This episode of Agile Atelier continues with the Product theme, that the last couple of episodes has featured. Today, I have the pleasure of speaking with Alan Klement, co-developer of the Jobs to be Done theory and author of When Coffee and Kale Compete. His own experience as a successful innovator and entrepreneur are what make him effective at helping others. He has applied successfully Jobs to be Done theory to his own businesses and has helped many others do the same.
Alan and I start our conversation by discussing the origins for Jobs to be Done (JTBD) and how it has evolved since the 1980s. We start off by defining what a “job” is (classic milkshake example) and examples of where it can be useful in day to day situations to use the JTBD language in order to think about any product differently. After chatting about the difference between needs and wants, Alan discusses the difference between tasks, activities and jobs with a great example of vegan cheese. We then move on to examples and applications in modern tech products, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, antecedent goals and some anti-patterns. Lastly, Alan discusses the problem and forecast spaces within JTBD, and the future of JTBD theory in conjunction with the Kuhn cycle.
You can reach out to Alan on Twitter, or through his website, where you can also sign up for his monthly newsletter. To download a free copy of Alan’s book, When Coffee and Kale Compete, click here.
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People were buying a product for these reasons but when we talked to them about their shopping habits, what they were investigating in addition to or as alternatives to this product they eventually adopted, we learned that they were comparing and contrasting products from wildly different product categories.
ALAN KLEMENT ON THE AGILE ATELIER PODCAST
Rahul Bhattacharya 