#15: JTBD for Product Discovery & Spotlighting For Your Head.
here's why i think jobs-to-be-done is goated 🐐
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Why is the Jobs-To-Be-Done Framework Goated?
I first heard about the Jobs-To-Be-Done [JTBD] framework in 2018 and have, since then, spent a lot of time learning about it. Unfortunately, I never got an opportunity to try it fully, at least not until this year. Before I get too into it, let’s define some basic concepts.
A job to be done is an objective that someone is trying to achieve in a given context. For example: maintain a clean living space, keep my teeth healthy, maintain my relationship with my family, etc. There are four main types of jobs:
The main job: It is functional and a practical goal. It is an act that will be performed and should have a clear end state [which is the “done” part of jtbd].
Related jobs: They are adjacent to the main job but significantly different. It helps you recognise that people have multiple goals that collide and intersect.
Emotional job: It reflects how people want to feel while performing the job.
Social job: They indicate how a job performer wants to be perceived by others while carrying out the job.
One thing the JTBD examples have in common is that they are solution agnostic, which is why I love this framework so much. Instead of focusing on your product or solution, JTBD forces you to focus on your users and their goals. This helps you better understand your users as humans and be more thoughtful in building a solution.
Another thing I love about the JTBD framework is that it shows you that your user’s goals [or jobs] are stable over time. There might be some nuances, but the jobs are mostly stable. In our example above, maintaining a clean living space has been the main job-to-be-done for people for centuries. The same goes for keeping your teeth healthy and staying in touch with family. JTBD enforces that while your approach might be new, the problem isn’t.
This year, I got the opportunity to work on two projects where I got to really put the JTBD framework into practice, and I now see the hype. I got to leverage JTBD for a product discovery project, and a project focused on understanding churn. In this post, I’ll talk about the first project and maybe talk about the second one in another issue.
So let’s talk about using JTBD for product discovery. In the product discovery phase, your goal is to gather information to help you validate the problem you hope to solve and understand your users and their needs. It’s basically stage zero of the product development process.
This process is even more crucial for new products. The project I was working on was an idea I wanted to validate. We had assumptions about the problem, our potential users, and what they care about. But they were all assumptions, and we needed data, so we decided to take a jtbd approach in conducting the research.
What I love about the jobs-to-be-done approach is that it forces you to focus on your users and their goals instead of features. In product development, we treat features as an end when they are a means to an end. Users don’t care about your features for feature sake; they care about them when they solve their problems.
So to kick the project off, I created a research plan like I usually do. I’ve linked a stripped-down version of the research plan for your reference. I identified our biggest unknowns, assumptions, and goals in the research plan. Then I created a screener because I was hoping to speak to a specific set of people.
In preparing the interview questions, I had to take a step back to identify what I thought the main job was and who I thought the job performer was. This helped me frame my interview questions. The research study provided so much information about our potential users, what they care about, what they currently do and the problems they face.
From the insights, we created personas and identified their main and related jobs and emotional and social jobs. We also identified their challenges with current solutions and why they hire and fire solutions. With this research, we’ve been able to build our roadmap and start building our product.
As someone that has tried out different methodologies, there’s just something about JTBD that makes it goated. A core tenet in User Experience is taking a human-centric approach to solving problems, and I believe that JTBD champions that principle. A common saying in the JTBD community is that:
The job is a process, and your product is just part of the process.
I love this saying because it helps me maintain an iterative mindset. It helps keep me grounded and focused on the job-to-be-done and not the cool features I think the product should have.
I can go on and on about why I love JTBD so much, but I’ll spare you. If you are interested in learning more about it, I recommend checking out this book and this doc.
Product Spotlight
As hangout and games night szn is upon us, I couldn’t have picked the perfect time to showcase this product. This week’s product is a product I believe is bound to make your next hangout a fun one. So let’s get to it.
Profile
Name: For Your Head [FYH]
Website: https://www.foryourheadapp.com/
Countries Served: Worldwide
Product Space: Entertainment [Games]
Price: $0-$2.49 a month
Product Released: 2021
Founders: Sean Keluo-Udeke, Timothy Itodo
In their own words:
For Your Head was built to make Charades way more inclusive, accessible, educative, and fun. For Your Head provides an inclusive experience of fun, competition, and cross-cultural education.
For Your Head addresses all this by tailoring charades based on country themes. While FYH will launch solely with Nigerian-themed decks, we are working quickly to expand our horizons into other countries.
Vibe Check:
Games night & Hangouts season is upon us. As we wind down for the year and spend more time with loved ones, this is one app that can make our gatherings more lively.
Nigerian pop culture doesn’t have many expressions in the games scene. I’m into trivia and party games, but most focus on Western pop culture, which sometimes gets annoying. I’ve lost track of the number of games because I lack knowledge about Western pop culture.
This is why I’m super excited about FYH. They have cool decks on topics ranging from Bible Characters to Nigerian history, slangs, movies, cities and music. I tried it out, and it was so much fun. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
They have plans to build game decks for other countries, which I am excited about. One thing I hope they do is to add trivia and other games to their product. They have charades, which is great, but I’m hoping for more variety as the product grows.
What do you think about For Your Head?
On an unrelated note:
#ThankYouFromDumss
This is the last issue for the year, folks! We’re 16 issues strong, and I just wanted to thank everyone who has subscribed and read our issues. It means the world to me.
We have a lot of interesting things lined up for you next year. It’s going to be a year like no other. We have many announcements and updates to share, so be on the lookout for it early next year. You won’t want to miss it.
I know many people in this community are building products and plan to launch them next year. So if you’re one of those people, please email me at dumss@vizible.africa. I would love to feature your product when it launches.
If you have any questions or feedback or want to chat, email me at dumss@vizible.africa. I’m always down to meet people and help out! I really want to meet more people from this community in the coming weeks.
#DumssThePlug
Pendo, in collaboration with MindTheProduct, created this course on Product Led Growth, which is very insightful. I’m just wrapping it up myself. The course is free for a limited time, so check it out.
Here are three of my favourite reads and listens this week:
Bowing out:
That’s it for this year, folks! Thank you so much for staying with us all through this year.
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I hope the rest of your year goes great! See you in 2023!
Yours in Product Discovery,
Dumss.