Jobs to be Done: Theory to Practice Read online

  JOBS TO BE DONE: THEORY TO PRACTICE

  Copyright © October 2016

  by Anthony W. Ulwick

  All Right Reserved

  ISBN# 978-0-9905767-5-4

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of the author and/or publisher.

  This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. The publisher, authors, and editors specifically disclaim any liability, loss or risk incurred as a result of the use and application, either directly or indirectly, of any information contained in this publication, whether or not negligently provided. All processes, procedures, and forms are suggestions only, and changes must be made depending on the specific circumstances in each case.

  Published by IDEA BITE PRESS

  www.ideabitepress.com

  Printed in the United States of America

  “Anthony Ulwick has taken the guesswork out of innovation. For 25 years he has worked to guide companies to success. He has done this by introducing us to Jobs-to-be-Done theory, and converting it to practice using his rigorous innovation process known as Outcome-Driven Innovation.

  The vast majority of innovation projects fail. With Ulwick's process we finally learn what the best know already - innovation cannot be left to chance. It can and should be managed for successful outcomes.

  I call him the Deming of Innovation because, more than anyone else, Tony has turned innovation into a science.”

  Philip Kotler

  S. C. Johnson Distinguished Professor of International Marketing at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University

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  “We are committed devotees. Our innovation teams have seen the Outcome-Driven Innovation process work not just once, but over and over again. Without a doubt, it brings predictability to innovation and contributes to growth.”

  Clive Meanwell

  Chief Executive Officer, Chairman, The Medicines Company‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬

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  “In What Customers Want, Tony Ulwick redefined how innovators think about their customers. His importance and satisfaction framework for a customer’s “jobs to be done” has influenced a generation of marketing and innovation professionals. Now with Jobs to be Done: Theory to Practice, we get the refined version, based on a decade of Tony’s learnings applying the framework.”

  Michael Wynblatt

  Ph.D., Vice President of Innovation, Ingersoll Rand

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  “ODI’s client-centric approach to innovation and product design helps us define and address truly important client challenges. That additional clarity further enables us to develop and deliver solutions that provide real customer value, as well as deep, ongoing benefits to my organization and me. Our understanding of client needs and how to gain insight into those needs has been greatly improved.”

  Alex Johnson

  System Architect - Next Generation Systems of Process Automation, Schneider Electric‬‬

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  “I’ve had the privilege to work with Tony and his team across two different organizations. Each time he has elevated our thinking and brought us a way to drive innovation that is radically different from traditional methods. It has been a great journey watching our team think and act with a focus on customer-centric outcomes.”

  Frank Grillo

  Chief Marketing Officer‬, Harte Hanks‬

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  ‬”Jobs Theory and Outcome-Driven Innovation have proven to be highly valuable in the development of innovative pharmaceuticals. A focus on the ‘job’ brings clarity to the complex healthcare delivery process and reveals hidden opportunities to positively impact the patients’ pathway to health.”

  Simona Skerjanec

  Lifecycle Leader – Neuroscience, Roche ‬

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  “Outcome-Driven Innovation unlocks unique insights into your customers and their challenges. It impacts revenue growth through new product development and identification of new customer segments.”

  Joe Camaratta

  Managing Director, MedTech Playbook‬

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  “Jobs-to-be-Done Theory and Outcome-Driven Innovation provide absolute clarity for strategic growth initiatives and product innovation. There is no better way to put yourself in your customers' shoes.”

  Steve Thompson

  Vice President of Business Strategy, National Oilwell Varco‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬

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  “Acquiring technologies for developing new medical products has always been an exercise in trying to guess correctly. ODI has provided us with an enabling technology shopping list we can execute with confidence. ODI makes Business Development far more precise.”

  Sean Thompson, MS, MBA, CLP

  Sr. Director, Business Operations & New Product Development, GenCure

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  “The Jobs-To-Be-Done approach drove within us a heightened focus on our customers. We discovered important and often “unspoken” customer needs. Even in established markets, we gained new insights enabling stronger value propositions, more impactful customer communications, and innovation better aligned with market needs.”

  David Rusinko

  Director Strategic Marketing, Momentive

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  “The ODI process provides broad and detailed customer insights that are superior to typical market research methods and critical to developing better solutions for customers. ODI helped us understand a new space and identify the underserved needs so we could enter a new market in a differentiated manner.”

  Brian Craig

  VP of Strategy and Business Development, Surgical Innovations, Medtronic

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  CONTENTS

  Foreword by Alex Osterwalder

  INTRODUCTION: THE FAILURE THAT LED TO SUCCESS

  THEORY

  1. WHY DO INNOVATION PROJECTS FAIL?

  All companies want to satisfy their customer’s needs. So what is standing in the way? The problem is there is no agreement on what a “need” even is.

  2. JOBS-TO-BE-DONE NEEDS FRAMEWORK

  A key implication of Jobs-to-be-Done Theory is that it provides a framework for categorizing, defining, capturing and organizing the 6 types of customer needs.

  - The Core Functional Job-to-be-Done

  - Desired Outcomes On the Core Functional Job

  - Related Jobs

  - Emotional and Social Jobs

  - Consumption Chain Jobs

  - Financial Desired Outcomes

  3. THE JOBS-TO-BE-DONE GROWTH STRATEGY MATRIX

  New products and services win when they get a job done better and/or more cheaply. This observation leads to five unique growth strategies companies can employ to address opportunities in a market.

  - Differentiated Strategy

  - Dominant Strategy

  - Disruptive Strategy

  - Discrete Strategy

  - Sustaining Strategy

  PROCESS

  4. OUTCOME-DRIVEN INNOVATION®

  Following the Outcome-Driven Innovation® (ODI) process enables companies to conceptualize new solutions that help customers get a job done better and/or more cheaply. It has an 86% success rate because it begins with a deep understanding of the Job-to-be-Done and employs unique quantitative research methods that enable companies to analyze markets in ways that have never befor
e been possible.

  I. Define the Customer

  II. Define the Job-to-be-Done

  III. Uncover Customer Needs

  - The Universal Job Map

  - The Desired Outcome Statement

  IV. Find Segments of Opportunity

  V. Define the Value Proposition

  VI. Conduct the Competitive Analysis

  VII. Formulate the Innovation Strategy

  VIII. Target Hidden Growth Opportunities

  - The Opportunity Algorithm

  - The Opportunity Landscape

  IX. Formulate the Market Strategy

  X. Formulate the Product Strategy

  5. CASE STUDIES

  The ODI process has been employed throughout the world in hundreds of companies. Here are a few stories that describe the ODI process in action, what hidden opportunities the process reveals, and the results it delivers.

  - Microsoft

  - Kroll Ontrack

  - Arm & Hammer

  - Bosch

  - Abbott Medical Optics

  - Hussmann

  PRACTICE

  6. BECOMING AN ODI PRACTITIONER

  To effectively execute an ODI project, an ODI practitioner must have the skills and instruction to do so. Listed in this chapter are the 84 steps an ODI practitioner must execute to produce a winning outcome-driven growth strategy. Learn what it takes to put Jobs-to-be-Done Theory into practice and become an effective ODI practitioner.

  7. TRANSFORMING THE ORGANIZATION

  Putting Jobs-to-be-Done Theory and ODI into practice is not easy, but let’s not make it harder than it needs to be. Using a three-phased approach, a company is able to see its markets through a new lens, obtain customer insights that have previously been impossible to obtain, and use them to drive growth through innovation.

  I. Understand Your Customer’s Job-to-be-Done

  II. Discover Hidden Opportunities In Your Market

  III. Use New Customer Insights to Drive Growth

  8. THE LANGUAGE OF JOBS-TO-BE-DONE

  A common language of innovation has the power to unite an organization in its effort to build a competency in innovation. These are the terms we use to define the concepts that comprise Jobs-to-be-Done Theory and Outcome-Driven Innovation (ODI).

  9. LEARN MORE

  - A Brief History of Jobs-to-be-Done (Timeline)

  - Online Learning Resources

  - Videos and Webinars

  - Books and Articles

  CONTACT TONY ULWICK

  FOREWORD

  Alex Osterwalder

  >> CONTENTS

  A recent research study by pricing firm Simon-Kucher & Partners shows that 72% of all new product & service introductions fail to live up to expectations. It doesn’t have to be that way. The right tools, processes, and organizational structures can help companies better navigate today’s challenging, ever changing, and dynamic business environment. This book contributes an important piece to the equation of how companies can avoid falling victim to disruption by smaller or newer players in the market.

  When I started working on business model innovation, I quickly realized that business practitioners needed simple, practical, and intuitive tools to do a better job at coming up with new business models. We needed a shared language. And that’s why we designed tools like the Business Model Canvas, Value Proposition Canvas, and Culture Map to provide a shared language for communicating complex topics and making them tangible.

  The importance of process and tools cannot be overstated. Process drives efficiency. Tools create a guided framework for conversations. They encourage participants to collaborate in different environments, and perhaps most importantly, they encourage participants to discuss something tangible. However, the tools, processes, and culture required for successful innovation differ from those applied today to guarantee the successful execution and improvement of known business models and value propositions.

  Companies that don’t want their future prosperity to suffer at the expense of present success need to complement their execution-focused toolbox and mindset with an innovation-focused toolbox and mindset. Tony Ulwick and his team at Strategyn provide an important part of this toolbox.

  I learned to appreciate Tony Ulwick’s work when I dove deeper into the Jobs-to-be-Done concept via Professor Clayton Christensen book, The Innovator’s Solution (Harvard Business School Press, 2003), and Tony’s article The Customer-Centered Innovation Map (Harvard Business Review, 2008). Subsequently, I discovered Strategyn’s powerful Outcome-Driven Innovation (ODI) process that companies can use to effectively execute the innovation process. Ultimately, this research led my team and me to design the Value Proposition Canvas.

  I’ve studied Tony’s work over the years and come to appreciate how the process is able to effectively take a lot of the guesswork out of the innovation process. Tony has succeeded in bringing us a tested model and framework for innovation management that greatly increases the probability of success. It is an important part of the equation of how companies can avoid getting disrupted and successfully fight off competitors by obsessing over what really matters to customers.

  Read this book to substantially improve your innovation toolbox and process. It shows you what to do (and what to avoid) in order to succeed.

  Alex Osterwalder

  Founder, Strategyzer

  October, 2016

  INTRODUCTION:

  THE FAILURE THAT LED TO SUCCESS

  >> CONTENTS

  INSPIRED BY FAILURE

  Early in my career as a product engineer, I experienced the ultimate professional disappointment: for 18 months I put my heart and soul into creating a product that failed in the marketplace.

  It was 1984, and I was part of the IBM PCjr development team. We were working on a product that was supposed to revolutionize home computing. In advance of its release, the Washington Post wrote, “the PCjr will quickly become the standard by which all other home computers are measured.” So you can imagine my surprise when, the day after we introduced the PCjr, I woke up to read the headlines in the Wall Street Journal declaring, “PCjr is a flop.”

  I was shocked! As we learned over the next few months, they were right. It was a flop, an embarrassment that cost IBM over a billion dollars and put a blemish on its reputation.

  The humiliation of failure had a profound effect on me. I was determined to never let that happen again. In the weeks that followed I wondered how the Wall Street Journal had been able to see this correctly, and so quickly. It occurred to me that if we knew what metrics they (and potential customers) were going to use to judge the value of our product well before we introduced it, we would have the opportunity to design our product to address those metrics and achieve a positive result.

  This set me on a mission: I wanted to figure out a way to identify the metrics that customers use to judge the value of newly released products early on in the product planning process.

  THE BREAKTHROUGH

  Over the next five years, I studied and tried out many new tools that looked promising, including voice of the customer, quality function deployment (QFD), TRIZ, Six Sigma, and conjoint analysis. I studied everything that was written about these tools and used them in my product planning activities. I conducted hundreds of customer interviews and dozens of quantitative studies. I also worked with IBM statisticians to learn how to best apply conjoint, factor, and cluster analysis to segment markets in a meaningful way. I worked as an internal IBM consultant, using what I learned to help different internal teams formulate market and product strategies. IBM management was very supportive throughout this process, which is something I appreciate to this day.

  It was in North Sydney, Australia, with an IBM team in 1990 when I had a mental breakthrough. Six Sigma thinking seeks to improve the quality of the output of a process by identifying and removing the causes of defects. It uses a set of quality management methods, mainly empirical, statistical methods, to address process deficiencies. It occurred
to me that we could apply Six Sigma and process control principles to innovation if we studied the process that people were trying to execute when they were using a product or service, rather than studying the product itself. Once we made the process the subject of our investigation, we’d be able to break it down into process steps, study each step in detail, and attach metrics to each step that we could measure and control in the design of a product.

  I was so excited about this prospect that I struggled to sleep for days. As I thought about it more, I realized that to make this work I would have to figure out how to uncover the metrics that customers use to measure success and value as they go about executing these processes.

  VALIDATING THE PROCESS

  In October 1991, I left IBM and founded The Total Quality Group. The goal of this one-man consultancy was to apply my newly envisioned process, which I called CD-MAP (to denote the concept of customer-driven maps), to product strategy and planning initiatives.

  One of my first clients was Cordis Corporation, a company that was trying to reinvent its line of angioplasty balloon products. I interviewed interventional cardiologists to break down and analyze the process they went through to “restore blood flow in a blocked artery.” Through this qualitative research effort, I carefully constructed 75 uniquely defined customer need statements that I called desired outcomes. The statements described the metrics that interventional cardiologists were using to judge and measure their success as they tried to restore blood flow in an artery. With these customer-defined metrics in hand, I conducted quantitative research to discover which of those outcomes were underserved—important to the interventional cardiologists, but not well satisfied. I discovered several.