One of the most common challenges in product development is deciding which features to build. It’s easy to get caught up in requests, market comparisons, or innovation for innovation’s sake. While creativity is essential, losing sight of the customer’s actual needs can lead to features that go unused or confuse your core offering.

This is where the Jobs To Be Done (JTBD) framework proves incredibly valuable. JTBD starts by asking a simple but powerful question: What is the customer trying to accomplish when they hire your product? In JTBD terms, your product isn’t just something people use – it’s something they “hire” to get a job done. When you understand that job, you can prioritize product features that support it directly.

JTBD Shifts the Focus to Customer Outcomes

Many feature decisions are based on what competitors are doing or what internal stakeholders suggest. JTBD changes this approach by emphasizing the customer’s desired outcomes. It’s not about whether a feature is new or exciting – it’s about whether it helps the user succeed in their task.

For example, if someone “hires” a meal planning app to help them eat healthier during busy weeks, the most impactful features will be ones that save time, reduce decision fatigue, and keep them on track. A flashy recipe sharing tool may look appealing, but if it doesn’t serve the user’s primary goal, it’s likely to be ignored.

Why This Matters for Feature Prioritization

When teams use the JTBD lens, feature prioritization becomes much clearer. You can ask:

• Does this feature help the customer complete their core job more easily or effectively?
• Is it solving a real problem the user has expressed?
• How will this feature affect other parts of the experience?

This process minimizes the common mistake of building features based on assumptions rather than research. With the JTBD framework in place, your team has a shared language to evaluate decisions based on user value.

Using Market Research to Back JTBD Insights

At SIVO Insights, we often combine JTBD methodology with user research and custom market research to uncover what customers are truly trying to achieve – even if they can’t articulate it clearly themselves. Through interviews and observation, we capture underlying motivations, frustrations, and behaviors.

This human-centered approach ensures you’re not just working from surface-level requests but from a deeper understanding of what matters. JTBD isn’t only for feature-rich tech products, either. It applies just as well to everyday services, B2B tools, and consumer goods.

By grounding decisions in how people actually use – and why they choose – your product, JTBD empowers product teams to stay focused, reduce wasted effort, and deliver features that make a meaningful difference.

Scope creep is a familiar problem for many product development teams. It starts small – maybe an extra filter here, a new button there. But over time, small additions turn into large detours, stretching timelines and budgets while cluttering the product. The result? A bloated, overcomplicated experience that no longer reflects the original intent.

Scope creep often comes from good intentions: eager team members coming up with ideas, stakeholders pushing for one more feature, or customers asking for specific fixes. Without a clear system to assess which ideas align with purpose, it becomes easy to say yes too often. And that’s where products can lose their way.

How JTBD Acts as a Guardrail Against Scope Creep

The Jobs To Be Done framework serves as a strategic filter – a way to evaluate whether a proposed feature truly supports what the customer is trying to accomplish. It helps differentiate between what’s nice to have and what’s essential based on the user’s goals, not just stakeholder requests or industry trends.

When new suggestions arise, JTBD gives your team a simple way to validate them:

• Is this feature helping the customer get their job done faster, easier, or better?
• Does it align with the core tasks the product is meant to support?
• Will this new feature add meaningful value – or just more complexity?

By grounding conversations in the user perspective, you can respond with clarity instead of compromise. Saying no becomes easier when you have a shared reason why.

Common Causes of Scope Creep (and How JTBD Counters Them)

Let’s look at a few common causes of scope creep and how the JTBD approach can help:

1. Stakeholder Pressure

Idea overload from well-meaning executives or teams can lead to disjointed additions. JTBD centers the conversation around the customer’s perspective, creating a neutral, data-driven framework to push back tactfully.

2. “Can’t Say No” Culture

Without clear priorities, teams feel obligated to include every idea. JTBD provides a strategic North Star, helping product owners justify their decisions based on user needs.

3. Misinterpreted Feedback

Jumping on isolated user requests without understanding the bigger picture often leads to patchwork solutions. With JTBD, you reframe feature decisions around the underlying job users are trying to accomplish, not just their feature wish list.

A JTBD-Informed Feature Strategy

Ultimately, feature prioritization with Jobs To Be Done reduces scope creep by aligning your strategy with the person using your product – not just ideas on a roadmap. At SIVO Insights, we’ve seen how JTBD-inspired market research brings teams back to their foundation. You don’t just prevent overload – you protect customer value.

As your product grows, JTBD remains a flexible filter. Even as markets shift or your offering evolves, this framework ensures you’re building what matters, not what’s trending. It’s one of the most powerful tools a beginner can adopt to keep product development intentional and effective.

Understanding which product features to build – and which to skip – is one of the most challenging aspects of product development. That’s where the Jobs to Be Done (JTBD) framework truly shines. JTBD helps product teams prioritize features by focusing on the actual “job” the customer is hiring the product to do. When every feature is tied to a task or outcome that matters most to the user, you reduce the risk of wasted development effort and strengthen your product’s value.

Start with the Core Customer Job, Not the Technology

One of the most common mistakes in feature prioritization is starting with what’s technologically possible rather than what users actually need. Using JTBD shifts the focus from features to outcomes. Ask: what is the customer trying to accomplish? What progress are they hoping to make?

For instance, say you're developing a budgeting app. Instead of asking “Should we include a cryptocurrency tracker?” begin by identifying the core job the user is trying to complete – such as “Help me feel in control of my monthly expenses.” If crypto tracking doesn’t align with that job, it might be a nice-to-have at best – not a priority feature.

Evaluate Each Feature Against JTBD Criteria

Here’s how to assess if a feature earns its spot in the backlog using the JTBD framework:

• Does it solve a real, unmet need tied to a customer job?
• Will it significantly improve the outcome the user wants?
• Is the job high-frequency and high-friction? (i.e., do lots of users struggle here often?)
• Does it sharpen, not dilute, the product’s core purpose?

This JTBD-centered lens helps avoid unnecessary features or scope creep. It’s easy to justify a feature because “customers asked for it,” but unless it ties directly to a critical job, it may introduce complexity without real value.

Your Roadmap Becomes a Story of Progress

When JTBD drives your feature prioritization, your product roadmap becomes a series of steps that reflect real customer progress. Features aren’t added because they’re innovative or trendy – they’re added because they get people closer to what they’re trying to accomplish.

This clarity helps product strategy stay on track, ensures better alignment across teams, and makes it easier to communicate feature rationale to stakeholders.

One of the most valuable roles of the JTBD framework is to provide teams with a shared, customer-centered way to say “no.” It acts like a compass, pointing you toward features that matter–and steering you away from ones that don’t. Here are a few case examples to illustrate how JTBD can support better decision-making in product development.

Example 1: Fitness App Avoids Dashboard Overload

A health and fitness app team was considering adding a new dashboard feature to show granular performance stats–like heart rate variability and advanced sleep cycles. At first glance, it sounded useful. But user research revealed the primary job was: “Help me stay motivated to work out regularly.” Advanced stats, while interesting, didn’t support this goal for most users. The team said “no” and instead focused on features that provided daily encouragement and habit tracking.

Example 2: Productivity Tool Resisted Trend-Driven Features

A productivity software team debated adding AI-generated task suggestions. While innovative, this feature didn’t align with the core job users were hiring the tool for: “Help me stay organized and reduce chaos.” Turns out, users wanted manual control over tasks, not auto-generated content. The JTBD insight helped the team skip a potentially expensive feature with low real-world value.

Example 3: Consumer Goods Brand Reframed Innovation

A consumer goods brand exploring smart home integration asked themselves whether voice-command functionality supported their customer job: “Help me wake up refreshed and ready to start my day.” Instead of pursuing flashy integrations, they invested in sleep quality research and packaging innovations to support morning routines more effectively.

Takeaway:

• JTBD helps you focus on solving users’ actual problems, not just building what’s possible.
• It gives teams permission to skip “cool” features that don’t improve the customer outcome.
• By consistently linking features to jobs, you avoid scope creep and keep your product strategically focused.

If you’re new to Jobs to Be Done, the good news is you don’t need to overhaul your entire process to see results. You can begin applying the JTBD framework within your current product development approach – especially in user research and feature planning discussions. Here’s how to get started, step by step.

1. Frame Your Product Around the Customer's Core Job

Invite your team to answer this simple question: “What job am I (the customer) hiring this product to do?” This is different from what your product does – it’s about what users are trying to achieve with your product, in their context. This foundational insight sets the direction for aligned features, user research, and product strategy.

2. Conduct User Research with a JTBD Lens

Instead of asking customers what features they want, ask them about the progress they’re trying to make. Use qualitative interviews to uncover their struggles, motivations, and success indicators. Pay close attention to moments of friction. At SIVO Insights, we help brands design custom research around these themes, turning user stories into clear opportunities for innovation.

3. Map Jobs and Desired Outcomes

Organize your findings into jobs, related steps, and desired outcomes. A simple framework to capture this includes:

• Job: The task the customer is trying to accomplish
• Struggles: What gets in the way of completing the job
• Desired outcome: What success looks like to them

This structure helps frame future feature discussions through the voice of the customer.

4. Use Jobs to Prioritize Your Backlog

Now that you have a clearer understanding of what users truly need, apply this lens to your product backlog. Ask of each feature idea: Which job does this support? Does it improve the desired outcome? If the answer isn’t clear, it may be time to pause or rethink that feature.

5. Embed JTBD Thinking Into Team Culture

Finally, make JTBD an ongoing part of how you plan and build. Whether through cross-functional workshops or feature kickoff sessions, continually bring the conversation back to what jobs your users are trying to get done – and how each decision supports those goals. Over time, you’ll find scope creep naturally reduced, and your team more confident in building what truly matters.