Miro board representing the initial workshop with a client.
Main Principles of Jobs To Be Done
1. People employ products and services to get their job done, not to interact with your organisation.
2. Jobs are stable over time, even as technology changes.
3. People seek services that enable them to get more of their job done quicker and easier.
4. Making the job the unit of analysis makes innovation more predictable.
5. JTBD isn't limited to one discipline: it is a way of seeing that can be applied throughout an organisation.
Client
The team's mission is to revolutionise the R&D tax claims, break away from traditional consultancy life and build a new vision - software which allows businesses to prepare R&D tax claims.
The company's revenue is growing, and its reputation within the field is expanding.
Subscribers are signed up but do not generate traffic and desired growth.
Subscribers are signed up but do not generate traffic and desired growth.
They do not seem to be using it regardless of the subscription charge.
"Why do they pay and don't use the software?"
Why JTBD?
1. To identify jobs that people employ when they are in need. JTBD allows to re-focus from the software to human needs.
2. To find out what specifically makes our participants 'hire' a particular product or service in order to solve their problems.
3. To see what their everyday work-related struggles are and what challenges our participants face every day. How they perform their job, what tools they use and what they specifically like about the process of getting the job done.
There are three types of jobs:
Main jobs — think of them as methods of solving a problem,
Social jobs that job performers want to fulfil to be seen or recognised as someone,
Emotional jobs that make them feel a certain way.
We were also looking at needs that they want to fulfil whilst addressing a problem as well as circumstances as they vary between job performers.
Research steps
- Remote workshop with the Client in Miro
- Coordinate and support recruitment
- Scan each participant with a question regarding R&D - verification
- Schedule and organise remote sessions - Dribbble + Zoom - fill out a form
- Interviews + note-taking
- Jobs To Be Done Analysis
- Research results - handover
Pic 1. Workshop session with a Client - targeting profiles.
Pic 2. Workshop session with a Client - what questions to be answered in research are the most important - voting.
Analysis
Jobs To Be Done interview transcript analysis in the search for:
The push of the Situation (Make it better)
Pull towards New Solution (Attraction)
Anxiety about a New Choice (Uncertainty)
The habit of the Present (Backthe to same old)
Pic 3. Progress-making forces to understand reasons for switching and staying.
Pic 4. The worksheet helps analyse data from Switch Interviews. Miro.
The worksheet we used for each participant helped us to analyse data gathered during the Switch interviews so we could create personas or at least have access to the background of each participant. This allowed us to have a deeper understanding of what might be a cause of not using the software in a desired way.
It splits into 8 parts:
The first four (left wing) inform us about the participant and the profile.
1. Stories captured
2. Top takeaways
3. Struggling moments
4. What was fired (abandoned)
The second four (right wing) inform us about the interaction with the software. In this part, we only focused on:
1. The story of the first use
2. Forces of progress (see Pic 3).
Analysing notes by formulating observations into JTBD terms
The picture below represents quotes, job steps, emotional/social jobs, needs and circumstances (when). Creating it requires the knowledge of terms used in JTBD required to select similar job steps vs emotional aspects and needs.
Pic 5. Excel sheet representing Jobs To Be Done analysis.
What - Job steps
Jobs that participants want to accomplish and aim for.
1. Control the entire process.
2. Get help when I need it.
3. Understand all possible details.
4. Educate my customers.
5. Learn something new.
Pic 6. Job steps chart Jobs To Be Done Research Analysis.
To feel or be recognised - Emotional jobs/social aspects
Reflection on how participants want to feel while performing the job or how they want to be perceived by others while carrying out the job.
1. Be recognised as a credible professional.
2. Be recognised as an expert.
3. Be recognised as a sort of advice.
4. Be recognised as a helpful professional.
Pic 7. Emotional jobs and social aspects chart Jobs To Be Done Research Analysis.
Avoid, Maximise, Minimise - Needs
Why the participant (job performer) acts in a certain way while executing the job, or their requirements or intended outcomes during their job process.
1. Maximise efficiency.
2. Maximise learning.
3. Maximise revenue.
4. Maximise customer satisfaction.
5. Avoid unresolved problems.
6. Avoid complexity.
Pic 8. Needs chart Jobs To Be Done Research Analysis.
Summary
Our client has received detailed records of the data, charts and a summary of the values their potential customers/group targets are driven by.
By discovering our participant's values, we were able to point out potential areas for improving the software's USPs and gain insights on how to develop the software itself. Values like integrity, transparency, community, growth or credibility are at the core of our participant's work-related choices as well as their time and effort engagement.
The key turnouts:
➡ The biggest struggle of all participants was to collect the data needed for an R&D claim rather than the trouble of dealing with numbers: "If I cannot get stuff from her (accountant) I cannot complete the claim"
➡ Recognition of a technical side of a claim (what can be claimed and what not according to HMRC legislations) - constant updates and reassurance are what participants are looking for: "We are trying to keep it as close to HMRC as possible"
Feedback regarding the software:
➡ Software is considered to be helpful however to a certain point - accountants desire full control over the process and export of a final report to be editable which is considered as limited: "We couldn't make a change"
➡ Participants consider help desk support as efficient however some of the participants require a walk-through: "I would prefer if another person was there to support me and show me how to do it"
➡ The pricing system (additional fee per claim) is considered to be discouraging: "When you have got the details line by line and figure out 'total' and put into spreadsheet there is no point to do it again"
➡ Quick access to the latest HMRC legislation would be more of a use for our research participants: "Software is a safety guard"
Our client needs to re-target marketing efforts and further research (follow-up) has been advised.