Jobs to be done (JTBD)

What is jobs to be done?

Jobs to be done (JTBD) is a way of thinking about products that starts with the progress a person is trying to make, not the product itself. The core idea is that people don't buy products, they "hire" them to get a job done. A job is the underlying motivation that stays stable even as the solutions around it change. The job statement format captures it: "When [situation], I want to [motivation], so I can [expected outcome]."

The framing pushes teams past surface features and demographic profiles. The classic example is the person who buys a quarter-inch drill bit because they actually want a quarter-inch hole, and really they want a shelf on the wall. JTBD differs from personas because it cares less about who the user is and more about what they are trying to accomplish in a given moment. Two very different people can hire the same product for the same job.

Jobs come in layers. There is the functional job, the practical task. There are emotional and social jobs, how someone wants to feel and how they want to be seen. A commuter app gets hired to arrive on time, and also to avoid the stress of not knowing whether they will. Naming all three keeps a team designing for the whole reason someone shows up.

Jobs to be done at Dallonses

We use JTBD early, when a client is still describing what they think they want to build. The framing cuts through feature wishlists fast. Once we know the job, the priorities tend to sort themselves out, because half the requests turn out to be different ways of solving the same underlying need.

It shapes how we run UX research and behavioural insights work. We interview people about the last time they did the job, not about hypothetical features they might like. That keeps the findings honest and grounded in real behaviour. When we hand a team the jobs we've uncovered, the user experience design that follows has a clear target instead of a guess. The job is the brief.

Not sure what job your product is really being hired for? Let's go find out.

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