At its core, the Jobs to Be Done (JTBD) framework is about understanding what people are trying to achieve in their lives – and how your product or service can help them do it. Instead of focusing on demographics or general preferences, JTBD asks: What job is your customer hiring your product to do?

This shift in thinking transforms how teams build, test, and deliver offerings. Rather than starting with features or market trends, JTBD starts with people – their struggles, motivations, and goals in specific situations. As a result, product innovation becomes more intentional, aligned, and effective.

Why Grounding in Customer Needs Matters

Too often, innovation starts with a solution in search of a problem. Teams brainstorm internally, build prototypes, and iterate without fully understanding the job the customer is trying to get done. This leads to features that go unused, products that don’t resonate, and launch cycles that drain time and resources.

By contrast, using the JTBD framework for product strategy puts the customer's functional, social, and emotional needs at the forefront. That makes it easier to:

• Design products that fit naturally into real-world scenarios
• Identify unmet needs that aren't obvious at the surface level
• Create messaging and positioning that reflects how users define success

Example of JTBD in Action

Consider a common example: a customer doesn’t just 'buy a drill' – they’re trying to 'hang a shelf to create a tidy living space.' The real job isn’t about the tool; it’s about achieving a specific outcome. When teams understand the deeper intent behind the purchase, they can uncover new ways to add value – from easier installation guides to bundled tools that simplify the task.

JTBD and Market Research

Alongside qualitative and quantitative research, JTBD is an ideal tool for understanding the “why” behind customer behavior. Through interviews, observations, and journey mapping, researchers surface the invisible struggles and decision moments that shape how people interact with products. These insights don’t just inform new solutions – they validate what matters most before your team builds anything.

In short, JTBD helps prevent product innovation from drifting into abstraction. Grounding your efforts in real customer jobs provides a clear roadmap for creating something meaningful, usable, and needed.

Innovation theater refers to the appearance of being innovative without delivering real outcomes. It’s when teams showcase flashy prototypes, hold innovation workshops, or run dozens of brainstorming sessions – all while the core customer problem remains misunderstood or unsolved.

In many companies, these activities are well-intentioned. Leaders want to foster creativity and ensure their teams are forward-thinking. But without grounding those efforts in genuine user research or the JTBD framework, innovation can become performative. That’s how resources are spent, but value never materializes.

Why Innovation Theater Happens

There are a few common reasons why innovation theater takes hold:

• Pressure to look innovative: Teams may feel the need to show frequent progress, even if it’s superficial.
• Internal bias: Leaders might prioritize ideas that align with internal goals, rather than customer needs.
• Lack of insight: Without real consumer insights or strong user research, decisions are based on assumptions, not evidence.

The Hidden Costs

While innovation theater may create a buzz, it can have real consequences for product strategy: - Missed opportunities to solve important customer jobs - Waste of time and budget on features that don’t resonate - Loss of trust from users and internal stakeholders

Over time, companies may become disillusioned with innovation altogether, assuming it's a risky or unpredictable process – when in fact, they’ve just been approaching it without clear direction.

How JTBD Prevents Innovation Theater

This is where Jobs to Be Done excels. By clarifying what customers are actually trying to accomplish, JTBD stops teams from chasing shiny ideas and redirects their energy toward real needs. Instead of asking, “What new feature can we add?” teams ask, “What job is the user struggling with right now – and how can we help?”

With this shift: - Ideation becomes more focused and customer-led - Experiments are designed to validate real outcomes, not abstract appeal - Teams stay aligned around a shared understanding of success More importantly, progress isn’t measured by how innovative a solution looks, but how well it helps people get something important done.

At SIVO Insights, we believe that the strongest innovation strategies are rooted in human insight. Whether through market research, jobs-to-be-done interviews, or observational studies, real progress happens when businesses understand the people they serve – and act with purpose to meet them where they are.

Using JTBD to Focus on Customer Problems, Not Brainstorming Ideas

In many organizations, product innovation often begins with a group brainstorming session. While idea generation is important, it can drift quickly into what's known as innovation theater – where flashy concepts take priority over solving real customer problems. This not only wastes time and resources but also leads to products that fail to connect with real-world needs.

The Jobs to Be Done (JTBD) framework takes a different approach. It flips the script by starting with the customer and their specific goals, rather than a blank slate of ideas. The core question behind JTBD is simple yet powerful: What job is the customer trying to get done?

By zeroing in on this question, teams can uncover unmet needs that spark more focused, effective innovation. Instead of guessing what users might want, you're building solutions that have clear demand.

Why JTBD Keeps Innovation Grounded

JTBD positions customer problems as the foundation of product strategy. Here's how this approach simplifies decision making and reduces bias:

• Customer-first mindset: Focuses on real challenges people face, not internal assumptions.
• Reduces wasted ideation: Eliminates unnecessary brainstorming on features customers don’t need.
• Creates solution clarity: Guides teams toward innovations with a direct use case or outcome.

An example: If you're developing a budgeting app, the “job” might not be just “track spending.” Digging deeper, you might find the real job is “gain peace of mind about financial habits.” That insight changes the solution entirely – leading to features with emotional and functional value.

This type of consumer insight is difficult to uncover through ideation alone. It often requires thoughtful user research, observation, or market research – a specialty of firms like SIVO Insights – to identify what really matters to your audience.

By framing product innovation within the context of JTBD, organizations avoid the surface-level allure of innovation theater and instead focus their efforts on delivering value that resonates.

How JTBD Helps Align Stakeholders Around a Shared Goal

One major cause of innovation theater is misalignment. Different stakeholders – from product teams to executives to marketing – often have varying perspectives on what innovation actually means. Without a shared compass, teams may chase conflicting goals or pursue ideas that sound good in the boardroom but miss the mark in the market.

The JTBD framework creates alignment by anchoring everyone around a common customer “job.” It turns the conversation away from individual opinions and toward a specific outcome that all parties can agree upon: the progress the customer is trying to make.

The JTBD Advantage for Cross-Functional Teams

When applied effectively, Jobs to Be Done offers a powerful tool for building focus and unity across teams:

• Shared language: “Jobs” serve as a common organizing principle that cuts across departments.
• Clear priority setting: Helps stakeholders evaluate ideas based on customer impact, not personal preference.
• Decision-making clarity: Reduces internal debates by elevating consumer needs as the north star.

Consider a team developing a smart home product. Instead of arguing over whether to add voice control or app syncing, they use JTBD to identify the core customer job: “feel secure when away from home.” With clarity on that goal, teams can prioritize features that directly support that outcome – aligning efforts from engineering to marketing.

This approach is especially valuable in enterprise settings, where product innovation often involves cross-functional collaboration. Customer-driven product development becomes the unifying force that keeps everyone pulling in the same direction.

At SIVO Insights, we’ve seen how JTBD, combined with rigorous market research for innovation planning, enables organizations to work smarter. When stakeholders understand the “job” behind the product, egos step aside and strategy takes center stage.

In short, JTBD doesn't just inspire good product ideas. It powers team alignment, reduces friction, and keeps product strategy rooted in real consumer needs, not internal noise.

Practical Steps to Use Jobs to Be Done in Your Product Strategy

Understanding the value of the Jobs to Be Done framework is one thing. Applying it effectively in your organization is another. The good news? You don’t need to overhaul your entire product process to start using JTBD. Here’s how to begin integrating this powerful tool into your daily innovation work.

1. Begin With Real User Research

Before you define any jobs, you need deep consumer understanding. This means going beyond surveys or surface feedback. Use qualitative methods like interviews and ethnographic observation to explore your customers' behaviors, motivations, and unmet needs.

At SIVO, we often combine methods – such as one-on-one interviews and live usage studies – to get at both what people say and what they do. This blended approach uncovers the functional, emotional, and social dimensions behind why someone chooses one product over another.

2. Identify Jobs Through Contextual Clues

Once data is collected, look for patterns that reveal what customers are trying to achieve in specific life situations. Jobs are typically structured around a goal or desired outcome, such as:

• “I want to eat healthier meals during busy weekdays.”
• “I need reassurance I’m on track with saving for retirement.”

These are starting points for innovation that matter. They’re not product ideas – they’re the problems your product should solve. This mindset shift is key to avoiding the trap of chasing ideas for ideas’ sake.

3. Map the Customer Journey Around the Job

Once jobs are identified, map out the journey customers take to fulfill those goals. What obstacles get in their way? What workarounds do they use? This helps you uncover friction points that your solution can address.

A great JTBD strategy considers both the act of accomplishing the job and the emotional satisfaction that comes with it – an often-overlooked element in business innovation.

4. Prioritize Jobs That Offer Real Opportunity

Not all jobs carry the same innovation potential. Some are adequately served by existing products. Look for jobs that are high in importance but low in satisfaction – what Clayton Christensen, one of the originators of JTBD, referred to as “struggling moments.”

This is where market research and consumer insights play a crucial role. The more accurately you can assess opportunity and validate demand, the better your chances at making meaningful, commercially viable innovations.

5. Align Teams and Strategy Around Jobs

Once your core jobs are identified and prioritized, bake them into your product roadmap. Use them to create feature briefs, test concepts, and measure success. Most importantly, share them across your organization to ensure everyone knows what you're truly solving for.

JTBD is more than a framework – it's a new lens for product strategy. When used properly, it becomes a compass that keeps your team grounded in customer needs and shields your business from falling into the trap of innovation theater.