solutions in a repeatable manner. The key to success is to shift your focus from generating ideas to helping target customers get their jobs done.
What is “Jobs-to-Be-Done” (JTBD)?
JTBD was developed most notably by Anthony W. Ulwick, CEO and Founder of Strategyn (where I worked) and the late Harvard Business School Professor, Clayton M. Christensen. JTBD is a lens that enables us to see the world as customers do. It goes beyond empathy or being merely “customer-focused” to being “customer job-focused.” This is an important paradigm shift because success at new products does not come from understanding your target customers per se; it comes from understanding the job(s) they are trying to get done, how they measure success, and where they struggle given the product/service they use today.
For most companies, being “customer-focused” means understanding the demographics of their target market and segmenting customers accordingly to create unique offerings for each segment. That can be helpful because there is often a correlation between a customer’s demographics and their purchasing behavior (and sometimes there is not). But, as they say, “correlation does not explain causality.” More specifically, people don’t buy products/services because of their attributes; they buy or actually “hire” products/services to get their jobs done.
For example, I don’t buy the Wall Street Journal because of my ethnicity, income, education level, age, or zip code. I buy it because it helps me get a variety of jobs done better than any other publication, such as stay apprised of current events, understand the economy, and (by the way) gain a better understanding of the important needs that companies like my clients struggle to satisfy. Any leader who hopes to make innovation a repeatable business process must understand why customers buy and that means understanding their jobs to be done.
A good touchstone for understanding JTBD is the famous quote by the late Professor Theodore Levittwho said:
“People don’t want to buy a ¼” drill; they want a ¼” hole!”
While many people have heard this quote, far fewer recognize its implications for reinventing innovation into a repeatable business process.
First, it illustrates that products/services are separate and distinct from customer needs. The product solution is a “drill” while the customer need is to “make a hole.” Other product solutions could be a pick, a punch, a laser, or some yet-to-be-invented tool but, regardless, product and service solutions are always separate and distinct from customers’ needs.
Second, the quote illustrates that customer needs (at a high level) are jobs to be done. For example:
- People hire drills to make holes
- Doctors hire stethoscopes to listen to their patients’ heart and lungs
- Chief Financial Officers hire accountants to reduce their tax liability
- Students hire online certificate programs to advance their careers
- And people hire your products/services to get their jobs done, too
And third, if we can keep this distinction in mind – i.e., that product/service solutions are separate and distinct from customer needs – we can turn innovation and growth into a highly successful, highly repeatable process. That’s because using the JTBD approach enables firms to:
- Obtain a comprehensive set of customer needs separate and distinct from solutions in virtually any market
- Determine which needs are important but poorly satisfied by the product/service that customers are using today.
Important needs that are poorly unsatisfied are opportunities for innovation and growth. The more important and less satisfied a need is, the greater the opportunity for innovation and growth it presents. This is a game-changer because, for the first time, it enables organizations to pinpoint and rank the opportunities in their markets with statistical validity. Knowing where to focus your creativity makes all the difference in the world.
OK, that’s all for this time, but stay tuned! Next time I’ll demonstrate how any company can drive revenue growth through innovation in a repeatable manner. Why should you care? Here are a dozen reasons:
- Avoid wasting time and money generating, testing, and developing bad ideas (any idea that does not target an important unsatisfied need is a bad idea)
- Focus your creativity on only what matters most
- Unclog the front end of your new product pipeline and free up resources by inputting only good ideas
- Generate better ideas
- Segment your markets according to why customers buy (their JTBD) for better results
- Design/develop better features
- Quickly kill projects that do not address the targeted unmet needs
- Reduce the number of iterations in product development
- Quicken time to market
- Increase the likelihood of success
- Increase the size of success
- Increase the effectiveness of your marketing, messaging, and positioning
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