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Jobs to Be Done

Theory to Practice

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About this listen

Why do so many innovation projects fail? What are the root causes of failure? How can they be avoided?

Since 1991, Tony Ulwick has pioneered an innovation process that answers these questions. In 1999, Tony introduced Clayton Christensen to the idea that "people have underlying needs or processes in their lives, that they are addressing in some way right now" - an insight that was to become the Jobs-to-Be-Done theory.

For 26 years, Ulwick and his company Strategyn have helped over 400 companies put Jobs-to-Be-Done Theory into practice, with a success rate of 86 percent, a five-fold improvement.

You will learn:

  • Why companies fail at innovation and how to avoid critical mistakes
  • How to employ the Jobs-to-Be-Done framework to categorize, define, capture, and prioritize customer needs, including the following: the core functional job-to-be-done and desired outcomes, related jobs, emotional and social jobs, consumption chain jobs, and financially desired outcomes.
  • A Jobs-to-be-Done growth strategy matrix to categorize, understand, and employ five growth strategies: differentiated, dominant, disruptive, discrete, and sustaining
  • Outcome-based segmentation
  • Outcome-driven innovation - the tested innovation process that ties customer-defined metrics to the customer's job to be done
  • The language of Jobs-to-Be-Done - the syntax and lexicon of innovation

I call him the Deming of Innovation because, more than anyone else, Tony has turned innovation into a science," says the father of modern marketing, Philip Kotler, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University

©2016 Anthony W. Ulwick (P)2020 Anthony W. Ulwick
Management Management & Leadership Marketing Marketing & Sales Business Innovation Project Management Customer Service Jobs Theory
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A great and forward thinking book although seem to whet my appetite for ODI rather than JTBD framework which the author already warned us about that it's not for everyone.

JTBD vs ODI

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It's rare to have this concrete advice that can be immediately applied to your day to day work. As a sales leader I have to say that our mapping of client problems and needs just got redesigned thoroughly.

Concrete advice to really understand customers

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I previously held unchecked beliefs in the notion of trying lots of ideas at speed and failing fast. This is the sensible counterpoint to this that guides you through picking the right idea first. This framework is evangelised by our product team and has lead to many a great insight. The customer is not expected to be a product designer, the customer is not expected to know what they want. They do however know a great deal about the problem they're facing and how they're currently tackling it.

This framework leads product designers from their users' problem to an innovative solution that the customer wasn't aware they needed.

Puts innovation in a formulaic setting

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There are some actionable hints about quant research including Conjoint Analysis. However this “book” contains around 30% useful information and is 70% an advert for the author’s consultancy and training. There are few practical examples of how to apply the advice other than decontextualised extracts from lists. Skip this obvious attempt at content marketing for Strategyn. I’d recommend reading Jim Kalbach instead.

Sales pitch

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This just came across as an advert for the authors company and training.
Far to many “go read my Harvard Business Review” type comments.

I’m submitting for a refund and I recommend avoiding this.

Largely a waste of time.

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