Jobs To Be Done: a way to guide companies toward innovation

The "Jobs To Be Done" (JTBD) is a powerful technique to guide companies toward innovation in an structured way beyond the norm of only improving the current solutions.

A "Job To Be Done" is the higher purpose by which customers buy products, services and solutions.

This technique helps innovators to understand than customers don't buy products or services. They "hire" various solutions at various times to get a wide array of "Jobs to be done".

For example, ¿Which could be the "Jobs To Be Done" of a customer that is looking for a solar lawn mower or another creative solution?

• Save time cutting the grass?
• Be geek?
• Avoid to pay the gardener?

Probably, the final desire of the customer, could be to keep  the grass green and avoid to cut its. That should be the Job To Be Done.

A company that identifies that outcome expectation, should move their innovation process from to improving solutions to cut the grass towards developing a new kind of grass that reduces the needs of maintenance, keeps short and green all the time. Thats could be a, really, innovation!

Ususally, the most dificult part of the process is to indentify the outcome expectation. The customers don't knows how to express the outcome expectation or don't knows which is. A thats is the big challenge of the innovation process.