jobs-to-be-done

The saved excerpt is a snapshot from review. The external source remains the complete and most current version.

---
name: jobs-to-be-done
argument-hint: "[customer segment or product]"
description: Uncover customer jobs, pains, and gains in a structured JTBD format. Use when clarifying unmet needs, repositioning a product, or improving discovery and messaging.
intent: >-
  Systematically explore what customers are trying to accomplish (functional, social, emotional jobs), the pains they experience, and the gains they seek. Use this framework to uncover unmet needs, validate product ideas, and ensure your solution addresses real motivations—not just surface-level feature requests.
type: component
theme: discovery-research
best_for:
  - "Clarifying what customers actually hire your product to do"
  - "Repositioning a product around unmet needs rather than features"
  - "Turning fuzzy user feedback into structured jobs, pains, and gains"
scenarios:
  - "Customers keep asking for features that don't fit our roadmap — what job are they hiring us for?"
  - "We're repositioning and need to understand the unmet needs behind the switching behavior"
estimated_time: "20-30 min"
---


## Purpose
Systematically explore what customers are trying to accomplish (functional, social, emotional jobs), the pains they experience, and the gains they seek. Use this framework to uncover unmet needs, validate product ideas, and ensure your solution addresses real motivations—not just surface-level feature requests.

This is not a survey—it's a structured lens for understanding *why* customers "hire" your product and what would make them "fire" it.

## Input

**Works best with:** The customer segment (or product whose customers) you're analyzing.
**Also useful:** Interview notes, support tickets, or research to mine for jobs, pains, and gains; the situation or trigger you care about.

Anything supplied with the invocation itself — text after the skill name, a pasted context dump, or an appended `ARGUMENTS:` line — counts as answers already given. Use it and skip whatever it covers; don't re-ask.

**Arriving empty-handed? That works too.** The skill asks who the customer is and what progress they're trying to make before structuring the JTBD breakdown.

**Example invocation:** `Run JTBD for freelance designers using our invoicing tool — here are 6 interview summaries.`

## Key Concepts

### The Jobs-to-be-Done Framework
Influenced by Clayton Christensen and the Value Proposition Canvas (Osterwalder), JTBD breaks customer needs into three categories:

**1. Customer Jobs:**
- **Functional jobs:** Tasks customers need to perform (e.g., "send an invoice")
- **Social jobs:** How customers want to be perceived (e.g., "look professional to clients")
- **Emotional jobs:** Emotional states customers seek or avoid (e.g., "feel confident in my work")

**2. Pains:**
- **Challenges:** Obstacles customers face
- **Costliness:** What's too expensive in time, money, or effort
- **Common mistakes:** Errors customers make that could be prevented
- **Unresolved problems:** Gaps in current solutions

**3. Gains:**
- **Expectations:** What would exceed current solutions
- **Savings:** Time, money, or effort reductions that delight
- **Adoption factors:** What increases likelihood of switching
- **Life improvement:** How a solution makes life easier or more enjoyable

### Why This Structure Works
- **Separates job from solution:** "Communicate with my team" (job) ≠ "email" (solution)
- **Reveals underlying motivations:** Functional job may be "track expenses," but emotional job is "feel in control of finances"
- **Surfaces competition you didn't see:** Customers "hire" non-obvious alternatives (pen and paper, spreadsheets, workarounds)
- **Prioritizes by intensity:** Not all pains are equal—focus on the most acute

### Anti-Patterns (What This Is NOT)
- **Not a feature wishlist:** "I want AI, automation, and dashboards" is not a job
- **Not demographics:** "Millennials want mobile-first" is a persona trait, not a job
- **Not generic:** "Be more productive" is too vague—dig into *which