Introduction
How to Synthesize Jobs To Be Done Research into Clear Themes
After conducting Jobs To Be Done research, you’ll likely end up with a wealth of qualitative data – from interviews, transcripts, quotes, and observational notes. The next task is turning this raw material into patterns and insights that your team can use. This process, known as insight synthesis, helps bridge the gap between data collection and decision-making.
Start by looking for emotional, functional, and social drivers
In JTBD research, customer needs generally cluster around three main types of “jobs” people are trying to complete:
- Functional jobs: The practical tasks or problems they’re solving
- Emotional jobs: How they want to feel (security, confidence, peace of mind)
- Social jobs: How they want others to perceive them (competent, informed, respected)
As you review your research, identify moments when participants expressed specific outcomes, frustrations, or desires. Pay attention to the "why" behind their actions – that’s often where the actionable insight lives.
Group jobs and motivations into repeatable themes
Once you’ve spotted patterns, cluster similar findings into themes. For instance, if multiple participants mention “wanting to feel control over their finances,” that could signal an emotional job theme. Use sticky notes, spreadsheets, or digital tools like Miro or Notion to organize ideas visually and collaboratively.
These themes become the foundation for creating frameworks that outline where your product or service can solve customer problems more meaningfully. Instead of one-off quotes or anecdotes, you’re now working with validated customer needs.
Create insight frameworks that support alignment
An insight synthesis isn't just a research summary – it’s a tool for team alignment. Your goal is to end with a small number of clear, actionable themes that every stakeholder can understand and rally around. Each theme should include:
- A clear job statement (“When I [situation], I want to [goal], so I can [desired outcome]”)
- Real quotes that bring the job to life
- Context about when and why the job arises
- Any segmentation or variations across user groups
When done well, this synthesis supports product development, marketing messaging, and innovation strategies by creating a shared language around user needs and expectations.
At SIVO Insights, we emphasize the human side of every insight. Rather than treating synthesis as a technical step, we view it as the key to making consumer needs understandable and usable – not just for researchers, but for entire organizations.
Identifying and Documenting Core Customer Jobs
Once you’ve grouped your JTBD insights into themes, the next step is to clearly define your core customer jobs. These are the backbone of your JTBD framework – the consistent goals your users are trying to achieve, regardless of the solution they choose. By documenting them well, you ensure that all teams across the organization are working from the same playbook.
What makes a customer job “core”?
A core customer job is a task your customer is consistently trying to accomplish that is:
- Independent of your brand or product
- Universal across a meaningful segment of your users
- Directly tied to what drives their purchase or use decisions
For example, in the personal finance space, a core job might be: “When I get paid, I want to organize my money, so I feel confident about my bills and goals.”
The best-performing jobs statements are simple, outcome-focused, and clearly structured.
Follow a Jobs To Be Done statement format
A helpful way to document customer jobs is to follow a structured template. One commonly used format is:
“When I [situation/context], I want to [action or motivation], so I can [outcome or benefit].”
This format ensures you cover the entire journey – the trigger, the desired task, and the value it brings to the customer’s life.
Examples:
- When I’m planning my week, I want to schedule meals in advance, so I can eat healthier and save time shopping.
- When I move to a new home, I want to change all my addresses in one place, so I don’t miss important mail or services.
Make jobs actionable for teams
A clearly written job helps product, design, marketing, and sales teams make better decisions. To support cross-functional use, pair each core job with:
- User context: When does this situation arise? What other needs accompany it?
- Current workarounds: How are people solving this today?
- Success criteria: What tells the user, “this worked”?
By documenting user needs in this structured way, you create a consistent reference point for prioritization frameworks and strategic planning. Teams can now ask: “Which of these jobs are underserved? Which offer the biggest opportunity to differentiate?”
At SIVO Insights, we believe in making insights not just visible, but useful. Through detailed documentation of JTBD findings and other research frameworks and toolkits, we help companies connect insight implementation directly to their teams’ workflows – enabling smarter decisions grounded in real human needs.
Prioritizing Jobs That Align With Business Goals
Once you've synthesized and documented your Jobs to Be Done (JTBD) research, the next critical step is prioritization. Not all customer jobs carry the same weight, and aligning them with your business goals ensures that your team is moving purposefully toward growth.
Why Prioritization Matters
JTBD insights reveal a wide range of customer needs – some are urgent, others are underserved. Without a prioritization framework, it’s easy to get lost in the detail. But with the right lens, you can focus your efforts on the jobs that create the most value for both your users and your organization.
Using a Prioritization Framework
Consider factors like:
- Strategic Fit – Does solving this job closely align with your brand’s vision and capabilities?
- Problem Severity – How painful or frequent is this customer need?
- Market Opportunity – Are competitors currently overlooking this area?
- Feasibility – Can your team address this technically and operationally in the near term?
A weighted scoring system or simple quadrant model can be effective in visually mapping opportunities – for example, plotting jobs by customer impact versus business effort. This keeps the conversation grounded and collaborative across product, marketing, and leadership teams.
Examples of Alignment
Let’s say your JTBD research reveals that customers want to “quickly understand how a product works before they buy.” If improving trial experiences aligns with your business initiative to increase conversion rates, this job sits high on your list. On the other hand, a job related to post-purchase education may rank lower if your immediate focus is acquisition.
Balancing Quick Wins and Long-Term Goals
Some customer needs lend themselves to fast, iterative solutions, while others may require bold shifts in strategy or innovation. Both matter. Striking the right balance allows your team to deliver short-term wins while laying the foundation for long-term growth.
By clearly identifying and ranking the most critical jobs, you move from a list of insights to a set of focused, actionable business priorities – the bridge between deep understanding and meaningful action.
Turning JTBD Insights into Product, Marketing, and Innovation Actions
With prioritized customer jobs in hand, the next step is translating those insights into real-world actions across your organization. JTBD research isn’t just for research teams – it’s a springboard for focused strategy across product, marketing, and innovation efforts.
Applying JTBD to Product Development
Product teams can use JTBD insights to shape roadmaps, refine feature sets, and improve user experience. Every product decision becomes clearer when guided by a customer's ultimate goal. Ask yourself: How does this feature help the customer complete their job more easily, affordably, or confidently?
For example, if the job is “simplify managing family calendars,” then features like one-click sync or shared notifications should rise in priority. JTBD insights help teams focus on outcomes, not just functionality.
Informing Marketing Messaging and Outreach
Marketing teams often rely heavily on demographic data or product benefits – but JTBD research goes deeper, revealing emotional and functional drivers of behavior. That means you can build campaigns that speak directly to why people buy.
Let’s say your insights reveal that customers want to “feel more in control of their finances.” Instead of leading with technical features, your messaging might highlight security, peace of mind, and ease-of-use – all aligned with the emotional aspect of the job.
Fueling Innovation with Confidence
Innovation leaders can look to jobs that are underserved or poorly solved by current solutions as fertile ground for disruption. By identifying customer jobs with high value and low satisfaction, JTBD research shines a spotlight on where new ideas are truly needed.
When teams collaborate around clearly defined customer jobs, brainstorming sessions become more grounded and productive. Ideas aren’t just novel – they’re rooted in real user needs.
From Insight to Implementation
To get your teams moving, consider creating brief JTBD “action briefs” – one-pagers that outline the core job, supporting insights, and priority recommendations. These can serve as living documents to guide cross-functional planning.
By linking JTBD findings directly to strategy, tools, and communication, your organization ensures that customer insights don’t sit in a file – they drive meaningful, measurable outcomes.
Best Practices for Rolling Out JTBD Insights Across Your Team
Great insights are only as powerful as their adoption. To make a real impact with your JTBD research, it’s essential to share and embed it across your organization in a way that encourages action, alignment, and ownership.
1. Make It Visual and Accessible
Long reports can be overwhelming, especially for stakeholders not involved in the research process. Instead, translate your JTBD findings into simple, shareable formats. Some effective tools include:
- Customer Job Cards – Quick-reference summaries with the job, context, pain points, and success metrics
- Infographics or Journey Maps – Visual storytelling that shows how and when jobs occur
- Interactive Dashboards – Especially useful for larger organizations with evolving insights
Using visual, digestible formats ensures your findings are embraced, not buried.
2. Create Cross-Team Conversations
Don’t keep JTBD insights siloed within the insights or product team. Facilitate dedicated sessions where marketing, innovation, and customer success teams can explore the research together. Ask: How does this job show up in your area? What actions can your team take?
These discussions build team alignment and highlight how different departments can contribute to solving high-priority jobs.
3. Assign Insight “Owners”
Assigning team members to serve as owners or advocates for key jobs can help keep them top-of-mind beyond the research phase. These owners can keep the focus on the customer by championing progress and measuring impact as initiatives roll out.
4. Revisit and Refresh Regularly
JTBD insights aren’t static – customer needs evolve, and so should your strategy. Set regular checkpoints to review customer jobs and adjust your priorities as needed. Embedding Jobs to Be Done into your quarterly or annual planning process keeps it relevant over time.
Igniting Cultural Shift
Ultimately, making JTBD research actionable isn’t just about tools or meetings – it’s about shaping a culture that values customer perspective at every level. By giving teams the language and context for consumer needs, you're building stronger, more aligned decision-making across the board.
Summary
Jobs to Be Done research offers a structured way to truly understand what your customers are trying to achieve – beyond just what they say or do. In this post, we explored how to synthesize JTBD research into clear themes, document key customer jobs, and prioritize opportunities that align with your business goals. From there, we explored how to translate those insights into actionable strategies that drive impact across product, marketing, and innovation.
Finally, we looked at best practices for rolling out JTBD insights across teams – helping embed a more customer-centric mindset into daily decisions. Whether you’re just starting with JTBD or ready to take your insights further, following these steps can help you turn research into real results.
Summary
Jobs to Be Done research offers a structured way to truly understand what your customers are trying to achieve – beyond just what they say or do. In this post, we explored how to synthesize JTBD research into clear themes, document key customer jobs, and prioritize opportunities that align with your business goals. From there, we explored how to translate those insights into actionable strategies that drive impact across product, marketing, and innovation.
Finally, we looked at best practices for rolling out JTBD insights across teams – helping embed a more customer-centric mindset into daily decisions. Whether you’re just starting with JTBD or ready to take your insights further, following these steps can help you turn research into real results.