Jobs-to-be-done: customers do not buy products. They hire products to make progress on a job.

What jobs-to-be-done actually is

Jobs-to-be-done (JTBD) is the framing that says customers do not buy products; they hire products to make progress on a specific job. The job is the situation, the desired outcome, and the emotional context the customer brings to the moment of purchase. Clayton Christensen, Bob Moesta, and Anthony Ulwick formalized JTBD between 2003 and 2016. The framework is now standard vocabulary in product, marketing, and innovation work.

The Christensen example is the milkshake. A fast-food chain wanted to sell more milkshakes. The marketing team segmented by demographics. Nothing moved. Christensen's team asked instead: "what job is the customer hiring this milkshake to do?" The answer: morning commuters were hiring milkshakes to make a boring drive less boring, keep their stomach full until lunch, and require only one hand. The product changes that followed (thicker shake, easier drive-through access) doubled morning sales.

JTBD reframes the entire research question. Instead of "what are people like who buy this?" the question becomes "what job are they trying to get done?" The answer shapes the product, the positioning, the channel choice, and the competitive set. A customer hiring a milkshake to entertain a commute is not competing with other milkshakes — they are competing with bagels, energy bars, and podcasts.

Claim: Clayton Christensen's milkshake study, conducted with a major fast-food chain in the early 2000s, found that a thicker, more substantial morning milkshake sold materially more than the existing product when reframed as a commuting tool rather than a beverage. Source: "Know Your Customers' Jobs to Be Done" by Clayton Christensen et al., Harvard Business Review (September 2016). Context: The story is the most-cited illustration of JTBD because it shows how reframing the research question from demographics to job changes the product itself. Most subsequent JTBD case studies follow the same shape.

Where the framework came from

Three intellectual lineages converged into modern JTBD. Clayton Christensen at Harvard Business School developed the academic theory through the 2000s. Bob Moesta and Rick Pedi at the Re-Wired Group built the practitioner interview methodology. Anthony Ulwick at Strategyn developed the Outcome-Driven Innovation (ODI) variant. All three trace back to Theodore Levitt's 1960 Harvard Business Review essay "Marketing Myopia," which argued customers do not buy quarter-inch drills — they buy quarter-inch holes.

Christensen formalized the academic theory in The Innovator's Solution (2003) and later in Competing Against Luck (2016). His framing treats jobs as functional, emotional, and social. The functional job is the practical task. The emotional job is how the customer wants to feel during the task. The social job is how the customer wants to be perceived by others.

Bob Moesta's methodology focuses on the switch interview. The team interviews recent customers and asks: what made you start looking? What pushed you to actually switch? What anxieties did you have? What hesitations? The answers reveal the four forces of progress (push, pull, anxiety, habit) that determine whether a customer hires your product.

Job stories: the practical format

A job story is the practitioner-friendly format for capturing a JTBD finding. The format is: "When [situation], I want to [motivation], so I can [expected outcome]." Job stories sit alongside user stories on the product team's wall. The difference: a user story describes what a user does inside the product; a job story describes the larger situation the user is trying to navigate. The job comes first; the product features serve it.

Examples. "When I am commuting alone with my coffee in one hand, I want to eat something substantial, so I can stay full until lunch and stay focused on driving." That is a job story. The product features that serve it (size, thickness, lid design, drive-through access) follow from the job, not from competitor analysis.

How to use JTBD in growth marketing

JTBD shapes three growth decisions: who your target customer actually is, what positioning maps to the job they are hiring you for, and which channels reach customers in the right moment of the job. Most teams use JTBD as a research method during product discovery. Growth teams should also use it for ongoing positioning, audience segmentation, and channel selection.

For audience segmentation: instead of demographic clusters, segment by job. The customer hiring you for "save time on Monday morning" is a different segment from the customer hiring you for "feel competent at work." Same demographics. Different jobs. Different messaging.

For channel selection: the moment of the job is also a moment of search. The commuter hiring a thick milkshake is searchable through outdoor advertising near commute routes, drive-time radio, and morning news apps. The same demographic at 2pm is in a different job state and reaches a different ad surface.

For positioning: every product is competing against the next-best option for the job, not the next-most-similar product in the same category. Slack competes against email, group chat, and walking over to a coworker's desk. Reframing the competitive set is one of the highest-leverage moves JTBD produces.

Quick answers

What is jobs-to-be-done in plain English?

Customers do not buy products. They hire products to make progress on a specific job. The job is what the customer is trying to get done; the product is just one option among many that could do that job.

Who invented JTBD?

Clayton Christensen at Harvard Business School formalized the academic theory in the early 2000s. Bob Moesta at Re-Wired Group built the practitioner interview methodology. Anthony Ulwick at Strategyn developed the Outcome-Driven Innovation variant.

What is the milkshake study?

A Christensen study with a fast-food chain found commuters were hiring milkshakes to entertain a boring drive and stay full until lunch. The product changes that followed (thicker, easier drive-through access) doubled morning sales.

What is a job story?

A practitioner format for capturing a JTBD finding: "When [situation], I want to [motivation], so I can [expected outcome]."

How is JTBD different from a persona?

A persona is who the customer is (demographics, attributes). A job is what the customer is trying to get done. Same demographic can have different jobs; different demographics can share the same job.

How do I use JTBD for growth marketing?

Three places: audience segmentation by job, not by demographic; positioning against the next-best alternative for the job; channel selection by the moment of the job.

Frequently asked

What is jobs-to-be-done (JTBD)?

Jobs-to-be-done is the framing that customers do not buy products; they hire products to make progress on a specific job. The job is the situation, the desired outcome, and the emotional context the customer brings. Christensen formalized the academic theory between 2003 and 2016.

Who created the JTBD framework?

Clayton Christensen at Harvard Business School developed the academic theory in The Innovator's Solution (2003) and Competing Against Luck (2016). Bob Moesta and Rick Pedi at the Re-Wired Group built the practitioner interview methodology. Anthony Ulwick at Strategyn developed the Outcome-Driven Innovation variant.

What is the milkshake study?

Christensen's team helped a fast-food chain study why morning milkshake sales were stuck. The finding: commuters were hiring milkshakes to make a boring drive interesting and stay full until lunch, requiring only one hand. Product changes (thicker shake, easier drive-through) doubled morning sales.

What is a job story?

The practitioner-friendly format for capturing a JTBD finding. Structure: "When [situation], I want to [motivation], so I can [expected outcome]." Job stories sit alongside user stories on product team walls.

What are functional, emotional, and social jobs?

Christensen's three dimensions. The functional job is the practical task. The emotional job is how the customer wants to feel. The social job is how the customer wants to be perceived. All three matter for understanding the purchase.

What are the four forces of progress?

Bob Moesta's framework for what determines whether a customer hires your product: push (dissatisfaction with current solution), pull (attraction to new solution), anxiety (worry about the new solution), and habit (inertia of staying put).

How is JTBD different from user-centered design?

User-centered design focuses on the user inside the product. JTBD focuses on the situation the user is trying to navigate, of which your product is just one piece. JTBD is broader and reframes the competitive set.

How do I use JTBD for marketing?

Three places: target audience definition by job, not demographic; positioning against the next-best alternative for the job; and channel selection based on the moment of the job (where and when the customer is in that situation).