345: How to use Jobs-to-be-Done to be a market detective – with Dave Duncan, PhD

Skills for product managers to deeply understand customers’ problems and goals

Today we are talking about how to understand what provides value to customers by giving them what they need to solve a problem or complete a task. Clayton Christensen described this as the job to be done.

It is a topic our guest, David Duncan, knows well, as he co-wrote the Jobs-to-be-Done book Competing Against Luck with Clayton Christensen and has more recently written The Secret Lives of Customers: A Detective Story About Solving the Mystery of Customer Behavior. Dave is a managing director at Innosight, where he helps leaders of organizations create customer-centric teams and innovation strategies.

Summary of some concepts discussed for product managers

[2:05] How did your experience earning your PhD in physics equip you for your current work in innovation?

I studied physics because I was fascinated by the subject and motivated by a desire to understand things deeply. Later, I moved into business and now work at Innosight, where we help companies figure out how to innovate more effectively. My background in physics helped me become a better problem solver and a better and more quantitative thinker. It gave me literacy in technology-related topics that enabled me to understand what different companies do. Science and engineering are at the heart of a lot of great innovation.

[4:00] What does your new book The Secret Lives of Customers add to Jobs-to-be-Done knowledge?

One of my goals was to create a broadly accessible book. The Secret Lives of Customers teaches anyone in any role in any organization the concepts, tools, and techniques they need to understand customers confidently. I put Jobs-to-be-Done in the broader context of the problem it solves—effectively understanding customers.

Another goal was to assert the approach to JTBD I and others at Innosight have learned and developed over the years. The book also includes some new tools and frameworks including how to apply Jobs in strategy, as well as product development and innovation.

[7:18] Tell us about your book’s narrative format.

The Secret Lives of Customers is a fictional detective story. One of the main characters is a market detective who tries to understand customers in market investigations. The reader learns about the tools and techniques he’s using. This format was much more fun to write, and I hope it’s more fun and engaging to read. It’s best to learn to understand customers by watching someone have a conversation with them, reflecting on what you observe, trying it yourself, and getting feedback.

[10:51] Why should product managers think of themselves as market detectives?

In the story, I use market detective to describe a person who is aspiring to understand customers. The book emphasizes one-on-one customer conversations, which is the foundation of all other customer research techniques. One-on-one interviews are often the most valuable technique you can use and almost always relevant to every use case. They enable product managers to hear directly from customers, develop products that are more connected with their jobs-to-be-done, and develop features that reflect an understanding of not just their functional jobs but also their emotional and social jobs. You can make better prioritization decisions about which products to work on and minimize the temptation to be product-led rather than customer-led.

[13:08] As market detectives, what are the three competencies we need to have to put Jobs-to-be-Done in place?

You need to learn a language, a method, and a mindset to confidently understand customers.

Almost every discipline has its own vocabulary, but surprisingly there isn’t a standard, widely accessible language that guides interactions with customers. We need a language that guides us to ask the right questions that lead to the right insights at...