Introduction
What Is Jobs to Be Done and Why Should Product Managers Care?
- Uncovers deeper, functional and emotional needs behind customer choices
- Helps align product features with real-life problems
- Enables better market differentiation based on solving the right job – not just offering more features
It Grounds Product Strategy in Real-World Contexts
Understanding the job a customer is trying to complete gives clearer direction when prioritizing features or validating product-market fit.It Guides Innovation Beyond Direct Competition
When you understand the job, you're not limited to just looking at competitors in your category. You can explore lateral solutions that achieve the job differently – opening the door to product innovation.It Connects Market Research Directly to Product Decisions
JTBD is a bridge between rich qualitative research and strategic decision-making. It strengthens how product managers use customer insights to guide development. The jobs to be done framework for product managers involves listening to customers with new ears. Instead of hearing preferences, you begin to hear goals. It’s not whether a customer wants button A vs. button B – it’s about what job they’re trying to complete, and whether either button gets them closer to success. With JTBD, market research becomes actionable, and your product becomes meaningful – because it’s built to help someone accomplish something that truly matters to them.How JTBD Helps You Understand Real Customer Problems
Seeing the Full Customer Journey
JTBD encourages you to explore what triggers a customer to seek out a solution, what they’re hoping will happen when they use your product, and what success looks like in their eyes. These insights go beyond feature feedback – they uncover emotional and situational context that often guide real decision-making. For example, a (fictional) personal finance app may find that users aren’t just budgeting for budgeting’s sake. Their job might be to "feel more in control ahead of major life events like having a child or buying a home." That subtle shift turns your roadmap toward long-term planning tools and emotional support features.Creating Relevance Instead of Just Utility
Products that serve a real job are more than functional – they’re relevant to the customer’s life. JTBD helps product teams focus not just on what works, but why it matters. When you understand what customers are hiring your product to do, you can:- Prioritize features that actually solve real problems
- Recognize unmet needs hiding in current behaviors
- Connect more meaningfully through messaging and UX design
Designing for Outcomes, Not Just Inputs
User feedback often revolves around what buttons to add or what steps feel frustrating. JTBD enables product managers to ask a better question: "What outcome are our users trying to get to?" That outcome becomes the guiding light for design decisions, not just interface tweaks. In a practical sense, using JTBD in your product development process might look like: - Partnering with market research experts to conduct one-on-one interviews focusing on daily behaviors and underlying motivations - Mapping out "job stories" instead of just user stories - Testing prototypes based on how well they complete a customer job, not just how well they perform technical tasks Understanding the job gives you insight into behavior, strategy, communication, and feature development. It gives product managers a clearer view of where customer needs meet business opportunity – which is the sweet spot for innovation and business growth. Ultimately, identifying user needs with JTBD ensures your product strategy isn’t just imaginative – it’s grounded in the real reasons people turn to your brand in the first place.Using JTBD to Prioritize Features and Product Roadmaps
Using JTBD to Prioritize Features and Product Roadmaps
One of the biggest challenges in product management is knowing what to build next. With limited time and resources, choosing which features to prioritize can feel like a guessing game. This is where the Jobs to Be Done (JTBD) framework becomes a powerful tool for product strategy. It helps eliminate the guesswork by aligning roadmap decisions with what matters most to your customers – the progress they are trying to make in their lives.
At its core, JTBD helps product managers focus less on what users are doing, and more on why they’re doing it. Instead of building features based on demographics or usage data alone, you look at what “job” your product is being hired to do. This shift in perspective leads to stronger, user-focused decision-making.
From Customer Needs to Feature Decisions
Once you've identified your customers’ core jobs through market research or consumer insight tools, you can begin mapping features that support those jobs. This allows you to:
- Ensure each roadmap item directly addresses a user’s goal or challenge
- Avoid building features that may be interesting, but don’t serve customer needs
- Uncover unmet or underserved jobs that could be opportunities for innovation
For example, consider a fictional meal-planning app. If users “hire” the app to reduce weekday dinner stress (the job to be done), then features like auto-generating shopping lists or 30-minute meal suggestions might take priority. These additions speak directly to the job being solved, instead of focusing on unrelated options like social sharing tools or extensive recipe customization.
Scoring Jobs for Roadmap Alignment
JTBD can also help teams evaluate opportunities by scoring jobs based on three main criteria:
- Importance – How crucial is this job to the customer?
- Satisfaction – How well are current solutions solving it?
- Frequency – How often does the job occur?
Jobs that are important, unsatisfied, and frequent often hold the most potential for business growth. Prioritizing your roadmap around these insights can help increase product-market fit and long-term customer loyalty.
By grounding feature decisions in real customer motivations, JTBD provides a practical, insight-driven approach that elevates both the user experience and overall product development success.
Examples of Jobs to Be Done in Everyday Product Decisions
Examples of Jobs to Be Done in Everyday Product Decisions
Understanding how the Jobs to Be Done framework applies in actual product management scenarios brings the concept to life. Here are a few simple, fictional examples that highlight how JTBD helps decode user behavior and drive better product decisions.
Example 1: A Coffee Maker
While customers may appear to be buying a coffee maker to “make coffee,” the real job to be done may differ. Some users might be hiring the machine to:
- “Help me wake up quickly and feel energized before work.”
- “Create a café-like experience at home to enjoy on weekends.”
- “Make coffee efficiently without clutter in a small kitchen.”
Each of these jobs points to different product features. The first might call for rapid-brew technology and programmable timers. The second could suggest premium design and multiple brewing options. The third might prioritize compact size and easy cleaning. Instead of designing for just function, JTBD helps product managers design for purpose.
Example 2: A Budgeting App
Imagine you're developing a personal finance app. While the surface-level task is “track spending,” the underlying jobs customers are hiring the app for might be:
- “Help me stop overspending and stick to a monthly budget.”
- “Make me feel in control of my future financial goals.”
- “Give me peace of mind ahead of big purchases.”
These insights can refocus product development on features like behavior alerts, goal-setting dashboards, or predictive insights – versus just data displays. Addressing emotional and functional needs is key to better user experience and customer satisfaction.
Why These Examples Matter
By exploring real-world jobs rather than just use cases or tasks, product managers gain a deeper understanding of how people engage with products. This shift encourages teams to ask, “What progress is the user trying to make?” instead of “What are they trying to do right now?”
When supported by thoughtful market research – through tools like qualitative interviews or needs-based segmentation – these insights become the foundation for customer-driven product strategy. JTBD isn’t just about observing behavior; it’s about understanding motivation.
Getting Started: JTBD Tips for Product Managers New to Market Research
Getting Started: JTBD Tips for Product Managers New to Market Research
If you’re a product manager new to the Jobs to Be Done framework – or to market research in general – getting started can feel a bit overwhelming. The good news? You don’t need to be a trained researcher to begin using JTBD principles in your product development process. With a few simple steps, you can start learning what jobs your customers are really trying to get done – and how your product can help them do it better.
Start By Listening to Your Customers
Observation and conversation are key. Begin with open-ended interviews, customer support logs, or product reviews. Instead of asking what people like or dislike, ask:
- “What were you trying to accomplish when you used our product?”
- “What made you choose us over another option?”
- “What happened just before you decided to use the product?”
These questions uncover context and motivation – the foundation for identifying user needs with JTBD.
Map Out the Job
Once you’ve gathered input, organize what you’re hearing into job statements. These should reflect a specific goal, often written in this format: “Help me [achieve something], so I can [desired outcome].” For example:
“Help me quickly find healthy meals for my kids, so I can save time and avoid daily food battles.”
This becomes more actionable than simply saying “Parents want meal suggestions.”
Use JTBD to Guide Product Development
From your job statements, look for patterns. Are there recurring customer struggles? Can your product solve them more effectively? These insights aren’t just good ideas – they’re powerful tools for product innovation.
Partner with Experts (When Needed)
While DIY JTBD exploration is a great starting point, deeper consumer insights often come from structured market research. Working with insights professionals can help you validate job theories, segment your audience by need states, and assess feature opportunities based on real data. At SIVO, we often pair qualitative and quantitative approaches to deliver a well-rounded view of customer needs that drive behavior.
The goal isn’t to make JTBD your only framework, but to integrate it into your toolkit. When paired with traditional product management methods, it enhances your ability to craft a customer-driven product strategy based on what really matters: helping people make progress in their daily lives.
Summary
The Jobs to Be Done framework gives product managers a fresh lens for understanding customer needs and building user-centered solutions. From clarifying the purpose behind everyday decisions to guiding product development through actionable consumer insights, JTBD helps bridge the gap between what companies build and what users truly need.
We started by exploring what JTBD is and why it matters, followed by how it helps uncover real customer problems. We then looked at its role in prioritizing product features, shared relatable examples, and provided practical tips for those new to market research.
By integrating JTBD into your product management process – even in simple ways – you can build stronger products, improve user experience, and unlock meaningful business growth.
Summary
The Jobs to Be Done framework gives product managers a fresh lens for understanding customer needs and building user-centered solutions. From clarifying the purpose behind everyday decisions to guiding product development through actionable consumer insights, JTBD helps bridge the gap between what companies build and what users truly need.
We started by exploring what JTBD is and why it matters, followed by how it helps uncover real customer problems. We then looked at its role in prioritizing product features, shared relatable examples, and provided practical tips for those new to market research.
By integrating JTBD into your product management process – even in simple ways – you can build stronger products, improve user experience, and unlock meaningful business growth.
