Jobs to be Done Strategy Builder

1. Customer & Situation

Start with a real buying or switching situation. Use evidence from customer conversations whenever possible.

Customer or audience

Current solution or alternative

Triggering circumstance

What was happening in the customer's life or business when the need emerged?

Struggle with the current situation

Progress the customer wants to make

2. Three Dimensions of the Job

A customer's job can include functional, emotional, and social dimensions. Capture each separately.

Functional job — What must they accomplish?

Emotional job — How do they want to feel?

Social job — How do they want to be perceived?

3. Four Forces of Progress

Explore the factors that encourage change and the factors that keep customers with their current solution.

Push — Problems with the status quoWhat makes the current situation intolerable?

Pull — Appeal of a new solutionWhat attracts them to an alternative?

Anxiety — Concerns about switchingWhat makes them hesitate?

Habit — Comfort with the current approachWhat keeps them doing things the old way?

4. Desired Outcomes & Success Criteria

Describe what better looks like from the customer's perspective. Prefer observable improvements over product features.

Desired outcome

How would they measure success?

Constraints or tradeoffs

Evidence or direct customer quote

Separate observed evidence from assumptions. Leave blank until you have actual evidence.

5. Generate Your Research Brief

Build a working job hypothesis, a forces-of-progress summary, and interview questions you can use to validate the hypothesis.

Your Jobs-to-be-Done Research Brief

Working job hypothesis

This is a hypothesis based on your entries, not a validated finding.

Job dimensions

Forces of progress

Desired outcome

Customer interview guide

Turn Customer Insights Into a Marketing Strategy

I help businesses apply Jobs-to-be-Done research to customer segmentation, messaging, website conversion, and growth strategy.

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Privacy: your entries are processed in your browser and saved locally when browser storage is available. This tool does not submit your entries to a server. Avoid entering sensitive customer information. Customer interviews and observation are needed to validate a job hypothesis.