JTBD Berlin, March 24th

Jobs-to-be-Done Interviews

Hubert GertisSC at Magine

Tor Løvskogen BollingmoDesigner at eyequant.com

Jobs-to-be-Done Interviews

“Jobs to be Done helps you

to reverse-engineer a sale”– Andrej Balaz

The Jobs-to-be-Done Interview is a way of uncovering the ‘jobs’ people are trying to do, the events and forces that lead them to ‘hire’ a specific solution.

It’s a qualitative research method, based on an interview around a customer’s timeline leading up to a purchase.

What is JTBD interviews?

What can you use the interview results for?

JTBD interviews results for

Sales and Marketing

Example from EyeQuant interviews

• People had a problem with subjective design meetings, it was too much armwrestling.

• People were not sure how a visual design would be perceived by visitors.

To know what story to tell, when and where to tell it, and what language to use when talking about your service.

Example as a ‘job story’ from EyeQuant interviews

When I’m presenting my visual design and I’m worried that people will reject its merits,

I want something objective to back it up,

so that people will see and discuss the design with less subjective bias.

JTBD interviews results for

Product and Service Design

Know which problems to solve in different contexts, which outcomes are needed for a job to be fulfilled

For new-market disruption (creating a new service) Know where and how to innovate a new solution by spotting unsatisfied outcomes and negative forces, jobs being poorly done.

JTBD interviews results for

Innovation Strategy

Example of a new-market disruption

Ryanair, by offering routes no one else did with prices that competed with trains and buses

JTBD interviews results for

Innovation Strategy

For sustaining innovation (deciding future features) By viewing markets by JTBD rather than ‘product category’ or ‘demographic’ you would better know if a feature is a good fit or not.

JTBD interviews results for

Innovation Strategy

Finding people to interview

• Anyone who purchased your service or product or a service that solves the same job as your service.

• Purchased within the last 60-90 days, for their story to still be fresh in memory.

• You can even interview your friends and family.

Finding people to interview

How to get in touch with people• Set up automated emails (ie. Intercom) • Email blast to your current customers. • Individual request; In-person, LinkedIn or Twitter.

IncentivesMoney is okay, because people are telling a story that happened up until ‘the hire’, it’s not about your product.

Finding people to interview

B2B, more complex

You’ll probably need a screening survey to find the right people for an interview – because of the complex decision making in B2B.

We’ll cover this in a separate talk.

Doing the interviews

Start with building your timeline

• Careful: not all timelines are created equal

• Software and services may look different than a hardware related timeline

While interviewing, follow the timeline in reverse chronological order.

Use it as your script - and dive deep into each point.

Doing the interviews

Getting prepared

Doing the interviews

Get around

You can do them in person, on the phone, via Skype …

• Just never forget: you’re a human being talking to another human being

Usually it takes 30 to 45 minutes to do a full good interview.

• Don’t work by the clock. use the timeline and go with the flow.

Record it so you can listen back later on.

• Don’t forget to make notes. This is a quick path to first results.

Doing the interviews

Get them done

Start by making the interviewee feel comfortable.

• This is not a test. You’re having a nice chat. There are no wrong answers.

• The ‘documentary metaphor’ might help.

Pay attention to key ‘high energy’ moments, and dig deeper into them. These are very important.

• You will spot them easily. That’s why they’re called ‘high energy’.

Remember to ask for context

• Were you alone? Busy? Where were you..? How come..?

Never forget: you’re not neither the CIA nor a telemarketer doing a survey

• You’re having a nice chat.

Doing the interviews

Debriefing

Listen back to your recordings – try to spot high-energy moments

• Find similarities between the interviewees.

Collect different push/pull forces in the Forces Diagram

• Wrap everything up in text and presentation.

Next session

Synthesizing multiple interviews, finding patterns and key insights. And how to work that information into Characters and Job Stories.

Thanks