How to get a job-to-be-done done completely differently

Let's take a look at the paint industry through the Jobs to be Done lens

A few months ago, I had to do some painting and noticed that Behr had this round hole in the lid. So, I took the cap off and poured the paint out of the hole and was not impressed with results. But when I went back to get a second can, a different person was on duty in the paint department and handed me a plastic contraption that looked like a spout. She told me that not only was it designed to unscrew the cap on that hole, but you could also flip it over and attach it to the hole to act as a spout.

That actually worked very well, and it got me to thinking about a project I did with a paint manufacturer. There were two factions: those who wanted to study the job of changing the color of a wall (simplistic, yes), and those who wanted to study the use of paint. Which camp do you think I was in? I lost but we did learn that people don’t like the way paint drips and stays in lip of the can...something I could’ve told you 40 years ago, and I’m sure you could too. The video verbatims were te…