A woman (or man) needs an audit like a fish needs a bicycle.
Using the Jobs-To-Be-Done framework to design Internal audit products (Part 1)
Upgrade your user, not your product. Don’t build better cameras — build better photographers. — Kathy Sierra
A classic example, described by Ula Krowicka
Clayton Christensens’ Milkshake story. A fast-food restaurant chain wanted to improve its milkshake sales. The company started by segmenting its market both by product (milkshakes) and by demographics (a marketer’s profile of a typical milkshake drinker) and psychographics. The marketing department asked people who fit the demographic to list the characteristics of an ideal milkshake (thick, thin, chunky, smooth, fruity etc.). The potential customers answered honestly about their preferences, and the company responded to the feedback. But unfortunately, milkshake sales did not improve.
The company then hired Christensen’s fellow researchers, who approached the situation by trying to deduce the “job” that customers were “hiring” a milkshake to do. First, they spent a full day in one of the chain’s restaurants, observing and documenting who was buying milkshakes, when they bought them, and whether they drank them on the spot. They discovered that 40% of the milkshakes were purchased first thing in the morning, by commuters who ordered them to go.
The next morning, they returned to the restaurant and interviewed customers who left with milkshake in hand, asking them what job they had hired the milkshake to do. Christensen details the findings in a lecture called Integrating Around the Job to be Done:
Most of them, it turned out, bought [the milkshake] to do a similar job. They faced a long, boring commute and needed something to keep that extra hand busy and to make the commute more interesting. They weren’t yet hungry, but knew that they’d be hungry by 10 a.m.; they wanted to consume something now that would stave off hunger until noon. And they faced constraints: They were in a hurry, they were wearing work clothes, and they had (at most) one free hand.
The milkshake was hired instead of other things (such as a Snickers bar, a doughnut, or a bagel) because it was relatively tidy and filling, and because the activity of sucking a thick liquid through a straw gave people something to do with their long, boring commute.
When I came across JTBD it immediately struck me that this sort of customer focused thinking is not how internal audit ‘products’ are created.
Could JTBD be used by Internal Audit?
The mission of internal audit is:
To best achieve this we need to support those who are responsible for creating and maintaining organizational value, operating management, executive management and the Board. Traditionally this support has been by a standardised process, performing controls testing and then writing a long-form report in a standardised format. This has evolved from the accounting focused origins of IA to become cemented in the profession as the ‘ product’ we provide.
The expectations of our customers are changing and Internal audit needs to be more proactive and operate in real-time. The nature of the ‘Jobs’ our customers ‘hire’ IA to perform is changing. So we should consider how our product should evolve to keep up with our organisations.
Traditionally audit has been a ‘product’ that is forced on customers. Much like internet adverts, tax forms, or emergency surgery our customers don’t really get a choice of which product they ‘hire’ to get the job done. No withstanding this a better fit of our product with user needs will help IA achieve our mission more effectively.
Applying JTBD To IA
According to Jim Kalbach in ‘The Jobs to be Done Playbook’ the key elements of JTBD are:
- Job performers: The executor of the main Job
- Jobs: The aim of the performer, what they want to accomplish, usually a Verb + Object + Clarifier structure. Jobs are usually understood through direct customer interviews. These are not the things our product does or what we would like our customers to do with our product.
- Process: How the job will get done.
- Needs: Job performers requirements or intended outcomes during the job.
- Circumstances: When & Where.
Taking these definitions I have derived some example Jobs that audit could help our customers achieve. In practice an application of JTBD would identify the main jobs by interviewing customers.
Operating Management Jobs:
- Ensure that my process is working effectively.
- Identify areas where my process could fail in future.
Executive Management Jobs:
- Identify areas or risks I need to monitor.
- Determine if we are likely to achieve our objectives.
- Prioritise limited resources.
- Identify waste or inefficiencies.
- Identify regulatory non-compliance.
Board:
- Understand if executives are running the company effectively.
- Identify any significant risks to our objectives that are not being managed appropriately.
- Verify that information we receive from management is accurate.
A key advantage of JTBD is that Jobs do not include the specifics of our current products. The jobs are not ‘get the results of a completed audit programme’ or ‘receive an audit report’. This supports innovation by moving the context away from the current solution to think directly about user needs.
First Steps to Apply JTBD in Internal Audit
Based on what I have learned so far here are some first steps I am thinking about to start testing JTBD as an approach for audit.
1- Identify your customers depending on organisational context, there will be multiple customers with different Jobs-To-Be-Done
2- Interview your customers and understand the jobs they need Internal Audit to help them do. For each job consider the Job performers process, needs and the context.What specific things does the Job performer do now to achieve the goal? Does the Job performer need a the job done quickly?, Do they need conclusions based on extensive data analysis or would your professional opinion suffice? Are other parts of the organisation providing a product to do this Job? Are there Jobs that we think we are helping them with that they don’t actually need our help with? What features are part of our product just because of tradition or because auditors think they are important?
3- Use this information to design your products to help the customer get the Job done as easily and effectively as possible.
The Ending
Upgrade your user, not your product. Don’t build better audit reports — build better auditees.
A product that is tailored to user needs is much more likely to be used effectively and make a real impact to build better more resilient organisations. If our mission is to influence our organisation to achieve greater things, designing our product around the needs of our users should be at the forefront of our minds.
Our customers don’t need an audit they need us to provide the best product possible to get their Jobs Done.
(Stand by for Part 2 — I will try and apply some practical JTBD tools in an audit context)
Resources
These are some useful resources I used when looking into JTBD
Jim Kalbach — The Jobs To Be Done Playbook
