I will be speaking at Agile 2017 in Orlando this year on how we can use jobs-to-be-done to improve the way we deliver products and services.

Abstract:
Jobs to be Done (JTBD) is an interview technique and way of thinking for revealing deeper insights into why people choose a product or service. Using JTBD helps us to avoid building stuff that no-one wants. It is a way to better understand what a product or service really needs to do.

Why this matters
The first principle of the Agile Manifesto says: “Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software”. And yet, 15 years later, we still see a lot of organisations delivering software that generates very little or no value. The main reason is quite simple: it doesn’t satisfy customers, because it doesn’t help them with their Job to be Done.
No team wants to build a product that no-one wants. Not only is this a waste of time and money, but it is a huge waste of precious human potential. How can we do better?

Stop fooling ourselves
Part of the problem is that we have so many cognitive bias that we have to fight against. We are prone to fooling ourselves into believing that we really do know what customers want – treating bold assumptions as facts.
As a result, we spend most of our time adding new features, iterating on our products and blindly following product roadmaps that actually get us nowhere at all.
JTBD helps us better understand what users and customers are trying to get done, as well as their purchase decisions. Armed with this information we are in a much better position to test different solutions that are more focused on what customers are more likely to actually use.

Learning Outcomes:

• Understand why JTBD helps us reveal customers needs
• Learn how to discover the Jobs that customers are trying to do
• Practice how to interview customers to reveal their JTBD
• Understand how to incorporate JTBD in your thinking about problems and solutions
• Learn how to use JTBD as a lens for improving your product/service
• Understand how JTBD is different to Personas and Empathy Maps
• Understand how JTBD is different to Market Segmentation