Generating Opportunity Maps with Customers’

Jobs-to-Be-DoneStop Guessing. Start Innovating.

Hutch Carpenter@bhc3

hutch.carpenter@gmail.com

1. The value and challenge of learning customers’ jobs-to-be-done

2. Blueprint to generate the jobs-to-be-done opportunity map

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Overview

Why do people buy from you?

“We’re cool” “We’re the cheapest”

“Our sales & marketing”

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No, that’s not it.

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They buy because you help them achieve something

People don’t want a 1/4” drill. They want a 1/4” hole.

People don’t want a TV. They want entertainment.

People don’t want a scale. They want weight management.

People don’t want an accounting system. They want financial tracking.

People don’t want a freight train. They want goods transport.

People don’t want a private school. They want a secure financial future.

People don’t want a hose. They want healthy plants.

People purchase to satisfy a job-to-be-done they have

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Your market is defined by its jobs-to-be-done

Products

Products are a means to an end

Demographics

Demographics are not causal attributes

Jobs-to-be-done

Satisfying a job spurs purchases

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But do you know the relevant jobs-to-be-done?

The vast majority of companies have no clue what their customers value in the products and services they buy.

As a result, many companies invest in all the possible value dimensions they can provide — cost, convenience, quality, services, speed, breadth of offerings, and the like — with a predictable result: a mediocre offering.

Bill LeeAuthor, The Hidden Wealth of Customers: Realizing the Untapped Value of Your Most Important Asset

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These sources of customer insight don’t get the job done

Social Media

Customer Forums

Too catch-as-catch-can. An analysis showed 0.2% of tweets indicate a job-to-be-done.

Feature-oriented discussion, dominated by issues, how-to’s and product suggestions.

Surveys

Pre-set questions herd customers into specific insights. Lack follow- up with customers for deeper understanding.

These methods put you in a passive position, soothsaying scraps of insight to comprehend customers’ jobs.

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You can’t wait for customers’ jobs-to-be-done to come to you. You have to go after them with a club. *

* inspired by writer Jack London 9

Foundations: Strategyn Outcome Driven InnovationIn What Customers Want, Strategyn’s Tony Ulwick outlines the Outcome Driven Innovation (ODI) methodology to comprehensively go after customers’ jobs-to-be-done. ODI provides foundational elements to generate opportunity maps.

Key elements of ODI:

Core job-to-be-done

Outcomes are individual steps that make up the job

Rate outcomes by current level satisfaction and their importance

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What is your job-to-be-done?

● 86% success rate● Don’t tie up existing staff● Consulting firm budget

Identify significant new market opportunities with

external expertise

Identify growth opportunities through regular customer

engagement on jobs-to-be-done

● Lightweight process● Easily accessible● Develop your own expertise

Contact Strategyn

ReadOn

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ODI is a powerful, large undertaking. Are you looking for the benefits of a consulting project? Or a way to talk regularly with your customers about their jobs-to-be-done?

1. The value and challenge of learning customers’ jobs-to-be-done

2. Blueprint to generate the jobs-to-be-done opportunity map

Overview

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Blueprint for creatingopportunity maps

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1 Focus of initiative

2 Select customers

Job statement structure4

3 Select software

Customer interviews5

Satisfaction with jobs6

Importance of jobs7

Opportunity map8

The steps herein provide the core structure. Feel free to hack as you see fit to optimize your results.

Focus of initiativeTarget: Determine the area that will be the focus.● Strategic priorities● High growth ancillary areas● Emerging trends that

appear to have value for your business

● Vital business with stalling growth or profitability

Scope: Target area needs to provide a logical job grouping. It should ideally allow for development of products, services within 6-18 months.

Example target: social collaboration

Too wide a scope: increase level of community activity overall

Too narrow a scope: faster login process

Just right a scope: Increase

commenting

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Select customers

Previously expressed interest in target area

Most active customers

Strategically important customers

Rotate customers enlisted for these efforts

Assume 1-2 hours per customer. Use this time commitment as basis for number of customers you can engage in the jobs-to-be-done effort.

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Select softwareKey attributes of the JTBD software:

Rate satisfaction with jobs Ability to post in job structure format

Rank importance of jobs Accessible to multiple parties

Easily read each job statement Copy jobs from one board to another

One recommendation: listhings.com

● Free, online site● Access granted to multiple people● Drag-n-drop sticky notes● Color code stickies● Read the entire post on the board (no click-through needed)● Lacks ability to copy jobs from one board to another

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Job statement structure

Element Description

Context The background for the job to be done. When does it happen? What is the larger goal?

Job The actual thing to be accomplished.

Success Metric What is the desired outcome? Basis of measuring success of any implemented ideas. Use terms: increased, minimized.

Each job has a defined structure. Each element of the job statement provides relevant information.

Example job statement

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Customer interviewsSeed jobs before talking with your customer

● Start with obvious jobs to provide an example.● In subsequent interviews, pick up the jobs from previous interviews.

Screen sharing: real-time, common view during the interview● In person is also great if it can be done.

Separate job boards for each customer● To capture each customer’s own satisfaction and importance ratings.● Need not be separate boards if these can be captured individually on same board.

Capture new jobs and contextual insight from each customer● Initially, customers will be slow to express jobs. Prompt them as needed.● Once they get going, you will gain a number of unexpected insights.● Sometime a job is too grounded in current product features. Probe further.

Sequence and timing of interviews● 1 hour: Collect jobs initially, do not worry about satisfaction or importance.● 1 hour: Customer rates jobs on satisfaction and importance. 18

Satisfaction with jobsCustomers will tell you how satisfied they are with each job

● Satisfaction levels: Low, Moderate, High● Tie satisfaction rating to success metric● Sort jobs into three different satisfaction buckets

Example of sorting jobs according to satisfaction levels 19

Importance of jobsCustomers provide their view of the importance of each job

● Exercise of rank ordering jobs based on their level of importance to the customer

● Rank order importance within each satisfaction level

● With listhings, drag-n-drop the jobs in the order specified by the customer

● Focus on LOW and MODERATE satisfaction jobs

● High satisfaction jobs need not be ranked by importance

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Opportunity MapAt the conclusion of each interview, that customer’s opportunity map will be generated.

● Most low satisfaction jobs● Highest-importance, moderate-

satisfaction jobs● Look across the opportunity maps

of interviewed customers for areas to target for enhancements and innovation

● Collate the jobs in a spreadsheet to analyze opportunities

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Concluding thoughts● This methodology is for people who want to incorporate jobs-to-be-

done thinking into their normal innovation-related, product-related, service-related work.

● Know the jobs-to-be-done to move confidently forward on the innovation opportunities that will make a difference to your customers.

● This is a blueprint that demands experimentation and hacking to explore how it helps innovation and how it can be improved.

● Results of this process will provide evidence-based insight for use in persuading others about an internal initiative.

● Conducting jobs-to-be-done interviews provides an intangible benefit: deeper customer connections to you and your organization.

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Questions? Feedback?

Hutch Carpenter

hutch.carpenter@gmail.com

@bhc3

Hutch Carpenter

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