Innovation should be predictable. Instead, it often feels like rolling a dice and hoping the market smiles at you.
Clayton Christensen’s Jobs to Be Done (JTBD) gives us a way out of that trap… if we actually apply it the way it was intended.
Most teams don’t.
They treat JTBD like personality wallpaper, “A millennial mom who cares about artisanal oat milk.” That’s not a job. That’s a stereotype.
People don’t buy products.
They hire them.
To make progress.
What the Customer Is Really Trying to Do
A job has three layers:
- Functional — What progress am I trying to make?
- Emotional — How do I want to feel before, during, and after?
- Social — What identity do I want to signal?
You’re not buying a drill.
You’re hiring a clean hole in the wall and the confidence of not destroying your apartment.
This lens cuts through the noise. It exposes the struggle.
The Milkshake That Crushed Breakfast Sandwiches
Christensen’s milkshake example isn’t just a fun story.
McDonald’s discovered that the morning milkshake wasn’t a treat.
It got hired to:
- Keep people occupied during a boring commute
- Fit in one hand while driving
- Last longer than a crumbly donut
When they optimized for the job, not the persona, sales went up.
Same product.
Completely different purpose.
This is the heart of JTBD:
Understand the struggle > Build the solution.
Most Teams Misuse JTBD (And It Shows)
Common anti-patterns:
❌ “Jobs” that are just reworded features
❌ Mapping jobs to demographics instead of circumstances
❌ Interviewing customers like a survey, not an investigation
❌ Using JTBD once during discovery and never again
Personas tell you who is struggling.
JTBD tells you what they’re struggling to accomplish.
If you skip the second part, you're back to guessing.
How to Actually Use JTBD in Product Strategy
Here’s a simple pattern we apply with teams:
-
Identify the job executor
Who is actively trying to make progress? -
Map the job
How do they solve it today? Where’s the friction? -
Define success
How do customers measure “job done well”? -
Track forces of progress
Push: Why change?
Pull: Why now?
Anxiety + Habits: What blocks switching? -
Redefine the competition
The “job” for a banking app isn’t financial planning.
It’s reducing anxiety about money.
The competition? Voice notes. WhatsApp reminders. Parents.
The true battlefield is often invisible.
JTBD as Roadmap Compass
Stop prioritizing features.
Start prioritizing customer progress.
A strong roadmap sounds like:
“Reduce nightly anxiety about unpaid bills by 80%.”
Not:
“Add bill-pay widget and emoji reactions to transactions.”
Most features exist because someone saw them in a competitor screenshot.
Jobs give you an outcome-driven operating system.
Systems Thinking Meets JTBD
Jobs don’t change often.
Solutions do.
So instead of chasing shiny objects:
Build capabilities that improve job completion over time:
- Better decision support
- Automation that removes steps
- Feedback loops that build confidence
When the system gets smarter, the job gets easier.
That’s where competitive advantage lives.
Implementation: Harder Than It Sounds
You need:
- Hunger for the truth, not confirmation bias
- Interviews that dig into context, not opinions
- Cross-functional alignment (PM, design, engineering, marketing)
- Courage to ignore features that don’t move the needle
This isn’t theory.
We’ve done this in production.
It works.
Conclusion
JTBD isn’t a sticker you slap on top of personas.
It’s a worldview:
Customers don’t want your product.
They want progress.
If you want product-market fit, stop asking:
“What features should we build?”
Ask:
“What job are we being hired to do, and how do we become the best at it?”
