01 / UNDERSTAND
What are Jobs to Be Done statements?
Jobs to Be Done examines the progress people seek in particular circumstances and the choices they make to pursue it. The lens helps a team look beyond a product category or demographic label. The job is not simply the feature someone asks for. This guide uses a qualitative exploration of a decision and its context, rather than a proprietary scoring process.
Why use Jobs to Be Done Statements?
A team selling a course may compare only other courses while a prospective learner compares study with overtime, informal practice or doing nothing. Investigating the desired progress broadens the account of competition and reveals constraints that a feature list can miss. The aim is a useful explanation to examine, not a memorable sentence detached from evidence.
When to use it
USE IT WHEN
You need to understand why someone chooses, switches or delays a solution.
A product category hides alternative ways of making progress.
People with similar demographics make different choices in different circumstances.
When to choose another method
Use Usability Testing for interaction problems in an existing design.
Use research before asserting a job from team intuition.
Do not treat one job statement as a complete market sizing or demand forecast.
What you’ll need
Choose a decision episode and recruit people with relevant recent experience. Prepare neutral interview prompts about circumstances, alternatives and the sequence of events. Keep source identifiers and distinguish reported explanations from observed behaviour. Include people who decided not to switch when that comparison is relevant. State the limits of the evidence before generalising.
What the method needs
Keep the elements that help answer your question and support a decision.
What was happening when the need for progress became important.
What the person wanted to become possible.
Products, workarounds or inaction considered.
The events and tradeoffs around a decision.
What made an option difficult or unacceptable.
A proposition or research question grounded in the account.
02 / PUT IT INTO PRACTICE
How to develop a Jobs to Be Done statement
Keep evidence and assumptions distinct. Revisit your work when new information changes your understanding.
01
Choose an episode
Define the kind of decision the study should explain.
Investigate joining an evening course after a change at work.
02
Reconstruct circumstances
Ask what made the situation worth addressing then.
Explore the new responsibilities and available time.
03
Examine alternatives
Ask what else was tried or considered, including no change.
Compare a course with informal help and self directed practice.
04
Explore tradeoffs
Look at what made options workable or unacceptable.
A fixed timetable may conflict with changing shifts.
05
Draft a job account
Describe progress and circumstances without locking in a product.
Build confidence with new responsibilities while maintaining paid work.
06
Challenge the implication
Compare other accounts and identify what needs testing.
Check whether flexible timing matters more than the proposed course format.
Example: choosing learning alongside paid work
Illustrative account: all details are invented. A worker takes on new responsibilities and considers an evening course. They also consider asking a colleague, practising independently and waiting until work settles down.
The desired progress is not necessarily “buy a course”. A provisional account is gaining confidence in new responsibilities without losing paid hours. That could inform experiments with timing, practice or support. The team must check whether this account fits other relevant decisions and whether its proposed offer makes the progress possible. It does not establish a market segment by itself.
03 / BELOW THE SURFACE
Below the surface: a broad job can explain everything and guide nothing
“Feel confident” can fit almost any choice. Keep the circumstance and tradeoff attached to the progress. In the example, confidence matters in relation to new responsibilities and the need to maintain work. Remove those details and the statement stops helping the team choose between offers.
01 / EVIDENCE
What is supported?
Which source or observation supports the current interpretation?
02 / LIMIT
What remains uncertain?
Which assumption would change the decision if it were wrong?
03 / ACTION
What happens next?
Who will investigate or test the next step, and when?
Try using the account to distinguish two realistic alternatives. If both fit equally well, ask what evidence would separate them instead of adding confident language. A concise statement can summarise an analysis, but it should retain a route back to the decision episodes that support it. This is an editorial usefulness check, not a validated job measurement scale.
Jobs to Be Done Statements template
Use the first page for the practical work and the second to challenge the reasoning before choosing a next step. The canvas follows this guide and keeps evidence, assumptions and decisions visible.
The two page PDF contains 12 editable fields. Open it in a PDF reader that supports forms and save a working copy.
Practical tips
Include workarounds and inaction among the alternatives.
Use concrete decision episodes before drafting a summary.
Keep circumstances visible when comparing accounts.
Common mistakes
Renaming a product feature as a job.
Inventing emotional motives without evidence.
Treating a single account as proof of market demand.
What you’ll get
A provisional job account grounded in decision episodes. Keep the supporting evidence and unresolved questions with the output. Assign an owner to the next action and revisit the result when the underlying situation changes. The method supports judgement; the completed canvas is not proof that the proposed choice will work.