Читать книгу The Jobs To Be Done Playbook - Jim Kalbach - Страница 33

What is your customer’s primary objective you want to understand? You may not be able to answer this question right away. It takes negotiation and iteration. Work directly with your whole team to define a main job that makes the most sense. Discuss and refine the scope, get the right level and specificity, and then ensure the correct formulation of your main job statement.

The main job lies at the center of understanding a market. It becomes a centripetal force for making decisions and aligning to customer needs and desires. Related jobs adjacent to the main job point to further opportunities to serve customers. Drilling down into the steps of getting a job done provides insight into how to develop better products and solutions. Reaching upward to broader jobs and aspirations allows organizations to expand their businesses in general.

Getting the right level of abstraction is key. Don’t define the main job too narrowly. A small job will limit your field of vision, but also will constrain your efforts. When in doubt, go broader and define a main job that is larger than smaller. Ask “why?” and “how?” to move the level of granularity of the main job up or down.

Consider how much time and effort you want to put into perfecting any one job relative to your size. JTBD thought leader Mike Boysen drives this point home when he picks on parking apps.² Parking a vehicle is such a small part of a much bigger job of getting to a destination on time, as shown in the job map in Figure 2.8.

Creating a parking app may be exactly the right place to start for a small firm or team. Taking on too much at once can be a recipe for failure. But then what? Focusing on getting just one small job done won’t likely lead to long-term sustainability of a company. Instead, your strategy can expand by getting more steps done for customers. Defining the main job one level broader than your current capabilities provides an exit strategy and a path toward growth.

FIGURE 2.8 Illustrated in this job map, Mike Boysen shows that park the vehicle is a small step in a larger job get to a destination on time.

At the same time, avoid defining the main job as an aspiration or a description of an experience. “Be thoughtful” or “Be the best I can be” is too abstract: your innovation teams won’t be able to act on it. It’s okay to recognize aspirations, but keep the main job simple and functional. A rule of thumb is to focus on the “what” main job—a functional objective—more than the “why” in terms of aspiration.

Also strive to keep a causal impact of your business on the job. For instance, a drill bit manufacturer might explore a main job and realize that people don’t want a hole, they want to hang a painting. But why do they do that? To decorate their homes and preserve family memories. Realistically, a team responsible for the development and sale of drill bits won’t have a direct impact on creating a better home life, and practical innovation won’t happen with a focus on a main job that is causally separated from the business.

Reflect on a few simple questions to get started:

• What business are you in? Consider your overall playing field by noting the sector, industry, and offering category you want to operate in.

• What customer problems do you want to solve? Write down all of the challenges you want to overcome for customers.

• What impact do you hope to generate? Write down the benefits you hope to bring customers.

Then create a simple ladder of objectives that people are trying to achieve, similar to the one in Table 2.6. Using the example of parking a car, you can see how this job might fit into a hierarchy of jobs.

TABLE 2.6 GET THE RIGHT LEVEL OF ABSTRACTION FOR THE MAIN JOB

LEVEL	EXAMPLE
Aspiration	Enjoy the freedom of mobility
Big job	Get to a destination on time
Little job	Park the vehicle
Micro-job	Find a free parking spot; feed the meter, etc.

If you already have access to people in your domain, talk with them to explore the main job informally. A short phone call or quick meeting with a few known individuals carrying out the job will help you understand the main job. Ask them what they are trying to accomplish. Bring this feedback into your team discussion.

Once you have the target domain and appropriate level of abstraction, formulate a main job statement following the rules outlined in the previous chapter. Start with a verb, avoid technology, and strive for stable jobs over time. Table 2.7 illustrates how to get the right scope of your main job, avoiding some of the common pitfalls.

TABLE 2.7 FORMULATE THE MAIN JOB AT THE RIGHT LEVEL

WRONG EXAMPLE	ISSUE	APPROPRIATE MAIN JOB
Select music to listen to	Stage in a big job; too small	Listen to music
Enjoy the arts	Aspirational job; too broad	Listen to music
Play music on computer	Mentions a method and a specific outcome	Listen to music
Save time by creating a list of songs	Indicates an outcome (save time) Refers to a method	Listen to music

You also want to identify related jobs and get a sense of the potential variety of goals that people have. So not only do you have to move up and down in granularity, you also need to move from side to side and recognize adjacent goals. Related jobs can help you break up a big job into more meaningful sections. In fact, some solutions (e.g., complex software programs) may address several related jobs, and it’s more practical to view these individually, rather than rolled up into one.

Here are some points to consider when formulating the main job:

• Get the phrasing right. JTBD provides a common language for an organization, and getting the labels right is key. Iterate and refine your definition of the main job. Use a thesaurus to find the best labels. Keep it simple and one-dimensional.

• Ensure that there is a purpose. Main jobs should be purposeful and not actions or tasks. Strive to reflect an outcome from the individual’s point of view. For instance, look at a painting is an action, while understand artwork is a JTBD with an objective.

• Reflect an end state. Avoid framing main jobs as ongoing activities. It’s problematic to start a main job with words like manage, maintain, keep up, and learn because they don’t have a clear end state. For example, learn all there is to know in a given field isn’t a good main job. When is learning done? Similarly, formulating a job as manage financial portfolio is problematic because it’s hard to point to an end: managing is ongoing. Instead, phrase the job as grow financial portfolio, which is stronger because there is a way to be “done.”

• Separate jobs from needs. Don’t mix up needs or desired outcomes with the main job. For instance, the main job of a street vendor with a hotdog cart is to sell food on the street. Of course, the vendor wants to maximize the amount of hungry people she attracts, but that’s considered a need.

Test your main job statement against these questions:

• Does the statement reflect the job performer’s perspective?

• Does the job statement begin with a verb?

• Is there a beginning and end point of the goal?

• Might the job performer think, “The [object] is [verb]-ed”? (e.g., did the financial portfolio grow? Or was food sold on the street?)

• Are the statements one-dimensional without compound concepts?

• Would people have phrased the job to be done like this 50 years ago?

Getting the main job right requires some thought, discussion, and negotiation with your team. It’s a fundamental decision of the scope of the customer’s job and, consequently, the needs your entire business will target. Framing the main job sets your field of vision for subsequent activities. Spend time in getting the right level of granularity and formulating the job statement properly.