Dispelling Three Common Myths About Jobs to be Done

With more and more companies adding “jobs to be done” to their innovation tool kits, the amount of misinformation about Jobs Theory has grown enormously. Clayton Christensen — the Harvard Business School professor credited with popularizing the theory — has repeatedly spoken of the need to get the theory right and to be careful in how we use the terms associated with the theory. If we’re not clear about the boundaries of the theory and how we use words such as “jobs,” he warns, the theory can lose its predictive power and its utility. In the spirit of keeping the theory well-defined, we’ve decided to bust three common myths we’ve heard about “jobs to be done”:

• Myth #1: “Jobs to be done” is just another way of saying “voice of the customer.”
• Myth #2: Jobs theory isn’t compatible with personas.
• Myth #3: “Jobs to be done” is only useful for developing new products.

Read more in our latest article for Forbes.

Story by Steve Wunker and Dave Farber.

Learn more about Jobs to be Done thinking in practice at www.newmarketsadvisors.com!