Jobs to be Done - a methodology for product development

• When I read about "Jobs to be Done"-Methodology as a way of assessing what a customer really wants and translating it into a product strategy, I thought: "This makes sense. And since it defines success metrics for the client, you also have a real case to measure for."
  
  So how to do it? Strategyn, the company of Anthony Ulwick, which developed the methodology and got it known through the coverage by Clayton Christensen (the writer og Innovator's Dilemma, Innovator's Solution), basically describes it likes this:
• 
  
• Define the Job to be Done (headers in bold are mine, Vincent):
• 1. Define the customer as the job executor.
• 2. Define the market as the customer (job executor) and the job the customer is trying to get done.
• 3. Define customer needs as the metrics customers use to measure success when executing the job.

Define the Market:
4. Uncover market opportunities by discovering where customers struggle to get a job done.
5. Discover the segments of customers that struggle most to get the job done.
6. Size the market based on the number of underserved job executors and what they will pay to get the job done perfectly.
7. Evaluate competitive products against the customer needs to see where those products fail to get the job done well.

Define the Strategy ("Product"):
8. Decide what segments and unmet needs to target for value creation and decide whether to pursue a disruptive, breakthrough, sustaining, or product improvement strategy.
9. Determine what price the target customers are willing to pay to get the job done perfectly.
10. Construct the product or service concept that best addresses the customer’s unmet needs, helping the customer get the job done significantly better.
11. Test the concept against all the customer metrics to ensure it gets the job done well enough to justify the price point and win in the market.
12. Position the concept to appeal to the customer’s unmet needs and emotional jobs.

Five questions to ask your employer

I just came across an article on Inc. "Five questions great job candidates ask":

1. What do you expect me to accomplish in the first 60 to 90 days?

Can I make a difference?

2. What are the common attributes of your top performers?

What is the "corporate fit"?

3. What are a few things that really drive results for the company?

What am I actually working for?

4. What do employees do in their spare time?

Would I like to be around these people?

5. How do you plan to deal with...?

Does the company have a strategy? Do I understand and agree?

Makes sense. Use to your own advantage.

How you might find, compare, remember and decide better ...

You are searching something and you want to:

Avoid lots of irrelevant information on the individual pages

Avoid jumping between tabs/sites to be able to compare within and between sites

Avoid losing your results when sessions time out

Avoid bookmarking or printing pages in order to "remember" them
Avoid deleting the bookmarks afterwards or throwing print outs away

Avoid seeing multiple open tabs/windows

You want to have:

an intelligent cart which helps you search, remember and decide.


Which allows you to:

drag and drop the different sites into the "cart"

see the different results together on one page
group and regroup them easily

blank out irrelevant parts
select the relevant parts of the individual pages you want to see (avoid overload)
easily configure your cart in different ways

share your “carts” with others …

etc.

How will this help you make choices in a better more efficient and effective way?

Tell me your thoughts, Vincent van der Lubbe

PS This posting was stimulated by a question on the Yahoo Webanalytics Forum by Emer Kirrane from Yahoo Webanalytics!. http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/webanalytics/message/24033

Customer Experience

Talking about engaging clients in something anybody would consider to be boring:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivjybzdXVmI

Yes, Southwest Airlines strikes again. So we get the idea. Can we also apply this to other "dull" things?

Any recommendations? 

Writing book reviews (on Amazon)

Sometimes I want to comment on a book, which I can do in different ways:

• I can write a public review on Amazon
  
• I can create a personal book list on Amazon and add very short comments
• I can make an Amazon-reading list on LinkedIn and write more
• I can write elsewhere on it, like on a blog

If I make a book list on Amazon, I have to enter the code in order to get the book on the list (which I have to look up, not very thrilling). This is probably one of the worst parts of Amazon's customer experience:

What would help me:

• use the normal amazon book page with a function "add to your lists"
• use my shopping list of books, with an feature "add comment" to the books I have read/bought
• import my lists from Amazon to LinkedIn or vice versa
• or ...
  

Does it matter much if people read reviews on blogs, LinkedIn or the amazon pages? Or do more, more usable, desirable book reviews on the web mean more "share of attention" and therefore more share of wallet for Amazon?

What do you think?

Problems for branding: fakesumption

These ideas on branding and fakes made me think (http://www.slideshare.net/TrendBuero/fakesumption):

1. fakes deliver good enough product solutions without premium price

2. strong relationships make the difference: consumers want to be personally recognized, treated exceptionally, participate in the brand

3. fakes start to innovate and customize to local market needs (and develop brand character themselves)

So the real challenge for the brand is:

How do you engage and bond with your customers instead of criminalizing them?
How do you integrate this need into your brand?
How do you cooperate(?) with fakers?

(http://www.slideshare.net/TrendBuero/fakesumption)

What do you think?

It's your taxes, stupid!

A tax declaration is probably one of the worst experiences ever:

1. It is cryptic, time consuming and makes you feel stupid. Every year.
2. It forces you to involuntarily “spend” up to 45% of your income on it (european tax %)
3. It does not give you any feedback on what is done with your money

Right now paying taxes is one of very few things people do to directly financially contribute to the common good. And we all value community (yes, we can etc.).

So why don’t we make an effort of making people feel good about their spent money?

Improving the tax payers' experience

If we could enhance the overall experience by 10%, what would that mean for involvement of people with their community and politics?

This would mean a completely different experience.

How do we get to do this?

I think it might be the best to focus on a few simple changes, which do not involve the tax declaration itself (this probably involves a lot of technical, legislative and political things which we can not address here):

1. if we could enhance the overall experience, and maybe honesty by 0,1%, how much extra revenue would that mean?

From research on priming: could one

a) use quotations of leaders with moral authority for the different constituencies?

b) personalize the letter by being signed by f.e. the president, Congress etc.?

2. If one has filed his declaration, a thank you letter would do fine. After all, I just gave away a lot of money.

3. If I get a new tax declaration, maybe

a) you can fill me in on what you achieved with it last year, so I might have some form of satisfaction.

b) But also define where still major work is needed, so I might feel inclined to feel engaged in getting those things in place.

4. one can even think of comparative information:

How would it be if paying a lot of taxes would be considered especially honorful (in stead of stupid)?

This is only a fraction of the possibilities, when will we see some changes?

Vincent

Inspired by Daniel Ariely's Post on Honesty:

Ihttp://www.predictablyirrational.com/?p=396#comments

What do you think?