Jobs Theory provides a framework for categorizing, defining, capturing and organizing the inputs that are required to make innovation predictable. Via - Jobs-to-be-Done: A Framework for Customer Needs | by Tony Ulwick | JTBD + Outcome-Driven Innovation
Jobs to be done Literature notes
You design your product thinking about a particular demographic in mind. So the marketing plan also keeps targeting the same demographic. Everything is fine as long as your ad spends get enough leads converted.
But the moment you realise that your ad budgets are not giving you enough sales. It is when marketing and product development guys need to think with the Jobs to be done(JBTD) framework.
So, what is a job to be done framework?
The JBTD theory was born out of the disruption theory by Clayton Christensson (we are not getting into it here). Christensson claims that understanding what job the customer hires your product to do is a more predictable way to develop innovation. JBTD theory says you need to understand deeply what job the customer tries to solve when he hires (buys) your product. Blindly trying to copy the competitor is not a good solution.
Here you stop being product-centric (adding more impressive specs) and become customer-centric (solving real customer problems).
Jobs should be stable
Once you have identified what job your product does for the customer, you should ensure the demand is stable so you get a good enough chance to attempt to solve the problem with reasonable market size.
Remember - Jobs + people(you TAM) = market
Relation between JBTD and North Star
JBTD can be social and emotional. For, e.g. Your product meets an emotional or social need of your TAM (Total Addressable Market). When translated to a metric, this social and emotional need becomes the “North star” of your company. So all processes need to be aligned to meet this objective.
Additional Reading
After reading the following two articles, I made this literature note, which explains this framework with some real examples.