The Jobs to Be Done (JTBD) framework is centered on a deceptively simple idea: people don’t just buy products – they “hire” them to get something done. Whether they want to cook faster meals, manage stress, or stay connected with loved ones, customers choose solutions that best complete the task at hand. JTBD aims to understand these underlying goals, or “jobs,” from the customer’s perspective.

Why This Matters for Team Collaboration

When cross-functional teams are making product or strategy decisions, it’s easy to get caught up in personal opinions, departmental priorities, or historical assumptions. JTBD shifts the focus from who’s speaking loudest in the room to what the customer actually needs. It provides a neutral framework – one that’s rooted in human behavior – so everyone is working toward the same end goal.

Key Ways JTBD Promotes Alignment:

• Shared language: Talking in terms of jobs encourages consistency. It prevents teams from talking past each other while using different terminology for the same concept.
• Customer-first lens: JTBD replaces “what we think they want” with “what they’re trying to accomplish.” This removes guesswork and keeps discussion grounded in consumer insights.
• Clarity in tradeoffs: When there's a clear understanding of the user’s desired outcome, it becomes easier to prioritize features, experiences, or messages that deliver on that outcome – and deprioritize those that don’t.

A Simple Example

Imagine a team designing a new coffee maker. Without JTBD, debates may center around aesthetic preferences or competitor features. But with a Jobs to Be Done approach, the team discovers the customer’s real job is “make a reliable cup of coffee with minimal effort during hectic mornings.” That insight shifts the focus. The team might decide to invest more in intuitive controls or quicker brew time, rather than secondary add-ons that don’t contribute to the user’s core goal.

This clarity strengthens stakeholder alignment because it removes subjectivity. The question is no longer, “Do we like this idea?” but rather, “Does this deliver on the customer’s job to be done?”

Driving Better Product Strategy

JTBD isn’t just useful during concept development – it’s a valuable tool across the entire product lifecycle. From early innovation to product positioning, this framework keeps teams centered on value creation for the end-user. If your product meets real customer needs, it’s far more likely to succeed.

In short, using Jobs to Be Done to align teams ensures you're not just building what’s possible – you’re building what’s purposeful.

When developing a product or market strategy, teams often bring deep expertise and passion. But that same strength can also introduce risk: personal opinions, internal politics, or legacy assumptions can quietly shape key decisions. Unless checked, this internal bias drives teams away from customer-centric thinking and toward solutions that may not actually solve for the user’s needs.

Understanding How Opinions Creep In

Every organization wrestles with internal influence. A technical lead may lobby for a feature based on engineering feasibility. A sales team might push for something anecdotal they’ve heard from one major client. Leadership may back ideas based on past wins – even if customer preferences have evolved. Taken individually, these viewpoints can be valuable. But without a common framework to test them, unchecked opinions can lead teams astray.

Common Pitfalls of Opinion-Driven Decisions:

• Feature overload: Teams add more capabilities than customers want, clouding the core experience.
• Misaligned messaging: Marketing highlights what the business values, not what the customer is looking for.
• Overlooking opportunity: Teams become attached to an internal solution and fail to spot emerging unmet needs.

How JTBD Reduces Subjectivity

The JTBD framework excels at cutting through these opinion dynamics. By making product decisions based on clear, research-backed customer jobs, teams can remove guesswork and focus on what matters. It’s not about whose idea wins – it’s about which solution best helps the customer complete their job.

For instance, if a retail business is debating which checkout experience to build, internal teams may propose different options – one fast, one personalized, and one high-security. Instead of choosing based on preference or stakeholder status, JTBD research might reveal that the core customer job is “complete purchases quickly and without worry.” That clarity helps the team align around a single, focused solution rather than compromise on multiple less-effective ideas.

Bringing Objectivity to Strategy Conversations

In client work at SIVO Insights, we've seen how defining customer jobs can bring new energy to stale strategy discussions. Using JTBD to prioritize customer needs ensures that decision-making doesn’t rely on the loudest voice – it relies on the strongest insight.

For business leaders and cross-disciplinary teams, this reduces friction and shortens decision cycles. Instead of debating what customers want, you let the customers’ jobs speak for themselves. It’s one of the most effective ways to make unbiased, customer-focused decisions.

By putting the voice of the customer at the center of your strategy, JTBD helps you make choices that aren’t just smart – they’re aligned, actionable, and built to drive value.

Using JTBD to Create a Shared Language Across Departments

One of the biggest blockers to team collaboration and stakeholder alignment is miscommunication. Each department brings its own goals, language, and perspective to the table—marketing speaks in campaigns, engineering talks features, sales thinks in conversions. But customers ultimately care about just one thing: getting their job done. That’s where the Jobs to Be Done (JTBD) framework becomes a powerful alignment tool.

When you use JTBD across teams, you shift the focus from internal priorities to external realities. Suddenly, teams rally around a shared goal: clear understanding of what the customer is trying to accomplish. Instead of debating whether a feature is “nice to have” or “essential,” stakeholders can ask, “Does this help the customer complete their job more effectively?” That simple switch encourages objectivity and team-wide clarity.

Why a Shared Language Matters

When teams use different metrics to define success, decision-making becomes fragmented. JTBD acts as a bridge by framing everything in terms of customer needs and desired outcomes. Product strategy starts to reflect what people actually want, not what internal teams think they want.

• Product teams use JTBD statements to prioritize features that genuinely solve consumer problems.
• Marketing teams use the same language to craft messaging that speaks directly to unmet needs.
• Executives and business strategists get a holistic view of customer value beyond surface metrics like NPS or sales conversion rates.

Instead of working in silos, everyone starts working from the same blueprint. It’s not just about better communication—it’s about better decisions grounded in reality.

A Unifying North Star

JTBD creates a common reference point. Whether you’re evaluating a new service offering, exploring market research insights, or aligning on a product roadmap, having clearly defined customer jobs ensures the conversation doesn’t veer into opinion wars.

In fast-moving environments, where cross-functional teams need to act quickly and collaboratively, that alignment delivers more than just efficiency—it secures focus, removes friction, and inspires confidence across the entire organization.

Tips for Introducing JTBD in Stakeholder Workshops

Whether you're launching a new product or refining your growth strategy, stakeholder workshops are a powerful opportunity to get everyone moving in the same direction. But without structure, they can quickly devolve into debates over personal opinions. That’s why introducing the JTBD framework as part of your workshop process is so impactful—it reframes conversations around real consumer insights rather than assumptions.

Start With Customer Reality

Begin by grounding the workshop in user-centered design. Share real examples from qualitative market research or customer interviews that spotlight specific jobs people are trying to accomplish. This immediately shifts the focus away from internal agendas and toward the customer's world.

Introduce JTBD with Simple, Relatable Language

You don’t need to dive into academic theory. Present Jobs to Be Done as a practical tool to help teams make customer-focused decisions. A job is simply what someone is trying to achieve in a given context—like “Plan a healthy weeknight dinner under 30 minutes” or “Feel confident during a major life milestone.”

Facilitate With JTBD Language

As you explore new ideas or challenges during the session, consistently ask:

• What job is this helping the customer accomplish?
• Where is the customer struggling to complete this job today?
• What outcomes are they seeking?

This line of questioning creates a neutral space where ideas are validated based on their alignment with customer needs—not based on who suggests them or how passionate someone is.

Co-Create “Job Statements”

Invite participants to write or refine JTBD statements together, using real customer language. This is especially helpful in cross-functional teams where perspectives vary. By collaboratively defining the job, you build alignment from the ground up—literally putting everyone on the same page.

Keep the statements outcome-oriented, specific, and emotionally resonant. For example: “Stay productive while traveling between meetings all day.” This gives your team a North Star to prioritize ideas and build strategies around.

Follow Up With Action

After the workshop, integrate the JTBD language into your ongoing workstreams—roadmaps, briefs, customer journey maps. When it becomes part of your daily vocabulary, stakeholder alignment gets easier over time.

By focusing on how to use Jobs to Be Done to align teams and de-escalate conflict, workshops become less about persuasion and more about clarity. That’s a win for everyone involved.

Examples of Aligning Teams With Jobs to Be Done Research

Sometimes the best way to understand how a framework works is to see it in action. When organizations apply Jobs to Be Done research effectively, the results often go far beyond better products—they drive team collaboration, clearer strategy, and faster decision-making. Here are a few case examples that show how the JTBD framework can cut through internal noise and put the customer at the center.

Example 1: Aligning Product and Marketing Around the Same Job

A consumer tech company was preparing to launch a new app aimed at busy parents. The product team focused on ease-of-use features, while the marketing team emphasized family bonding. But early qualitative market research revealed that the true job was: “Reduce weekday chaos between 4 and 7 PM.”

Once the JTBD was clear, both teams realigned. Product doubled down on time-saving automation, and marketing shifted its message to managing after-school stress. Result? Higher feature adoption and better message resonance.

Example 2: Resolving Conflict in Cross-Functional Product Teams

An enterprise SaaS provider faced tension between sales, engineering, and customer success over what to prioritize next. Everyone had their own idea based on anecdotal feedback. Using the JTBD method, the team conducted structured interviews to uncover the top unmet need: “Feel confident presenting data to executives.”

That single statement reframed multiple debates. Instead of arguing about dashboards versus integrations, everyone rallied around this clearly defined job. It streamlined their product strategy and improved stakeholder buy-in across the board.

Example 3: Moving Innovation Forward Without Personal Bias

A consumer goods company was stuck in endless internal feedback loops during new product development. Designers pushed for aesthetics, operations prioritized cost savings, and leadership wanted uniqueness. By introducing JTBD into early planning phases, focus shifted to what consumers were actually trying to do—like “Feel good about making healthier choices.”

This external anchor kept the discussion focused. As teams measured ideas against the real job, subjective preferences faded. Personal opinions gave way to shared purpose.

Each of these examples reinforces a takeaway: when customer needs become your north star, complexity fades. You reduce conflict in product teams using JTBD not by removing diverse perspectives, but by aligning them all under one simple question: “What job are we helping someone get done?”