Do We Need a Complement to Demand Thinking? #JTBD

Moving beyond understanding customer Jobs to actually helping them get them Done.

This Summer I came across a new podcast and website, https://demandthinking.com. It’s a project by Ryan Singer and Chris Spiek, two product strategists known for their deep experience with Jobs to be Done (Customer Case Research).

These guys frequently talk about temporal situations, and focusing on when customers start to recognize the need to switch behaviors or products.

Demand Thinking is about about digging beyond what customers say they need to understanding what Job they’re trying to get Done, and why their existing solution or situation is no longer satisfactory.

I’ve conducted dozens of interviews focused on customer situations and challenges. They can surface interesting nuggets of information.

.. But then what?

Once you have identified what Job a customer is trying to get Done and how he’s struggling, there are two paths you can take.

1. Position an existing product as the solution (see: typical ‘demand generation’ process below)
2. Create a new product as a solution.

Who Supplies What’s Being Demanded?

The other day, Casper Klenz-Kitenge posted a few canvases on Twitter where he differentiated between the “demand side” and the “supply side” of JTBD. Although later versions removed this distinction, I didn’t want to let them go.

If ‘Demand-Thinking’ seeks to understand “what Job are customers trying to get Done [and what’s holding them back?]”, then we also need a complementary ‘Strategic-Supply’ process to answer “how can we help them get it Done? [And should we even do so?]”

Wait, What About “Don’t Build Things No One Wants”?

Perhaps that’s running through your head right now. The whole Lean Startup movement gained momentum because we were too far on the Supplier-led side. We built things without pausing to first test if they served a market need.

Don’t worry, we’re not going back to the Black Box of gratuitous technology invention (or Chindogu, if you’re Dale Halvorson).

Don’t ignore the Job the user is trying to get Done. But instead of rushing ahead to grease any possible path down the marketing funnel, we should pause a moment to consider the Supplier side of the value equation.

Innovation is about creating and capturing new value. It needs to benefit both the customer and the provider.

It’s one thing to conduct research to learn about the customer’s Job and the progress he’s trying to make. It’s a whole other thing to devise a strategic plan of action to capitalize on those learnings.

We have talked about Jobs to be Done for decades:

“Customers have things they want to accomplish. They hire products they believe will help them get the Job Done. They may switch to another solution if they believe it will get the Job Done better/cheaper than alternatives.”

We’ve explored:

1. How do customers measure success in getting a Job Done?
2. How do they decide from among alternative solutions?
3. Can we really trust customers to tell us how they make decisions?
4. Are Jobs stable over time or are they tied to a personal journey?

And we’ve stayed blissfully away from

1. So.. what should we do (or not do) with what we’ve learned?

The fact that Ryan and Chris have started this site is a great sign. Here are product strategists, in the weeds, trying to tie product decisions back to customer demands. And we need more of it.

We don’t just need research and thinking. We need deciding and doing.

There are a lot of Jobs to be Done interviews happening. We have mounds of data. But what we need to focus on now is how to deliver, in a way that makes sense for suppliers.

Lean Startup advocates starting small and then looking to scale. But even Ash Maurya, author of Running Lean, has matured his message to talking about Traction Models.

Start by building small, but don’t trip yourself up by thinking too small. You need to figure out what makes sense for your business to be successful in the long run.

“Your business model, not your solution, is the product” — Ash Maurya

You need to create a business model that helps your customer get his Job Done in a way that’s financially viable for your business.

Simply identifying a need, or ‘generating demand’ is of no value unless there’s a corresponding viable solution.

Let’s do less Demand Thinking and more Strategic Decision-Making. This means making hard decisions on what to invest in, and how much. Of serving certain segments, and not others. This is where theory turns to practice, and successful businesses are made or destroyed.

It’s ok to think about demand. But it’s only one part of the equation in building a successful product or business.

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Andrea Hill is the principal consultant at Frameplay. Frameplay is an innovation consultancy that helps companies become more customer-focused and thrive in a rapidly changing world. Learn more at frameplay.co