About Jobs to be Done
Jobs to Be Done: A Roadmap for Customer-Centered Innovation by Stephen Wunker, Jessica Wattman, and David Farber, explains how companies can uncover what customers truly want and turn those insights into breakthrough products, services, and business models. The book introduces the Jobs Roadmap and Jobs Atlas, practical tools for identifying unmet needs, overcoming adoption barriers, and linking customer insights to business model success. Packed with case studies and step-by-step guidance, it bridges theory and practice, showing how JTBD powers AI strategy consulting, growth strategy, innovation capabilities, go-to-market plans, and new product development.
Inside the book, you’ll learn how to:
Discover what customers really want, even when they can’t say it
Sort valuable insights from noisy data
Target unaddressed “jobs” with disruptive potential
Design solutions that fit ingrained customer habits
Use a Jobs lens to see hidden competitors and new growth avenues
Spot emerging trends that shape future behavior
Packed with real-world case studies, from power tools to Snapchat, the book gives leaders a clear-cut framework, step-by-step action plan, and practical tools to design products, services, and business models that customers love.
What You'll Learn
Jobs Roadmap
The Jobs Roadmap is a step-by-step process for turning deep customer understanding into breakthrough innovations. It links two parts of innovation: understanding customer jobs and using those insights to build great ideas. You’ll learn how to define success, set research priorities, and move from insight to action by creating products that align strategy, customer value, and growth potential.
Jobs Atlas
The Jobs Atlas is the centerpiece of the methodology—a structured map of customer insights. It guides you through three stages:
Know Where You’re Starting From: Identify jobs, drivers, and pain points.
Chart the Destination and Roadblocks: Define customer success criteria and obstacles.
Make the Trip Worthwhile: Link value creation and competition to business model design.
Together, these steps reveal where unmet needs and hidden opportunities lie
Using Jobs to be Done to Build Great Ideas
This section explains how to transform customer insight into innovation. You’ll learn how to:
Set objectives and align them with strategy.
Plan customer research for actionable learning.
Generate ideas rooted in Jobs insights.
Reframe perspectives through open innovation.
Test, learn, and iterate quickly to refine solutions
Case Studies
Jobs to be Done comes alive through global case studies—from Uber to Cognizant. You’ll see how organizations across industries applied the roadmap to uncover unmet needs, validate ideas, and scale growth. Each case demonstrates how deep customer understanding turns uncertainty into advantage and insight into market-defining innovation.
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Download the Introduction
This chapter equips innovators to see markets through a customer’s lens by:
Shifting focus from products and demographics to the real Jobs customers are trying to get done in specific contexts.
Balancing functional and emotional motivations and understanding that differentiation often lies in emotional connection, not added features.
Prioritizing a small number of high-impact, undersatisfied Jobs to guide product design, messaging, and market definition.
table of contents
01
Introduction: Charting a Roadmap to Great Ideas
02
Part I: Understanding Jobs to be Done
Jobs: What Customers Are Trying to Get Done
Job Drivers: Why Customers Have Different Jobs
Current Approaches and Pain Points
Success Criteria: The Customer’s Definition of a Win
Obstacles: What Holds New Ideas Back
Value: How Insights Become Revenue
Competition: Becoming King of the Road
03
Part II: Using Jobs to Be Done to Build Great Ideas
Establish Objectives
Plan Your Approach
Generate Ideas
Reframe Your Perspective
Experiment and Iterate
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In a challenging economy filled with nimble competitors, no one can afford to stagnate. Yet, innovation is notoriously difficult. Only 1 in 100 new products are successful enough to cover development costs, and even fewer impact a company's growth trajectory. So how do you pinpoint the winning ideas that customers will love?
Frequently Asked Questions
About The Authors
Steve Wunker
Stephen Wunker is the Managing Director of New Markets Advisors, a global consulting firm that develops growth strategies for innovators such as Meta and the Mayo Clinic. A pioneer in mobile marketing and payments, he led the development of one of the world's first smartphones. As a longtime collaborator with the late Clayton Christensen, Harvard Business School's legendary scholar of business disruption, Stephen played a key role in refining and applying his theories of Disruptive Innovation and Jobs to be Done. He has worked across sectors to help large organizations identify major opportunities and move quickly, despite legacy systems or cultural resistance.
Jessica Wattman
Dr. Jessica Wattman is Director of Social Innovation at New Markets Advisors, with deep expertise in environments of rapid flux. She has designed groundbreaking programs in conflict and unstable regions, working with the UN, Save the Children, Oxfam, USAID, and Mercy Corps. Jessica has applied JTBD in both nonprofit and private sector settings, including online education and digital services. She has been featured on CBS Evening News and has spoken at the MIT Media Lab. Jessica holds degrees from Barnard College, Harvard Kennedy School, and MIT, and is fluent in Spanish and French.
David Farber
David Farber is a Manager at New Markets Advisors, specializing in growth strategy and innovation. He has extensive experience applying JTBD to uncover growth opportunities and launch new products for clients across four continents and multiple industries. Dave also helps organizations build internal innovation capabilities, leveraging JTBD and best practices. A licensed Massachusetts attorney, his earlier career focused on M&A, partnerships, and startup advisory at top law firms in the U.S. and Belgium, and at Brookfield Renewable Power. Dave graduated magna cum laude from both Villanova Law School and American University.
