The Job to be done-Wow framework for product teams to rule their roadmap priorities 🤘🏼

Stakeholder A: “I really need this feature, it should be at the top priority”
Stakeholder B: “Mine is more important because X”
Stakeholder C: “No, no, mine is crucial because Y and Z”
…

Sound familiar? Here is how to tackle this.

Visually organize your features across the layers

For the past years, I got comfortable working with directionless (not to say chaotic) startups. When the wind comes, it brings a new set of priorities every morning, without consistency over time, wanting to execute as many features as possible, without considering the why.

Along the way, I equipped myself to deal with this set of constraints and came up with a powerful, yet still-to-be-experimented-widely, approach to product prioritization.

JTBD-Wow pyramid of prioritization

Job To Be Done (JTBD)

JTBD is vital for any product, especially for Startups. A product that doesn’t do the job it is hired for, is like an empty shell: it fails.

To fully grasp what JTBD is, I recommend watching this video by Clayton Christensen explaining the process of addressing McDonald’s dilemma.

Let’s take an example of a smart feeder for pets.

Meow wants to eat

The job to be done is clear: when you are away from home, you either need to find someone to babysit your cat, leave too much food all in once or even let your cat starve. Now, you can get this job done — feeding the cat normal portions at regular intervals remotely— with a connected device that you can control with your smartphone. But what if there is a server breakdown? Then the product fails. This is what happened to PetNet in 2016.

JTBD lays at the bottom of the pyramid, and represents its foundation. Without it you can’t go any further.

Have-to

Here lies everything that enables your product to be aligned with the standards in your industry. It often includes features that are not needed to get the job done but that a company should have or could have to compete on the market. When you hear “all our competitors have this feature, we should do this as well”, then it belongs here.

Let’s take a few examples.

Tinder right and left swipes are now the norm (thanks, no thanks)

If you launch a dating app, people are probably going to expect right and left swipes as primary interactions.

If you are a delivery service, it’s more likely that people are going to expect same-day delivery.

When you order online, you expect free delivery.

In the early stage of a product development, if Have-tos are missing that’s forgivable. But sooner or later, it can become a critical obstacle and a competitive disadvantage.

Wow!

The cherry on the top of the cake is when you build something that has high impact and is also totally unexpected. This shouldn’t be left to chance, and it’s the product team’s responsibility to prepare the ground for innovation and always keep a step ahead.

An example.

Multiplayer in action in Figma

In 2016, the browser-based interface design tool, Figma, introduced a multi-player editing feature, which allows designers to collaborate synchronously. That was unprecedented and far ahead its competitors.

On the long run, Wow!, is what makes the difference and keeps your product alive on the market. Think of it as an elevation of the JTBD when pushed to the next level.

With this approach, you are now able to visualize where your existing product features lay in the pyramid. First step done, congrats!

Reallocate the volume of features across the pyramid

Let’s say you map your features on the pyramid and realize you only focus on the JTBD, and for only 80% of it. That’s a red flag.

DONTs

If we were to represent PetNet JTBD, this is probably how it will look like. Who wants a service that feed their pet almost all the time, but sometimes not?

DOs

Primarily focus on JTBD, then allocate the (must-have) leftover

No matter which stage you’re at in the product development lifecycle, the primary focus should always be the JTBD.

In the early stage, the JTBD takes most of your resources, minimum 80%. As for the Have-to and the Wow!, resources must be allocated too, even if it means <5%.

As the product grows, JTBD can take fewer and fewer resources in favor of the Have-to and Wow!.

Miscellaneous

Team adoption

Some teams I’ve worked with were reluctant to adopt this framework. Mostly because it can reveal that a company has no clear vision or strategy when it comes to growing a product.

With other teams, this approach has encouraged healthy interactions with my team mates and stakeholders, keeping everyone aligned and engaged on what we are currently tackling and why we do it, bringing together both the micro-level and macro-level perspective.

If you decide to take a first step to try out this framework, it’s okay to only visualize, without taking any action in the first place. But not doing any of the two will be like walking in the desert without a compass.

A step further

Once you are used to visualizing and decide how to allocate your resources, the next step is to identify and prioritize which features belongs to which layer in the pyramid. To be continued in another post. 😉

Feedback

What do you think of this framework? Does this make sense to you?
What are you using yourself so far?
And which role do you play in the product team?
Looking forward to your insights!

References

1. Job to be done by Clayton Christensen
2. MoSCoW method by Dai Clegg
3. The Prioritization Framework by Gusto
4. Maslow’s pyramid by Abraham Maslow

❤ Special thanks to my friend and proof-reader Jade Stone.

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