The document discusses the importance of understanding the 'job to be done' for products to drive significant sales growth, using milkshakes as a case study. By observing customer behavior and motivations, product managers can re-design offerings to better align with consumer needs rather than just focusing on features. It emphasizes the importance of customer-led design, validation, and continuous improvement in product development.

1. DESIGNING YOUR PRODUCTS FOR JOBS TO BE DONE
The Product Mentor – Session 3
24 June 2015
Amanda Ralph
Head of Product, Kinetic Super

2. 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?

3. You can focus on product features.
Add flavours to the product range
Offer different size options
Add toppings

4. You can still focus on the product
but ask your customers how your
milkshake could be improved.

5. 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.

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

7. 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?

8. 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.

9. 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.

10. 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.

11. 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.

12. 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

13. DESIGNING FOR BEHAVIOURAL CHANGE AND NEED
Be careful not to design to user claims. People often say one thing, and do another

14. 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

15. WHAT IS THE PROBLEM YOU ARE SOLVING AND DESIGNING FOR?
Clayton Christensen
Innovators Dilemma – disruptive
innovation and “jobs to be done”
Anthony Ulwick
Founder of Strategyn – “outcomes that
customers are seeking”

16. 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

17. 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

18. 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

19. 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

20. 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

21. 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.

22. 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

23. 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

24. CONTACTS
aralph@kineticsuper.com.au
+61 429 512 566
au.linkedin.com/in/ralphamanda
@ralphytown