jtbd-workshop
JTBD Workshop Expert
Overview
Run a Jobs-To-Be-Done (JTBD) workshop end-to-end. This skill is the workshop facilitation companion to the execution/job-stories/ skill (which is the writing format for backlog stories). Where job-stories/ produces When/Want/So statements for individual backlog items, this skill produces the upstream discovery output -- the job hierarchy, the forces driving customers' switching behavior, and the desired-outcome statements that anchor the entire product strategy.
The workshop synthesizes four JTBD schools of thought. Clayton Christensen's milkshake lens treats jobs as the underlying progress a customer is hiring a product to make. Anthony Ulwick's Outcome-Driven Innovation (ODI) decomposes jobs into measurable desired outcomes with importance and satisfaction scoring. Alan Klement's JTBD canvas surfaces the situation-motivation-outcome structure that became the job story format. And Bob Moesta's switch interview method uses the moment of purchase as a forcing function to reveal the four forces of progress (push, pull, anxiety, habit).
A well-run JTBD workshop produces three artifacts: (1) a ranked job hierarchy with measurable outcome statements, (2) a forces-of-progress map showing what drives and blocks switching, and (3) a prioritized opportunity list ready to feed into PRDs, OKRs, or roadmap themes.
When to Use
- New product or new segment. You need to understand the underlying progress customers are trying to make before building.
- Pivot or strategy reset. Your team is stuck debating features; reset by re-grounding in the customer's job.
- Pre-roadmap. Define the job hierarchy before committing to a quarterly or annual roadmap.
- Stalled adoption. Customers signed up but did not retain; switch interviews reveal which forces went wrong.
- Onboarding a new product team. Workshop creates shared mental model of what the customer is hiring the product to do.