Putting Jobs To Be Done into Action with Trello and Waffles
Thoroughly keeping up with all of the product discovery that I was working through as a Product Manager used to be a serious struggle for me.
The rigidity of my spreadsheets made it hard to visualize the relationships between complex problems and proposed design solutions. The distribution of my notes and documentation made it difficult to remember which questions I had already asked myself and which angles I had not yet considered.
Eventually I had a lot of success with a Trello board that I designed to repeatably work through the nuances of why a product is hired and facilitate solutions that deliver their intended value.
How To Use The Board
In this approach, job stories are the foundational units of organization used to frame an opportunity.
What are job stories and why do they make the world a better place? That’s outside the scope of this post, but if you’re needing some ramp up, Alan Klement’s ‘Replacing The User Story With The Job Story’ is one of my favorite primers. For a more thorough intro to Jobs To Be Done, see Intercom’s e-book and/or find some of Clay Christensen’s JTBD work.
That said, the first step is to title a list with the high level job story that you’re interested in investigating. As a lightweight example for the explanation below, consider this high level job:
When I train for my marathon, I want to lessen my risk of injury so I can worry less about being ready for my big race
Section Basics
In top down fashion, work through the three sections of the list — Current Workflow, How Might We, and Possible Solutions. For detailed questions to ask yourself and your team along the way, reference the checklists in each section header card.
1) Current Workflow (what happens today?)
Add cards to this section to document details on the workflow(s) that you’re trying to improve.
This card will not get into problem or solution land, it is intended to help you orient around what is being endured today. After all, everything you dream up is relative to what your users are doing now.
You might create a card for your runners that details weekly training schedules or a card that maps out warm up routines.
2) How Might We (what is important about how we do this job?)
Write cards that literally finish the sentence, “how might we ______?” Shoutout to Google Ventures’ design sprint for this one.
The cards that slot under this section represent your opportunities for improvement. In other words, these are the low level jobs that will improve the execution of our high level job. You’re now in problem land.
Perhaps you consider flexibility as an opportunity for marathoners to lessen their risk of injury. A How Might We statement could be:
How might we improve our runners’ flexibility so that they are less likely to pull a muscle?
3) Possible Solutions (what might do one or multiple low level jobs?)
Throw things at the wall in an effort to specifically attack the problems in the How Might We section.
Now is the time for some guided divergent thinking. Great solutions solve multiple problems at once and don’t create new ones.
Possible ways for athletes to improve their flexibility could include weekly yoga and/or a stretching routine.
What’s With The Colors?
How Might We cards get a unique, single color.
Possible Solution cards are labeled with the colors of the How Might We cards that they are solving.
Within the marathoner example, the How Might We statement aimed at improving flexibility would get a single color. Let’s say you choose red.
If your Possible Solutions included “a stretching routine” and “start doing yoga”, then you would give both of these a red label since they are both attempting to solve your flexibility problem.
Case: Wafflebet Online Checkout
James is the Product Manager for Wafflebet, a waffle maker startup that specializes in letter shaped waffles. If you love the sound of your own name, Wafflebet thinks you’ll love the taste of it too.
It is well known within the walls of Wafflebet that a high number of orders drop off at the final order review screen of checkout — that is, when the user is presented with the option to actually place their order. A number of concerns have been validated with customers, and James and his team are on a mission to come up with effective improvements.
Access the board and some of James’ work by clicking the image below. See if you can add to what he’s done so far.
Blank Template
If you are wanting to put this board to use, here’s a blank version. This is certainly a work in progress so I encourage you to leave feedback in the comments.
