Learning Jobs To Be Done: It’s Really Hard!
Jobs To Be Done Framework, I thought I knew you.
Back in 2012, I was working on a SaaS product. I’d been a Basecamp user for several years across a few different businesses and was following one of the Basecamp co-founders, Jason Fried, on Twitter. I really liked Basecamp and the guys behind it (still do!). I’d heard them speak (YouTube videos, podcasts, etc.) and had read their book, Rework.
Jason Tweeted that he and his company were hosting a new workshop in Chicago:
Switch Workshop
I read the landing page description about the workshop and then jumped at the chance to be one of the lucky 24 to attend. I liked the idea of learning why customers switch to — and away from — products (or services). I’ve always been fascinated by what makes people buy something — the intersection of business and psychology. Plus, I figured that anything Jason and team were going to put their names behind had to be worth my time. Oh, and I was (and still am!) sort of a Basecamp groupie and excited to have the opportunity to see their office space and possibly meet members of the team in person.
The trip and workshop did not disappoint: I got to see the Basecamp office, I got to meet Jason and Ryan Singer, and I got to participate in a really cool, eye-opening, and thought-provoking workshop in an intimate setting. I also got to know Bob Moesta and Chris Spiek, co-founders of the Re-Wired Group and Jobs To Be Done evangelists and practitioners.
I learned about Clay Christensen, how to think about “Jobs”, the Four Forces, the Jobs interview timeline, and so much more. And while I came away from the workshop energized and inspired — feeling like I had a whole new set of tools to use to improve my product and marketing efforts — I now look back and realize just how little I really understood at the time about the Jobs To Be Done framework and how challenging it is to apply in practice.
When Bob and Chris took us through examples of Jobs being applied to various products and to marketing campaigns along with the results that ensued, it all made so much sense. It was like, “Ahh, right, of course!” It was a cross between thinking “it’s so obvious” that people used the product this way, and “this understanding is so critical, why isn’t everyone using Jobs to improve their product and/or marketing efforts this way”?
Setting Out On My Own
Following the workshop, I set out on what I now know to be a very long and windy “Learning Jobs To Be Done” road (one that I continue to travel along). Soon after I returned home, I began the process of interviewing customers of the SaaS product I was working on. It was an extremely hard and humbling experience. It taught me that while applying Jobs seems to be easy, it’s not. Bob and Chris are experts at this craft. They’re extremely smart and have put in a ton of hours to understand Jobs and how to use it, and the fact that they make it look easy goes to show just how talented they are.
I’m a golfer — really, a hack. I’ve played the game for a long time, but still stink. Back when I was playing a lot more, I’d watch Tiger Woods swing a club on TV. I’d think, “Ahh, okay, there’s not much to it — just bring the club back this way, then down that way.”
Then I’d go to the driving range and spray the ball all over the place — and look like anything but Tiger Woods. Tiger made it look so easy. But there’s so much behind the swing that you can’t see or fully understand until you try to do it yourself.
Similarly, I’ve “helped” friends with homebuilding projects, such as framing rooms and putting up drywall, small plumbing projects, and even little electrical changes. When I would do those things with them, I would have these epiphanies, thinking, “Okay, so that’s how you do that. Got it.” After doing these various projects with them a few times, I’d gain confidence and think, “I can do this.” Then, on my own, I’d try to do what seemed so easy with them, and I’d struggle. Nothing beats experience!
Interviewing Again
I feel like I’ve come a long way since October, 2012. I’ve listened to (and, in many cases, re-listened to) lots of Jobs talks and podcasts. I’ve read as much as I’ve been able to find related to Jobs. I read Clay’s book Competing Against Luck a couple of times. I even attended a second Switch workshop in Austin, Texas, in January, 2015. And, yet, I’m still having “aha” moments when it comes to understanding Jobs. I continue to be humbled, realizing that every time I think I’m really advanced when it comes to grasping the Jobs concepts and applying them, I’m not — and I have so much more to learn.
I recently completed a round of 9 Jobs interviews for a physical consumer product. While these interviews went much better than those first interviews I did back in 2012, I know there’s a lot of room for improvement. The journey continues!
So all of this is a very long-winded way of saying that, while I’m still a big believer in the Jobs To Be Done framework potentially being a big help to businesses overall, and in particular, product managers, marketers, and more, understanding Jobs is no easy task. At least for me. It requires a lot of time thinking about and practicing Jobs techniques — even stepping away from it at times just to let it all sink in order to return to it with a fresh mind.
There’s A Lot To Learn
To drive this point home, I’ll leave you with a quote from Ryan Singer of Basecamp (a Jobs evangelist and practitioner and (I believe) one of the drivers behind getting that first Switch workshop in place in Chicago back in 2012):
“I’ve been lucky to learn under Bob Moesta … one of the main creators of the Jobs To Be Done framework. This has become a buzzword online, Jobs To Be Done. And there’s people writing books about it and writing articles about it who have never met anybody who actually practices it, and it’s a lot of BS. And, I tell you, it took me, being friends with Bob and working directly under him like he was sort of a mentor to me on the subject, it took me five years to get to a point where I was able to really use it at work and get results from it. It’s mainly built on an interview technique and an understanding — it’s a very technique-based thing — and you can talk about it all day, but until you sit in on an interview and you see how he does it and why he goes to which question at which time, and then figuring out … what model he had in his head so that when he got to the analysis he had the right data, it’s not something you can learn from a book. There’s simply too many things.”
