Introduction
Why Prioritizing Jobs to Be Done Matters in Product Strategy
In any product strategy, not all customer needs carry equal weight. While it’s easy to generate a long list of potential features, improvements, or opportunities, the biggest challenge is choosing which ones will move the needle. Jobs to Be Done (JTBD) gives companies a structured way to view customer behavior through the lens of purpose – what people are trying to accomplish in a given context.
But identifying customer jobs is only the beginning. Prioritization is what turns insight into impact.
Growth comes from solving the right problems – not all the problems
Without prioritization, product teams risk spreading efforts too thin, chasing ideas that lack traction, or investing in improvements that customers barely notice. Prioritizing which customer jobs to solve first ensures resources are directed toward high-impact solutions – the ones that contribute directly to growth, satisfaction, and market differentiation.
Think of each JTBD as a doorway to solving a specific customer problem. The doors you open first should lead to the problems your customers experience most often, feel most frustrated by, or value solving the most. These are the needs that have the highest return on investment when addressed well.
JTBD prioritization gives product teams clarity and purpose
Jobs to Be Done helps teams stay customer-focused by asking:
- What are people trying to accomplish?
- Where are they getting stuck?
- Which outcomes do they care about?
But prioritization adds another layer by helping you answer:
- Which of these problems should we solve first?
- What matters most to our customers and our business?
- How do we decide with limited time and resources?
These questions are critical for product development, market planning, and strategic decision-making. Whether you’re launching something new, refining an existing solution, or reassessing your roadmap for 2025, prioritizing customer jobs ensures your insights stay aligned with action.
Strategic benefits of prioritizing JTBD in product strategy
When done well, strategic prioritization in JTBD leads to:
- Better alignment between product design and real customer needs
- Faster go-to-market decisions
- Stronger cross-functional collaboration (research, product, marketing)
- More informed innovation investments
Understanding how to prioritize Jobs to Be Done is a key step toward building products customers love – and that your business can grow with. Now, let’s dive into how to actually do it.
4 Simple Criteria to Prioritize Which Jobs to Solve First
Once you understand more about your customer’s Jobs to Be Done, your next move is to prioritize. But how? The good news: You don’t need a complex scoring matrix or advanced analytics to begin making smart decisions. You just need clear criteria.
At SIVO Insights, we guide product and strategy teams through customer jobs prioritization using four foundational criteria. These can be used individually or in combination to help you weigh which opportunities are worth your attention now versus later.
1. Frequency: How often does this job come up?
A job that your customers frequently attempt is probably more urgent to solve. For example, if people describe repeating the same task weekly – such as scheduling appointments, managing bills, or preparing meals – it’s likely top-of-mind. High frequency usually signals a recurring need where better solutions can create an immediate impact.
2. Friction: How frustrating or difficult is it?
Jobs that involve repeated customer friction – like complicated steps, unclear decisions, or manual workarounds – stand out as great opportunities for improvement. The more effort or frustration involved, the greater the reward if you make the process easier. Listen closely for pain points, confusion, or workarounds in your market research.
3. Importance: How meaningful is success in this job?
Not all tasks are created equal. Some jobs might be frequent but low-impact, while others happen rarely yet carry high emotional or financial stakes. For instance, applying for a mortgage isn't frequent, but it's incredibly high-stakes. Ask yourself: If the job goes well, how much does it matter to the customer?
4. Strategic Fit: Does this job align with your business goals?
This is where customer needs and business strategy meet. Some jobs may rank high in frequency or importance, but are outside your brand’s expertise or current capabilities. Focus on solving customer problems that also align with your strategic direction, available resources, or differentiation goals in 2025.
Putting it all together
When viewed together, these four filters – frequency, friction, importance, and strategic fit – act like a compass. They guide teams to focus on jobs where:
- Customers are actively seeking better solutions
- The need is real, recurring, and filled with friction
- Your brand is positioned to solve it in a meaningful way
As a practical JTBD framework for product leaders, this approach helps you reduce guesswork, spot early wins, and create stronger alignment across insight, development, and strategy. Ultimately, it empowers decision-makers to move forward with clarity – and confidence.
How to Score Jobs Based on Frequency, Friction, and Importance
Once you have a list of customer Jobs to Be Done (JTBD), the next step is deciding which ones to act on. A practical way to prioritize these jobs is by scoring them using three key criteria: frequency, friction, and importance. These simple yet powerful concepts help bring clarity to product teams as they evaluate which customer needs deserve attention first.
Frequency: How Often Does the Job Occur?
A high-frequency job is one that customers do regularly – daily, weekly, or monthly. These jobs present repeated opportunities to provide value, making them more impactful if addressed well. For example, if your customer base frequently struggles with organizing their schedules, solving this common friction point through product development could unlock strong user adoption.
Friction: How Difficult Is It for Customers to Complete the Job?
Friction refers to the hassle or pain a customer experiences when trying to complete a job. High-friction jobs often signal unmet needs and frustrating gaps in the current experience. A job may not occur daily, but if it’s particularly frustrating when it does, it’s still strategic to prioritize. For instance, booking a service appointment might not be a weekly task, but if it's consistently difficult, solving it could improve satisfaction and loyalty.
Importance: How Critical Is It to the Customer's Goals?
Some jobs simply matter more. Importance measures how valuable a job is in supporting your customer’s larger goals or well-being. Understanding this requires digging into why the job matters and how it affects emotions, time, money, or reputation. If your customer feels a task is essential to their success, solving that job directly connects with their priorities.
How to Use These Scores Together
One effective approach is to score each job on a scale of 1 to 5 across these three dimensions. Tally the scores and use them to identify which customer problems are most valuable to solve:
- High frequency + high importance + high friction: These jobs are strong candidates for early product development or investment.
- High importance but low frequency: May be worth solving if the job is emotionally or financially significant.
- Low importance but high frequency: Could still be considered for small fixes that improve ease of use.
This scoring framework doesn’t require complex tools – a simple spreadsheet or whiteboard session can get you started. For market research teams, it’s also a helpful way to structure qualitative interviews or quantitative surveys by asking customers questions around these JTBD traits.
By applying this practical JTBD prioritization framework, beginner product strategy teams can make smarter, evidence-based decisions about what to build next.
Real-World Examples of Applying JTBD Prioritization in Product Planning
Understanding the theory behind Jobs to Be Done is useful – but seeing it applied in real-world product strategy makes the concept stick. Here are a few product development examples that show how JTBD prioritization helped teams decide which customer problems to solve first.
Case 1: A Fintech Startup Simplifies Budgeting Tools
A fintech company noticed users interacting often with their budgeting dashboard, but engagement dropped during the setup process. Through consumer insights research, the team discovered that the job of “getting spending under control each month” was critically important and occurred frequently – but high friction made users abandon the tool early.
By scoring this job high in frequency, importance, and friction, the team decided to streamline onboarding, add guided prompts, and clarify how the dashboard supported users’ goals. Within months, user retention improved significantly, reinforcing the power of strategic prioritization in JTBD.
Case 2: A Meal Delivery Brand Refines Its Weekly Selection Experience
In the busy meal delivery space, one brand used surveys and interviews to uncover that the job “picking healthy meals quickly for my week” mattered most to its health-conscious customers. While users only did this selection once per week, it was a point of emotional stress – packed with options, nutritional concerns, and time constraints.
Although this job wasn’t the most frequent, it earned high importance and moderate friction scores. The insights team prioritized this JTBD, working with product and UX partners to simplify the weekly meal selection. The more intuitive interface helped reduce time spent choosing meals and increased satisfaction across key customer segments.
Case 3: A SaaS Tool Tackles Onboarding Hurdles
A B2B SaaS company noticed trial users often dropped off before completing setup. Through customer interviews, they identified the core job as “getting set up quickly without technical help.” This job had high friction and high importance for decision-makers, even if it occurred just once.
By building features that supported self-onboarding and easy data import, the company reduced barriers and increased conversions. Prioritizing this JTBD aligned product development directly with the customer journey, improving both usability and business outcomes.
These examples show how applying a JTBD prioritization framework – even in its simplest form – helps product teams stay grounded in real customer needs. Whether you're deciding what to build next or how to improve the experience, strategy frameworks like frequency, friction, and importance point you toward the jobs that matter most.
JTBD Prioritization Tips for Strategy and Insight Teams
Whether you’re part of an insights team or a product function, how you evaluate and organize customer jobs can make or break your product strategy. Here are a few practical tips to help get the most from Jobs to Be Done (JTBD) prioritization – especially if you’re getting started with customer needs research or developing a product roadmap for 2025.
Start Broad, Then Narrow Down
Begin with a wide lens. Use qualitative methods or internal brainstorming to identify as many customer “jobs” as possible. Don’t filter too early. Once you have a full picture, start applying the JTBD prioritization framework using frequency, friction, and importance to focus your scope.
Use Simple Language, Not Business Jargon
The best JTBD statements are written in natural, person-first language. Avoid technical product terms. Instead, frame jobs from the customer’s perspective: “Find a reliable way to track spending,” or “Choose meals without getting overwhelmed.” This format keeps your prioritization anchored in real behavior, not internal assumptions.
Balance Qualitative and Quantitative Insights
JTBD research benefits from layered evidence. Use interviews to understand emotions behind jobs, and validate selections with surveys that measure frequency or importance at scale. Insight teams can partner with product analytics to triangulate where user frustration aligns with specific jobs.
Check for Strategic Fit Across the Business
Even well-scored jobs should be evaluated against company goals. Does solving this job support your business’s growth pillars? Do you have capabilities to act on it in the short term? JTBD prioritization works best when insights are aligned with organizational strategy and timing.
Don’t Forget the Simple Wins
Some jobs don’t require large development cycles – just thoughtful fixes. If a recurring job ranks high in importance or frequency but low on delivery effort, it could be a quick win that delights your customers and builds internal momentum for JTBD adoption.
Make JTBD Frameworks Visual and Collaborative
Create scorecards, grids, or heatmaps that compare customer jobs in a glance. Invite cross-functional participation from stakeholders in product, marketing, research, and design. The more connected your teams are to real customer problems, the more aligned your product planning will be.
At its best, JTBD isn’t just a trend – it’s a method that brings customer understanding and product strategy closer together. When insight teams guide this process with care and clarity, it leads to more human-centered innovation and smarter decisions.
Summary
Prioritizing customer Jobs to Be Done is a powerful way to focus product strategy around real, research-backed needs. By using accessible criteria like frequency, friction, and importance, teams can decide which customer problems to solve first – and in doing so, build solutions customers truly value.
Throughout this guide, we've covered why JTBD matters, how to prioritize jobs with practical scoring frameworks, and how companies – from fintech to food delivery – are applying these insights in the real world. Finally, we shared actionable tips for product teams and researchers who want to embed JTBD into their planning process without getting bogged down in complexity.
If you're exploring market research or product development in 2025, integrating JTBD prioritization offers a simple, human way to stay aligned with what your customers are really trying to achieve.
Summary
Prioritizing customer Jobs to Be Done is a powerful way to focus product strategy around real, research-backed needs. By using accessible criteria like frequency, friction, and importance, teams can decide which customer problems to solve first – and in doing so, build solutions customers truly value.
Throughout this guide, we've covered why JTBD matters, how to prioritize jobs with practical scoring frameworks, and how companies – from fintech to food delivery – are applying these insights in the real world. Finally, we shared actionable tips for product teams and researchers who want to embed JTBD into their planning process without getting bogged down in complexity.
If you're exploring market research or product development in 2025, integrating JTBD prioritization offers a simple, human way to stay aligned with what your customers are really trying to achieve.