Jobs-to-be-Done — Examples

Example 1 — From an interview note to a job statement

The note below came back from a research call. Most of it describes the person rather than the situation, so nothing says when a product becomes relevant. Pull the trigger, the first alternative and the obstacle, then write one job statement that names no product.

Priya, 34, marketing manager, organised, dislikes admin. Says she would
use a tool that automates invoicing. Prefers mobile. Would pay for
something that saves time. Sometimes uses a spreadsheet a colleague made.

Solution

Trigger:      the second time this month she re-did an invoice by hand
Tried first:  the colleague's spreadsheet, then a call to accounts
Almost stopped: sign-up wanted a company number she did not have yet

Job statement: When a monthly invoice has to be redone by hand, I want to
send it from the record I already have, so I can close the month without
chasing accounts.

The original would fit thousands of people and predicts nothing: age, title and stated preference rarely decide behaviour. The statement keeps the situation and the progress, and names no product, so a stranger could recognise the switch. The usual mistake is writing “I want an invoicing tool”, which turns the statement into a feature and rules out the simpler alternatives.

Example 2 — The table that includes doing nothing

The team tracks two rival invoicing apps and calls them the competition. For the same job, write a hire-and-fire table that adds the manual alternatives and says why people fire each one.

Hires: App A, App B
Fires: too expensive, too complicated

Solution

Hires                          Fires, and why
accounting suite               asks for a company number at sign-up
mobile invoicing app           one invoice at a time on a phone
colleague's spreadsheet         breaks the week she leaves
reminder on the fridge         no record of what was sent
waiting until month end        the handover is re-done only once

Non-consumption is where the job’s real competition sits: the spreadsheet and the fridge note are kept because they are familiar and never ask for anything. A table of named products hides the effort of switching, so the team optimises inside the wrong set. The usual mistake is treating the incumbent as a straw man instead of writing down what it does well.