jobs to be done - by Swastika - stratnotes
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jobs to be done<br>The lens for building the right product
Swastika<br>Aug 15, 2026
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People don’t buy products. They hire them to do a job.<br>Most products get replaced because some other product comes to market that does the job the original was doing, only better or more efficiently.<br>So if you are a product builder or a strategist, this is a concept you cannot miss.<br>Every morning, ask yourself one question.<br>“Is your product doing the job it was hired for in the best possible way for the customer? ”<br>If the answer is no, then you know what the problem is.<br>And in this post, I’ll explore everything that you need to know about this lens for building the right product.<br>Thanks for reading stratnotes! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
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The Idea
Say I’m travelling to Delhi. I need to carry my clothes and accessories, so I buy a suitcase. The job is “get my things from here to there”. If something better than that suitcase came along tomorrow that did that job, I would probably drop the suitcase without a second thought.<br>Now let’s say I’m a price-sensitive customer. If another bag does the exact same job, holds my luggage to Delhi, but costs 1,000 less, will I switch to the cheaper one? Oh, absolutely.<br>And let’s say I’m someone who buys premium luggage. If a new brand comes along that looks and feels even more premium, will I switch? Well, yes.<br>Now say I’m going to my cousin’s wedding. Here the job is different. I just need to carry my phone, and I want to look good carrying it. Would I bring the same suitcase? Of course not, it doesn’t go with a saree. Sure, a suitcase can hold a phone. But holding the phone was never the whole job. Looking good was. So I’d carry a small, stylish clutch instead.<br>Do you see what happened here?<br>Will the same brand X suitcase work for all four cases above?<br>No!<br>That, in a nutshell, is the Jobs to be Done framework.<br>People want the job done. They don’t care about your product. And they’ll hire whatever does the job best.<br>The Lens
If we understand the job the customer is trying to do and develop a product that nails the job perfectly, then the probability that your innovation will be successful is improved in dramatic ways.<br>- Clayton Christensen
Most people think of solutions without thinking about the problem. I have seen a lot of product managers jumping directly to features. But if they don’t step back and deep-dive on the problem, all solutions will be half-baked.<br>So understand this. Finding the right problem is always the first step a product manager or strategist should take. Everything else is secondary.<br>A job is nothing but the problem the customer wants solved.<br>How do we understand the job the customer is trying to do? Is it even that obvious?<br>A job is not what the customer says they want. There’s a famous business adage attributed to Henry Ford. If he’d asked customers what they wanted, they’d have said a faster horse. I don’t know if he actually said it, but the adage is full of wisdom.<br>A job is the progress the customer is trying to make in a specific situation.<br>So if customers can’t just tell you the job, how would you find it?<br>You observe the situation.<br>That gut feeling you had with the suitcase and the clutch? This is the theory underneath it.<br>Start with the situation, because the job lives there.<br>One of the best case studies of the Jobs to be Done framework in action is Clayton Christensen’s milkshake case study.<br>McDonald’s wanted to sell more milkshakes. They had done what most companies do. They surveyed the customers, asked them how the milkshake could be better. And they went to the solution directly! Make it more chocolatey? More chunky? Cheaper? Customers ticked the boxes. The chain made the improvements. Sales didn’t budge at all.<br>That’s when Christensen’s team went in. They asked a completely different question: “What job are customers hiring this milkshake to do?”<br>So instead of asking people what they wanted, they went and observed what people actually did. One of them actually stood in the restaurant for 18 hours and studied the situation.<br>What time were the milkshakes bought?<br>Were the buyers alone or with others?<br>Was the milkshake the only thing they ordered?<br>Did they drink it inside, or take it to go?<br>A strange pattern emerged. Nearly half the milkshakes were sold before 8:30 in the morning. The buyers were almost always alone. The milkshake was the only thing they bought. And every one of them walked straight out, got in their car, and drove off with it.<br>Now that’s odd. Who buys a milkshake at 6:30 in the morning, alone, and nothing else? I don’t think any question-answer session would have given these insights.<br>So the team came back and interviewed those early customers, and the same story came up again and again.<br>Each one had a long, boring commute to work, forty minutes on the highway with nothing to do. One hand was on the wheel. The other...