(2018-01-15) Klement Know The Two Very Different Interpretations Of Jobs To Be Done

Alan Klement: Know the Two — Very — Different Interpretations of Jobs to be Done. The two versions of JTBD see consumers differently. One version sees them as reactive creatures who just do things. The other sees them as pro-active and aspirational.

Two Models: Jobs-As-Progress; Jobs-As-Activities

Jobs-As-Progress: a theory that is promoted by Clayton Christensen, Bob Moesta, and myself
Jobs-As-Activities: an ideology and typology promoted by Tony Ulwick and licensees of his patented Outcome Driven Innovation

It is represented by Charles Revson’s famous distinction regarding the business of Revlon, Inc.: “In the factories we make cosmetics. In the drugs stores we sell hope.” It is characterized by Leo McGinneva’s famous clarification about why people buy quarter-inch drill bits: ”They don’t want quarter-inch bits. They want quarter-inch holes.”

Revson’s customers want hope is about results from a change.

McGinneva’s customers want quarter-inch holes is about results from a use-case.

Do Goals vs. Be Goals

William Powers’ hierarchy of goals (1973a, 1973b) is a widely accepted model of the relationship between the things we do, and why we do them. Not only does this help with understanding Jobs to be Done, it also helps in understanding other approaches to design and innovation.

Your ideal self is a synthesis of various Principles or “Be” goals. For example, you think of yourself as a particular type of parent or friend and having a particular set of personal freedoms. These Be goals are what motivate you to choose and carry out one or more Programs or “Do” goals. These Do goals are then fulfilled by Sequences or Motor control goals. (To-Be Or To-Do)

Be goals have the highest priority; Motor control goals have the lowest

lower level goals (e.g. those associated with activities and tasks) exist only for the purpose of fulfilling higher level goals

Executing an task or activity isn’t as important as fulfilling the goals behind it.

Be goals are the most stable; Do and Motor control goals are transitory

You don’t ultimately want to achieve the Do and Motor goals; you want the Be goals.

Christensen never defined what a Job to be Done was, nor used it with rigor.

Ulwick is the primary proponent of the idea of Jobs-As-Activities

A Job to be Done is then described in terms of a Job Map:
Analysis of hundreds of jobs has revealed that all jobs consist of some or all of the eight fundamental process steps: define, locate, prepare, confirm, execute, monitor, modify and conclude

Emotional jobs define how customers want to feel or avoid feeling as a result of executing the core functional job.

Those who have experience in Goal-Directed Design, Cognitive Task Analysis, Hierarchical Task Analysis, Human Computer Interaction (HCI), Use Cases, or Activity-Centered Design will recognize this interpretation of JTBD as similar to what they are already doing

The many similarities of Jobs-As-Activities model has with these other existing ideas is why a lot of people claim that Jobs to be Done is nothing new

For example, Ulwick’s Job Map is very similar to Don Norman’s Seven Stages of Action

The biggest difference between Ulwick’s Jobs-As-Activities model and HCI, Activity Centered Design, Goal-Directed Design, Cognitive Tasks analysis, and Use Cases is the addition of a business strategy layer (figure 12). Ulwick’s ideology suggests that businesses should focus on creating technologies that help consumers better execute tasks and activities (Ulwick 2016)

Jobs-As-Progress

The first mention of Jobs as Progress is in the the Jobs to be Done Handbook (Spiek & Moesta 2014). But this book was about an interview method, and doesn’t get into Customer Jobs theory.

Currently, there are only two books that focus on Jobs as Progress and develop it as a theory: When Kale and Coffee Compete (Klement 2016) and Competing Against Luck (Christensen, Dillon, Duncan, Hall 2016).

Christensen replaces the idea that customers want “outcomes” with customers want “progress”. This Jobs-As-Progress model is the version Christensen, Moesta, and I promote.

Jobs-As-Progress is a theory only. Theory tells you how and why things happen, not what you should do about it. Theory is descriptive, not prescriptive.

The Jobs-As-Progress model suggests (hypothesizes) that a consumer will look for, buy, and use a product for the first time when a discrepancy exists between how things are today and how they want them to be.

Two definitions of a Job to be Done in this model are:
We define a “job” as the progress that a person is trying to make in a particular circumstance (situation) (Christensen 2016)
A Job to be Done is the process a consumer goes through whenever she aims to transform her existing life-situation into a preferred one, but cannot because constraints are stopping her (Klement 2016)

One key to this model is to recognize that Jobs-As-Progress is about understanding why consumers change their historical purchase patterns

The other key to this model is to recognize that it’s about unattained Be goals (Figure 15). It’s not about Do or Motor control goals. (To-Be Or To-Do)

This realization helps us understand how consumers see and use markets

because customers see tasks and activities as a means to end only, consumers end up considering products and services that vary greatly on functionality. (broad competition)

This is clear in the Clarity case study from my book, When Coffee and Kale Compete. In this example, Clarity founder Dan Martell learned that a lot of his customers were coming to Clarity because they had a Be goal discrepancy around being motivated and inspired. This discrepancy caused them to investigate and evaluate activities that ranged from “attend to a conference” to “video chat with a famous person”.

Moreover, in 2017, IKEA bought Task Rabbit. Why? Because they also understand that people don’t want to “assemble/build furniture” either. Rather, they want to be organized, express their individuality, and feel comfortable in their home

What is it based upon or similar to?

I am not aware of these ideas as having been used within the context of innovation or design. The closest thing to it would be Alan Cooper’s Goal-Directed Design and Hassenzahl’s Experience Design (Hassenzahl 2010). However, even these are different. Goal-Directed Design is a method while Experience Design is an ideology. Neither of these aim to explain why or how any natural or social phenomena happen.

Two different, incompatible models

If it isn’t clear, these are two incompatible interpretations of why we buy and use products.

Differences include:

Customers buy products to “do work” vs Consumers buy products to make a change (and ideally don’t have to “do work”)

The Jobs-As-Activities model suggests that customers buy a product because they want to “do work” with the product. Therefore, your efforts should be to improving how they use a product. cf Bad-Ass?

The Jobs-As-Progress model suggests that consumers don’t want to “do work”. What they do want, is to make a positive change in their life — i.e. “progress”. Therefore, your efforts should focus on helping them make that change. Ideally the consumers wouldn’t have to do any work.

The Jobs-As-Progress interpretation provides a way to carry out Norman’s “root cause analysts”. It does this by suggesting that Do goals — i.e. tasks and activities — are done for the purpose of regulating a discrepancy someone has have amongst their Be goals. e.g. help me become financially stable, make me confident and impress others

Challenges in Understanding a Tangled Mess

It’s impossible to predict the future of Customer Jobs theory; however, one thing is for sure: a lot of people are confused. Moreover, there’s little reason to think that will change in the future. Two reasons are:

Misattributions: how many people repeat what others have written or said without investigating sources. For example, Alex Osterwalder wrote (2014):
The jobs to be done concept was developed independently by several business thinkers including Anthony Ulwick of the consulting firm Strategyn, consultants Rick Pedi and Bob Moesta, and Professor Denise Nitterhouse of DePaul University. It was popularized by Clay Christensen

Repeating nascent, or passing, ideas as if they are well researched: For example, the idea that there are functional, social, and emotional jobs (motivations) originates from just one line (Christensen 2003):
"The functional, emotional, and social dimensions of the jobs that customers need to get done constitute the circumstances in which they buy."
There’s no experimental data or theoretical basis to support it.

The Future? Use What’s Helpful. Don’t Assume Anything