$2 Million Worth of Jobs-to-be-Done Content
We've entered a new era related to Innovation and Strategy Research
Many are waiting with baited breath to see when I will release a tool to help them create job maps. There is already a tool for that, and it’s called Generative AI. But, what are you actually trying to accomplish? Job Maps are meaningless if you don’t know how to use them, and a tool that creates them doesn’t actually use them to achieve the ultimate outcome.
Allow me to take a step back and explain why we have traditionally done qualitative research using Jobs-to-be-Done interviews. If you still want to do them (interviews), here’s something I wrote a while back on the topic (you’ll find it on a number of platforms):
The entire point of these interviews is about logic. It’s not about pain points, or tearful stories - those will come later. The first step in actionable Jobs-to-be-Done research is to create a value model of the problem-space, not a list of problems. We create a Job Map to express the beginning, middle and end of this space, and we elaborate each component (or Job Step) with a set of customer success metrics.
Everything up to this point is stateless. Nothing is prioritized. It’s a model of the perfect world. An assembly line has no measurements until the first time it runs, but it does have metrics beforehand. This is the same thing. It does not provide answers until it has been prioritized in the market of end users.
Why do we do that?
As consultants, product owners, designers, executives, we’re trying to answer questions about value gaps in a market. Where are people struggling? Are their several groups who struggle differently, and why? Are some success metrics more important than others, and by how much? A Job Map won’t tell you this until you put it to use.
Yes, I’m aware that there are people out there who interview a few end users, and then conflate priorities and emotions into a set of job stories; but that is not my version of Jobs-to-be-Done. Mine goes much, much farther down the road, and much, much deeper.
But this process I’ve been involved with is costly, time-consuming, and susceptible to various biases. Qualitative research is only a part of the process, but it is the only truly proprietary part of the process. Therefore it desperately needed to be systemized in a way that eliminates these attributes as much as possible.
Problem-solving is something that we need to scale. Auditing 100% of your qualitative research is a prime obstacle to scale; yet it is common. When you create rules, you shouldn’t need to check on the quality of every single output as long as the rules are being followed. If you put them into an automated package, this is even more true. I get it, humans have limits as to how many rules they can juggle in their minds. The people that can are rare and nearly impossible to replicate. Generative AI is not constrained by that limitation.
Thought: who would you want to build your tools? Do they know all of the rules? Are they really practitioners? People like tools and gadgets, I get it. There is a brief romance with tools…until someone asks, “Now what?” Then the honeymoon is over.
The package behind this post is not meant to be a solution for everyone. The “Now what?” is exactly as it has been before: survey, data model, analysis and story. We’ll ultimately address these areas as well. There are no tools that will do this for you at the moment. Do you want tools, or answers. I guess that depends on your role in the enterprise.
A disruptive solution will get the job done completely differently, on a single platform, and with far fewer features. Tools are features that you have to cobble together and they each have their own consumption chain. That’s not the JTBD way.
I’m going to focus on answers. Hopefully, I can bring you all along for the ride.
Accelerating the Workflow
I’m accelerating the workflow of Jobs-to-be-Done research (and other strategy work) and providing you the opportunity to short-circuit this step in the process. There are two ways I can do this:
Pre-develop Job frameworks that many enterprises might find valuable (this post, for example) - you can take it from there
Develop custom frameworks in hours, or at most days - you can take it from there as well
Or I can help you, if you need it in either scenario. Yes, I’m promoting something, you don’t need to tell me that. 😁
I will continue to work on value models for #1 in areas that have the broadest common interest and make them available. And I will also continue working on #2 for those of you who want to minimize the cost and time related to a specific scope of your choosing.
For now, I’ll leave you with a sneak peek of my latest value model which has 1 universal provider job and 20 related contextual jobs. Any one of them could be a $100k (plus research costs) project using the traditional approach. I take a look at Dispatchers who are Coordinating the forward logistics of critical part delivery for a field service appointment.
The full catalog is 420 times less expensive than engaging a firm to do this the old way. And you can have it today, not next year. Imagine not having to go through procurement! 🤔
Even though you will find that there are many related jobs and use cases (all in the package) that can also be studied, this will demonstrate just how deep you can go into one area. It will also serve to demonstrate why so few problems get solved, there or so many levels to them and prior solutions were time-consuming and expensive.
There’s a link at the end of the sneak peak if you’re interested in the complete package. I don’t anticipate many of my readers are actually potential customers.
Anyway, enjoy!
P.S. Did I mention that there is also a full blown capability maturity model in the package? Well, now I did!
End the Analysis Paralysis
If you or your team is struggling with Jobs-to-be-Done, we’d like to help. We’re leading the way to a better innovation and product development process.
We’re here for companies who don’t want to, or can’t invest in Big ‘N’, or specialty consulting firms and their leveraged resource models.
We’re 20x faster and 10x less expensive than your traditional options because We’ve embraced modern tools and methods that can scale.
We’re not here to engage you with theatrics, We’re here to collaborate and systemize. It’s not about us, it’s about you.
Using our adapted approach to Jobs-to-Done - with a little bit of human experience on top - we can help you to get the insights you need in days and weeks without the need for an army of inexperienced consultants and analysts that add unnecessary cost and deliver static PowerPoint decks.
Qualitative Research - at the speed of light ✅
Quantitative Research - with dynamic leave-behinds ✅
Strategy Formulation - focusing on the top things you should do today ✅
You can reach me at mike@pjtbd.com