Thinking

Jobs to Be Done, Actually

Everyone references Clayton Christensen's Jobs to Be Done framework. Almost no one applies it well day-to-day. The idea is simple: people don't buy products, they hire them to make progress in their lives. But in practice, most teams skip straight to solutions without ever articulating the job. Here's how I actually use it: start with the moment of struggle, not the user persona. "I'm standing in the kitchen at 6pm with no plan for dinner" is a job. "Millennial food enthusiast" is a demographic. One leads to a product that solves a real problem; the other leads to a mood board. When you write the job statement clearly — situation, motivation, desired outcome — the feature debates get simpler, because you have something concrete to evaluate against.