From AI-Powered Insights to Scalable Innovation: Building a JTBD Research Practice That Drives Business Growth
A Journey Toward Traditional Research Obfuscation
The Challenge
Organizations across industries struggle to translate customer research into meaningful innovation that drives business growth. According to recent studies, companies spend over $44 billion annually on market research, yet 76% of new products fail to meet business objectives. Despite investments in customer surveys, focus groups, and analytics, many organizations find themselves drowning in data while starving for actionable insights that lead to successful innovations.
This disconnect between research and results creates significant business challenges. Innovation teams often conduct extensive research that produces interesting findings but fails to guide concrete action. Product teams receive research reports filled with customer quotes and observations but struggle to identify which needs represent the most valuable opportunities. Meanwhile, competitors who better connect research to innovation gain market advantage through solutions that address genuine customer needs more effectively.
The Root Cause
Traditional research approaches fail because they focus on customer opinions about existing solutions rather than underlying needs. Organizations often conduct research that asks customers what they want or how they feel about current offerings without uncovering the causal mechanisms behind their choices. This opinion-centric mindset leads to research that may be statistically valid but lacks the depth needed to drive meaningful innovation.
The fundamental disconnect occurs because most research methodologies are designed to evaluate what exists rather than uncover what could be. Surveys measure satisfaction with current features, focus groups gather reactions to existing concepts, and analytics track behavior within established solutions. Without a structured approach to uncovering the success customers are trying to achieve related to their goals and objectives independent of current solutions, research becomes a validation exercise rather than a discovery process.
The JTBD Perspective
Jobs to be Done (JTBD) transforms research by focusing on the underlying progress customers are trying to make rather than their opinions about existing solutions. This approach recognizes that customers don't buy products because of their features; they "hire" solutions to help them achieve success in specific situations in the midst of a myriad of complexity factors. By understanding these jobs, organizations can uncover innovation opportunities that competitors miss.
The JTBD approach reveals that the most valuable research insights come from understanding the struggles customers face in accomplishing important jobs, not from their feature requests or satisfaction scores. This insight shifts research from opinion gathering to progress understanding, from solution validation to need discovery. When research is guided by jobs to be done, it naturally uncovers opportunities for innovation that deliver meaningful customer value.
The Framework
The JTBD Research Practice Framework provides a systematic approach to conducting research that drives meaningful innovation. This framework consists of five interconnected components:
Research Planning: Design research initiatives that uncover job insights:
Define research objectives focused on job discovery
Select appropriate JTBD methodologies for different contexts
Identify diverse customer segments for job exploration
Create research plans that balance depth and breadth
Job Discovery: Uncover the full spectrum of customer jobs:
Conduct contextual interviews (preferred: LLM prompting) focused on outcomes, not products
Observe customers in their natural environments
Document workarounds, frustrations, and compensating behaviors
Map the emotional and social dimensions of job completion
Opportunity Identification: Translate job insights into innovation opportunities:
Measure job importance and satisfaction across segments
Identify high-value jobs with significant satisfaction gaps
Evaluate competitive intensity for different jobs
Assess organizational capability to address job opportunities
Insight Activation: Connect job insights to innovation processes:
Create compelling job stories that inspire action
Develop job-based design principles and requirements
Facilitate ideation sessions focused on job solutions
Establish job fulfillment criteria for concept evaluation
Continuous Learning: Build a sustainable JTBD research practice:
Create repositories of job insights accessible across the organization
Implement regular job discovery rhythms integrated with planning cycles
Develop job research capabilities through training and mentorship
Measure the impact of job insights on innovation outcomes
This framework ensures that research consistently uncovers actionable insights that drive meaningful innovation rather than just gathering customer opinions.
Application Example
Arm & Hammer Animal Nutrition transformed its approach to product innovation by applying Jobs to be Done (JTBD) principles to understand that dairy producers weren’t just buying feed additives; they were hiring solutions to "optimize dairy herd productivity and manage operational challenges effectively." This insight fundamentally reshaped their research and innovation strategy.
Before JTBD, Arm & Hammer’s Animal Nutrition research relied heavily on feedback from nutrition consultants and focused on tweaking existing products—efforts that delivered incremental gains but rarely sparked significant market breakthroughs. After adopting the JTBD Research Practice Framework around 2013, they shifted their focus to understanding the core jobs dairy producers needed to accomplish.
Their research team conducted in-depth interviews with dairy producers, uncovering over 165 desired outcome statements related to herd productivity, cost management, and animal health. They observed the challenges, inefficiencies, and workarounds producers faced, such as inconsistent milk yields and rising feed costs. The findings revealed that producers sought reliable, cost-effective solutions that improved herd performance while simplifying operations—needs that aligned closely with Arm & Hammer’s expertise in nutritional science.
Based on these insights, Arm & Hammer developed an innovation pipeline targeting specific dairy production challenges:
Feed additives designed to enhance rumen health and milk production efficiency
Microbial solutions that improved digestion and nutrient absorption
Nutritional supplements addressing heat stress and reproductive performance
Messaging strategies that clearly communicated value to producers
The results were impressive. Within two years of implementing this job-centric research approach:
Arm & Hammer Animal Nutrition saw year-over-year revenue growth exceed 30%
Market share in the dairy nutrition segment increased significantly
New product adoption rates outpaced competitors, with all offerings achieving double-digit growth
The division strengthened its reputation as a trusted partner for dairy producers
By centering research on understanding the dairy productivity job rather than soliciting opinions about existing products, Arm & Hammer Animal Nutrition unlocked opportunities that competitors overlooked, solidifying its position in a competitive market.
Quick Implementation Guide
This streamlined guide replaces traditional Jobs to Be Done (JTBD) interviews with large language models (LLMs) driven by expertly crafted prompts. By focusing on functional jobs and avoiding emotional or aspirational tangents, this method builds a forward-looking model of customer needs efficiently and effectively, aligning with a vision of rapid, data-driven innovation.
1. Identify Functional Jobs with LLM Prompts
Process: Use your portfolio of prompts to instruct LLMs in identifying core functional jobs customers aim to accomplish. For example, a job like "track project progress during multi-team initiatives" emerges directly from your prompting strategy, bypassing traditional data sources like industry reports or interviews.
Outcome: A concise list of functional job statements, rooted in what customers need to achieve, ready to serve as the foundation for deeper analysis.
2. Build Job Maps and Success Metrics
Process: Apply the prompts to guide LLMs in constructing detailed job maps. These maps outline the steps customers take to support the overall job, and success metrics—all focused on functional outcomes. For instance, these prompts might produce a job map for "tracking progress of a project" with steps like "collect task updates" and metrics like "reduce the time it takes to update status."
Outcome: A structured job map that captures the process and measurable goals, replacing manual synthesis with automated and scalable, prompt-driven precision.
3. Evaluate Existing Research Alignment
Process: Use your prompts to compare the LLM-generated job maps against your current research methods, identifying gaps where innovation team needs are unmet by existing approaches.
Outcome: A clear view of how well your organization’s research aligns with the functional jobs customers prioritize, highlighting areas for adjustment.
4. Validate with a Market Survey
Process: Design a survey based on the job maps and success metrics produced by the LLM prompts. Ask customers to rate the importance and satisfaction of each metric (e.g., "How important is reducing time to gather updates? How satisfied are you with current solutions?").
Outcome: Validated insights that pinpoint underserved needs, ensuring the model reflects real customer priorities without relying on initial interviews.
5. Store Insights in a Job Repository
Process: Compile the job maps, metrics, and survey results into a centralized repository, making them accessible and updatable for cross-organizational use.
Outcome: A dynamic resource that teams can tap into for strategic planning and innovation, built entirely from your prompt-driven LLM outputs.
For access to the comprehensive portfolio of prompts powering this approach, you have two options. The first is free: join our community and engage to earn your way in (https://pjtbd.com/join). The second is for those of you who don’t have the time: (https://pjtbd.com/mc). This gives you access to everything you need immediately.
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