Anthony W. Ulwick

Take the customer’s perspective: When defining the core functional job, think about the job from the customer’s perspective, not the company’s. For example, a company that supplies herbicides to farmers may conclude that growers are trying to “kill weeds,” while the growers might say the Job-to-be-Done is to “prevent weeds from impacting crop yields.”


Don’t overcomplicate it: While the Jobs-to-be-Done Needs Framework is multilayered and complex, a functional job statement is not. It is important to emphasize that a well- defined functional job statement, and all the need statements we describe, are one-dimensional and mutually exclusive.
Cramming everything into one complicated statement or a “job story” makes it impossible to later quantify exactly where the customer is underserved. The goal is to separately
define all the causal factors that contribute variability to getting the job done. This is accomplished through 100 or more separate statements, not just one.


Leave emotion and other needs out of it: When defining the core functional job make sure it is defined as a functional job, not as a hybrid functional/emotional/social job. A functional job does not have social and emotional dimensions. The emotional and social jobs related to the core functional job are defined in a series of separate emotional job statements.

Also do not include desired outcomes in the functional job statement. They too must be stated separately. So if the job is to “cut a piece of wood in a straight line”, don’t say “accurately, safely and quickly cut a piece of wood in a straight line”. Accurately, safely and quickly vaguely describe outcomes associated with getting the job done. A statement like “stay awake and occupied while I make my morning commute more fun” also fails this test. Here the functional job may be more like, “stay awake during my morning commute”. A possible solution may be a good shot of espresso, but probably not a milkshake.