Users hire products to make progress in a situation. Find the job, not just the feature request.
When to use
- Product strategy.
- Positioning.
- User research.
- Requirements and user stories.
- Competitor mapping.
- Switching behavior analysis.
Goal
Understand desired progress.
Capture context and trigger.
Identify functional, emotional, and social jobs.
Find true competition.
Reduce switching anxiety.
Functional: task to complete.
Emotional: feeling user wants.
Social: how user wants to be seen.
Forces
- Push: pain with current state.
- Pull: attraction of new solution.
- Anxiety: fear of new solution.
- Habit: comfort with current behavior.
Switching happens when push plus pull beats anxiety plus habit.
Rules
- Ask about real past behavior.
- Focus on hiring moment.
- Look for workarounds.
- Include non-consumption as competition.
- Do not ask users to design features.
- Do not take stated preferences as truth.
Flow
- Define product, feature, or behavior.
- Gather real user stories.
- Extract situation, motivation, and outcome.
- Map functional, emotional, and social jobs.
- Map push, pull, anxiety, and habit.
- List true competitors.
- Turn insights into positioning or requirements.
Output
## JTBD Analysis
Product or feature: [name]
## Core Job
When [situation], I want to [motivation], so I can [outcome].
## Job Dimensions
- Functional: [task]
- Emotional: [feeling]
- Social: [perception]
## Forces
- Push: [pain]
- Pull: [benefit]
- Anxiety: [concern]
- Habit: [old behavior]
## True Competition
- [alternative]: [how it serves job]
## Implications
- [positioning, product, or research action]