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JTBD

Budding
·2 min read·Planted Feb 2026
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Jobs to Be Done (JTBD) is a framework for understanding underlying customer motivations by focusing on what customers are trying to accomplish.

Core Principle

Customers "hire" products to do specific "jobs" in their lives. Understanding these jobs helps create better solutions.

Components

  • Functional Job: What the user is trying to accomplish
  • Emotional Job: How the user wants to feel
  • Social Job: How the user wants to be perceived
For a hypothetical new team leader, functional progress is coordinating work, emotional progress is feeling prepared and social progress is appearing dependable. These dimensions combine into a job of leading with clarity and confidence.
Conceptual job map for a hypothetical team leader. The circumstance and desired progress connect functional, emotional and social needs; validate such a synthesis with customer research. Original diagram based on Christensen Institute, Jobs to Be Done Theory.

Usage

Used for product innovation and understanding deep user motivations. Helps identify unmet needs and create solutions that truly resonate with customers.

Examples and Applications

  • Product Development: Identify unmet customer needs
  • Feature Prioritization: Build what customers truly need
  • Marketing: Frame products around jobs they fulfill
  • See also: CIRCLES, Kano, HEART

Further reading

  • Christensen Institute

    Jobs to Be Done Theory

    Look beyond product features to the progress someone seeks in a particular situation.

#product#user-research#strategy

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