Strategyn

Decoding the Language of Innovation: Part 18 Every week, I decode one innovation concept/term through a Jobs-to-be-Done lens. The goal is to align your organization around a common language of innovation; one that will enhance its value creation efforts. This week's concept/term is: "Related Jobs" Let's get into it. Since people buy products to get a core functional job done, related jobs are defined as the functional jobs the job executor is trying to get done: - In conjunction with the core functional job - Before, during or after getting the core job done - On the same occasion or in the same context For example, when making a presentation, the presenter may also want to: - Practice the delivery of the presentation (in advance) - Ensure the presentation ends on time - Answer questions from the audience This may require the job executor to use multiple products to get all the related jobs done along with the core job. Why it matters: When designing solutions, you should start by asking "what other jobs do customers need to get done at the same time?" Depending on how you address related jobs will dictate your product's complete value. If you only focus on the core job, you'll miss opportunities to create platform-level solutions. Using a Jobs-to-be-Done lens, comprehensive innovation requires: - Identifying all related jobs customers are trying to execute - Understanding how they interconnect with the core job - Creating solutions that address multiple jobs on one platform - Measuring success across the complete job ecosystem Using this definition will help your business: - Create more complete solutions - Command higher pricing - Reduce customer switching between products - Build stronger competitive barriers See you next Friday for the next edition of Decoding the Language of Innovation! — Thanks for reading! This was part 18 of my weekly series: Decoding the Language of Innovation. Where every Friday, I decode one innovation concept/term by looking at it through a Jobs-to-be-Done lens. With a common language of innovation, your company can: - Align in the same direction - and the right direction - Make better products - Grow revenue - And beat the competition Follow me here - @tonyulwick - to get my post in your feed every Friday.

Book Insight #3: Tony Ulwick is the grandfather of Jobs To Be Done. He came up with it and Clayton Christensen popularized it. He shares: “We have conducted hundreds of segmentation studies for companies in dozens of industries and have concluded that the differences in people’s needs do not come from different demographics or psychographics… The only way to discover segments of customers with unique sets of unmet needs is to segment the market around unmet needs.” My marketing philosophy (and the book I am writing about it) is built upon the foundations of Jobs To Be Done (JTBD). Tony generously shares the philosophy of JTBD as well as his Outcome Driven Innovation framework in this mini textbook. If you want to learn how to innovate and truly add value as a business, you need to read this book. And if you don't want to read the whole book, at least check out the matrix on page 66 around the JTBD Growth Strategy Matrix that outlines: Differentiated Strategy, Dominant Strategy, Sustaining Strategy, Discrete Strategy, and Disruptive Strategy. It's SO GOOD.

How did Canva, Google Docs, and Turbotax disrupt their markets? They built worse and cheaper products compared to the market leaders. Many believe disruption means breakthrough technology. The reality? True disruptive strategy follows a counterintuitive path - one that most business leaders overlook. Let me break down what a disruptive strategy really is: - Performance: Intentionally worse than existing solutions - Price: Significantly cheaper than current options - Target: Overserved customers and non-consumers Two types of customers it serves: 1. Overserved customers who: - Don't need all available features - Are willing to sacrifice performance for cost - Find current solutions unnecessarily complex 2. Non-consumers who: - Can't afford existing solutions - Lack access to current offerings - Will embrace a basic solution Here’s 5 real-world examples of this in action: - Google Docs versus Microsoft Office - Canva versus Adobe - TurboTax versus traditional tax services - Coursera versus traditional universities - Dollar Shave Club versus Gillette There was a few factors that made it a critical success: - Focus on simplicity - Dramatically lower prices - Increased accessibility - Gradual feature improvement Understanding this strategy explains why market leaders often miss disruptive threats: They're looking for better and more expensive solutions. But the real threat comes from worse and cheaper alternatives.

Steve Jobs is quoted as saying: “People don’t know what they want until they see it.” The bad news is this quote is now used as an excuse and reason to avoid seeking out and understanding customer needs. They argue.... If customers have latent needs, i.e. needs they don't know they have and cannot articulate, then why bother asking customers about their needs? But that argument is misplaced: Steve Jobs isn’t saying people don’t know their needs. He is saying people don’t know the best SOLUTIONS to satisfy their needs. And why should they? They’re not the innovators, the scientists, the engineers. You are. The truth is there is no such thing as latent needs. People who hold on to this belief have a bias to conflate needs with solutions. It's a mindset that derails innovation. Do you want to know if your team has misplaced beliefs holding you back? We have developed a free innovation assessment tool that will: - Evaluate 26 key drivers of innovation performance - Reveal specific gaps in your innovation process - and provide a clear pathway to improvement. Take the free innovation assessment and see where your organization stands in less than 10 minutes: Link in the comments

Back on the subject of Jobs-to-Be-Done. This time, touching on my experience with Outcome-Driven Innovation (ODI), Tony Ulwick's approach to Jobs-to-Be-Done. I was introduced to ODI while at LearnZillion (now Imagine Learning), where I was brought in as the first Product hire. Shout out to Ian Lotinsky for handing me Tony Ulwick’s JTBD book (see comments for this and other resources). That book opened the door to a new way of thinking. I led an initiative that followed the ODI process step by step: 🔹 Defined job statements for both buyers (district leads) and users (teachers) 🔹 Conducted open-ended interviews to map job steps and desired outcomes 🔹 Ran a survey to score outcomes using importance and satisfaction metrics 🔹 Identified unmet needs with the highest opportunity scores We walked away with real data to guide strategy. Years later, a former teammate told me those insights were still being referenced. ODI is detailed. The six job types alone can be a lot to absorb at first. But if you’re starting out, follow the core steps above and use the book as a guide (see references in comments). Don’t feel like you have to conquer everything initially or you might be a bit overwhelmed with all the details. One lesson from that first run: be thoughtful about segmentation when surveying. For example, a desired outcome like “Minimize time to identify which students are misunderstanding a specific standard” probably scores higher for teachers with large classes or high-needs students. That context matters. Compared to Bob Moesta’s approach (which I outlined in a prior post), ODI starts with defining the job and builds toward quantifying opportunity. Bob’s approach starts with stories of decisions and surfaces jobs from there. There are no pre-defined jobs. Both methods are rooted in the same theory—customers hire products to get a job done—but they approach discovery from different angles. If you’re figuring out where to start, I’d recommend trying both. See what works best for your product and team. I’ll link to some helpful resources in the comments including Strategyn's website (Tony's consulting group). The images were pulled from some of the references. Feel free to add or correct anything Tony! What's been your experience with ODI? #JTBD #ODI #CustomerDiscovery #Product

How a focus on customer outcomes uncovered a billion-dollar medical breakthrough ~ saving millions of lives. Early in my innovation journey with Cordis Corporation, I witnessed firsthand how the right approach to customer research can transform not just a company, but an entire field of medicine. In 1991, when I began working with Cordis on their angioplasty balloon products, I didn't focus on incremental product improvements. Instead, I interviewed interventional cardiologists about the underlying process they were trying to execute: restoring blood flow in blocked arteries. Through these conversations, one outcome emerged as critically important yet dramatically underserved: "minimize the likelihood of restenosis" – or preventing the artery from becoming blocked again after treatment. When I shared this insight with Cordis, something remarkable happened. The team revealed they had access to a technology called a "stent" – essentially a small metal mesh cylinder that could be expanded inside an artery to keep it open. This technology wasn't new; in fact, it had been invented years earlier by Dr. Julio Palmaz at UT Health Science Center San Antonio and had been sitting underutilized within Cordis. The difference? Now they understood its true value through the lens of the cardiologists' most important unmet outcome. Cordis immediately accelerated the stent project, putting additional resources behind it to get to market first. The result was transformative – over $1 billion in revenue in the first years after launch, and more importantly, a revolutionary improvement in patient outcomes. What still fascinates me about this case is that the technology already existed. The breakthrough wasn't in invention but in understanding the job to be done and the outcomes that mattered most. By focusing on outcomes rather than products, we created clarity that turned a shelved technology into one of the most successful medical devices in history. This experience cemented my belief in Outcome-Driven Innovation as a predictable process for success. When you understand what customers are truly trying to achieve, innovation becomes less about luck and more about strategic execution. What potential breakthrough in your organization might be hiding in plain sight, just waiting for the right perspective to unlock its value?