DESIGNING YOUR PRODUCTS FOR JOBS TO BE DONE

The Product Mentor – Session 3

24 June 2015

Amanda Ralph

Head of Product, Kinetic Super

You are Product Manager (Milkshakes) and the Executive asks you to develop a business

case to increase milkshake sales by 15%. Where do you start?

You can focus on product features.

Add flavours to the product range

Offer different size options

Add toppings

You can still focus on the product

but ask your customers how your

milkshake could be improved.

These will drive incremental improvements but will give limited certainty in terms of the

business case you are trying to build. In fact this was tried and tested in market.

It delivered some uplift but no material results.

So why does focussing on the product features drive incremental but not material increase?

A focus on product does not work.

To drive disruptive or material change you need to understand what real life job your product or

service is solving for.

What is the value of the product in the context in which it is used?

HOW DO PEOPLE USE YOUR PRODUCTS/SERVICES?

In the milkshake example, the product managers started by observing their customers.

They discovered that most were buying just a milkshake, nothing else, and were on their way to work.

Peak demand was before 8am.

WHY DO THEY USE IT, IN WHAT CONTEXT?

They then interviewed customers about their purchase, not the product.

“What were you doing when you bought the milkshake? Where were you headed? What were you

thinking about?” - i.e. context

They found that customers were buying milkshakes to

make their commute less boring and also to keep

them from getting hungry before lunch.

That they preferred milkshakes to alternatives as they

could be easily consumed while driving, without the

risk of spillage and staining their work clothes.

In the context of the “job to be done” customers did not care so much about flavour, size and toppings.

Once they better understood the context and job that the purchase of the milkshake was doing,

they were able to re-design the E2E value proposition.

They made it easier to buy a

milkshake, targeting commuters who

were often eager to make their

purchase quickly and get to work.

Sales went up.

The product was unchanged.

BEWARE!

Just doing something better is not enough. It is easily replicated and will not necessarily be competitively

sustainable.

By focussing on the job to be done, and the end goal of your customers you will not just be better, but

also relevant and different.

You also have the opportunity to do something new.

DESIGNING FOR BEHAVIOURAL CHANGE AND NEED

What is the job to be done?

Understand what people are trying to do

Understand how they understand the world

DESIGNING FOR BEHAVIOURAL CHANGE AND NEED

Be careful not to design to user claims. People often say one thing, and do another

CASE STUDY: PRIVATE HEALTH INSURANCE IN AUSTRALIA

• Members said that they wanted a wide array of extras services covered (e.g. optical, massage,

podiatry, dental, hearing aids, etc.). They wanted choice.

• In reality, most people consistently utilise the same core extras services – the ones they really value.

They want to be able to optimise their extras benefits in the services they need for a reasonable cost.

ahm by Medibank is now the fastest

growing private health insurance

fund in Australia

WHAT IS THE PROBLEM YOU ARE SOLVING AND DESIGNING FOR?

Clayton ChristensenInnovators Dilemma – disruptive

innovation and “jobs to be done”

Anthony UlwickFounder of Strategyn – “outcomes that

customers are seeking”

JOBS TO BE DONE FRAMEWORK

I am commuting to work in the morning by car

to have something for breakfast that will stave off my hunger until lunch

focus at work without being hungry and distracted

when so I canI want

I am commuting to work in the morning by car

to have something for breakfast that I can consume without spilling on my work clothes

drive without being distracted and make it to work looking clean and presentable

when so I canI want

JOBS ARE NOT EASY TO UNCOVER AND IDENTIFY. YOU NEED TO:

Ask customers what they want, listen to the stories they tell

Use open ended questioning techniques – don’t “lead the witness”

Examine the context and the customer motivation.

Observe them in real life situations in which they have a need. (Dr Genevieve Bell’s team from Intel does this exceptionally well using principles of ethnographic research).

Empathise with your customers – it sounds cliché but is a truism: “walk in your customers’ shoes”

Don’t switch to solution mode too quickly – a tendency of many product managers. Take the time to understand what the problem is and how the customer understands that problem

VALIDATE – BOTH THE JOB TO BE DONE AND THE SOLUTION

Once you have defined the jobs to be done your work as a product manager has only

just begun! You need to validate both the problem and the solution:

Will your customers care?

Do they need it?

Does it solve their problem?

Will they understand how it solves their

problem?

What alternatives do they currently have?

Will they be willing to pay for it?

design

DESIGN PROCESS AND PRINCIPLES

Customer led – design to solve for the customer problem and job to be done

Learn fast / Fail Fast – A/B testing, MVP, iterate, iterate and iterate….

User experience – easy to understand, easy to buy, easy to sell. Should be unique, obvious and

compelling proposition

Continuous improvement and evolution – adapt as job to be done changes and evolves

DESIGN PROCESS AND PRINCIPLES

• Product Manager and Design Manager to work collaboratively to drive engagement and planning

• Clear understanding of outputs and process at each stage of the design process

• Flexible and adaptable to facilitate iteration based on A/B testing and insights

SOME TOOLS THAT I ALSO FIND HELPFUL

Mind Maps

Great for capturing observations,

ideas and story threads as you

go through discovery and

analysis

I use MindJet to do this.

SOME TOOLS THAT I ALSO FIND HELPFUL

Product Canvas by Shardul Mehta

(The street smart Product Manager)

http://streetsmartproductmanager.com/

product-canvas/

Great for identifying on a single

page your product strategy and

the elements of your proposition

that you need to deliver to solve

for the job to be done

SOME TOOLS THAT I ALSO FIND HELPFUL

Value Driver Trees

Useful once you have identified

the job(s) to be done to focus on

core drivers of value across

different dimensions of the

business – these can then

become central to business case

and defining measures of

success

CONTACTS

aralph@kineticsuper.com.au

+61 429 512 566

au.linkedin.com/in/ralphamanda

@ralphytown