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Jobs to be Done: Theory to Practice · 12 of 12
Jobs to be Done: Theory to Practice
Entrepreneurship MEDIUM

Rules of Thumb

Jobs to be Done: Theory to Practice Tony Ulwick
heuristics thresholds guidelines process strategy

Rules of Thumb

Collected heuristics, thresholds, and practical guidelines distilled from the entire book.

Key Principle

Innovation becomes predictable when practitioners follow quantitative thresholds and structural rules rather than intuition. These rules encode the accumulated pattern knowledge of ODI across definitions, measurement, process execution, strategy selection, and common failure modes.

Rules by Category

Definitions

  1. A market is a group of people + the core functional job they are trying to get done — never people + product (p. 53).
  2. A customer need is either a job to be done or a desired outcome statement — nothing else qualifies (p. 186).
  3. The core functional job must be stable over time, universal across geographies, and solution-agnostic (pp. 55-56).
  4. A desired outcome statement follows the syntax: direction of improvement + performance metric + object of control + contextual clarifier (p. 94).
  5. A job describes what the customer is trying to get done, not what they are currently doing (pp. 91-93).

Thresholds

  1. Opportunity score >= 10 signals an underserved outcome (p. 109).
  2. Opportunity score >= 12 indicates a solid opportunity (p. 110).
  3. Opportunity score >= 15 marks an extreme opportunity (p. 110).
  4. Customers switch products only when a new solution gets the job done >= 20% better (pp. 48-49, p. 78).
  5. A sustaining strategy yields less than 5% improvement — insufficient to shift market position (p. 78).
  6. Capture 100-200+ desired outcomes per market for completeness (p. 49).
  7. Expect 50-150 desired outcomes per core functional job (p. 57).
  8. Expect 5-20 related jobs per core functional job (p. 58).
  9. Expect 40-80 financial desired outcomes per purchase decision maker (p. 61).
  10. Quantitative validation requires 180-3,000 survey respondents (p. 98, p. 181).

Process

  1. Interview three customer types: job executor, lifecycle support team, purchase decision maker (p. 84).
  2. Use the 8-step Universal Job Map (Define, Locate, Prepare, Confirm, Execute, Monitor, Modify, Conclude) as the scaffold for outcome generation (pp. 91-93).
  3. Segment by shared unmet outcomes, not by demographics — hidden segments only appear in outcome data (pp. 96-98).
  4. Start with messaging before product changes — repositioning around unmet outcomes is the highest-ROI action (p. 141).
  5. Check for un-messaged strengths: existing features that satisfy unmet outcomes but are not communicated to the right segment (p. 114).
  6. Innovation without invention is often possible — existing capabilities may already address unmet outcomes (p. 120).
  7. A narrowly scoped ODI project sprint can be completed in as little as 4 weeks (p. 176).
  8. One trained ODI Practitioner per business unit is the minimum for organizational adoption (p. 177).

Strategy

  1. Select strategy from the Growth Strategy Matrix — match to whether target segments are underserved or overserved (pp. 62-69).
  2. Differentiated strategy: get the job done significantly better at a higher price, targeting underserved segments (pp. 67-68).
  3. Dominant strategy: get the job done significantly better AND significantly cheaper — rarest and most powerful, requires >= 20% improvement on both axes (p. 68, p. 73).
  4. Disruptive strategy: get the job done worse but cheaper, targeting overserved segments or nonconsumers (pp. 68-69).
  5. Table stakes outcomes (important AND well-satisfied) are the minimum viable performance for any market entrant (p. 105, p. 111).
  6. The Opportunity Algorithm unifies needs analysis, segmentation, competitive analysis, and product prioritization — it is the connective tissue of the entire methodology.

Common Mistakes

  1. Using demographic personas ("phantom targets") instead of outcome-based segments (p. 52).
  2. Treating brainstorming and ideas-first as innovation methodology — this yields approximately 17% success rates (pp. 31-45).
  3. Sampling a few needs instead of capturing the complete set of 100-200+ (p. 49).
  4. Skipping quantitative validation and relying on qualitative intuition alone — "intuition is not acceptable" (p. 184).
  5. Conflating the job with the solution currently used to execute it (pp. 55-56).
  6. Applying aggregate data without segmentation, which hides the underserved groups that represent the real growth opportunity (pp. 96-98).

Why This Matters

Without explicit thresholds and rules, teams default to judgment calls that reproduce the ~83% innovation failure rate. These heuristics convert ODI from an abstract framework into a decision protocol with clear go/no-go criteria.

Good Examples

  • Arm & Hammer: Found 0 of 165 outcomes matched standard industry messaging. Repositioning around unmet outcomes drove 30%+ growth — no product change required (p. 141).
  • Bosch CS20: Segmentation revealed 14 of 85 outcomes were unmet in a hidden segment. Targeting those outcomes produced a decade-long best-seller (p. 146).
  • Hussmann: Applied the full ODI process to go from 0 to double-digit market share in one year (p. 152).
  • Kroll Ontrack: ODI-driven growth from $11M to $200M+ revenue (p. 131).

Counterpoints

  • The 20% switching threshold is presented as a general rule, but the book acknowledges that switching costs, lock-in, and regulatory constraints can raise or lower it in specific markets.
  • The 86% success rate claim is based on a specific independent study; real-world application depends heavily on practitioner competency and organizational readiness.
  • Completeness (100-200+ outcomes) is ideal but may not be feasible for early-stage companies with limited research budgets; the book does not provide a minimum viable threshold.

Key Quotes

"Companies fail at innovation not because they lack creativity, but because they lack a common language." (p. 41)

"Intuition is not acceptable." (p. 184)

"Customers will only switch to a new product if it gets the job done upwards of 20% better." (p. 78)

"Markets are not defined by products or technologies — they are defined by the job people are trying to get done." (p. 53)

"If companies could agree on what a need is, and get all the needs, innovation would become far more predictable." (p. 46)

Related References