Sharing knowledge

Understanding the 'Jobs to be done' theory: Building smart organizations

May 10, 2023
4 minutes
Ferenc Boroczky
Founder and CEO of anet360

I think the initial assumption for any new solution should start with an important action: "being out there" with the customer and ensuring that the action revolves around the customer. Software products and other services are developed to meet the demands of the customer's activity, and they earn their value by satisfying customers' needs.

That’s nothing new about it, we all know this is how it should be done. However, understanding the customers’ needs is a tricky business. Henry Ford famously said that if he asked his customers what they wanted, they would say, "Faster horses!" But still, we see new software solutions popping up on a daily basis - some of them are better than others, but most of them tend to solve a customer problem.

At our company, we're not just launching another software solution. We're focused on enabling our customers to build and grow smarter organizations. Our goal is to offer a seamless, frictionless, and reliable solution that helps them achieve their goals within the boundaries of unlocking, capturing, documenting, and sharing knowledge or enabling their workforce to access quality, engaging educational solutions.

One of our guiding principles is based on the 'Jobs to be done' theory, which focuses on understanding the goals individuals seek to accomplish in a given circumstance. However, these goals often involve more than just a straightforward task; it's important to consider the experience that a person is trying to create. This term and theory were popularized by Professor Clayton M. Christensen, the author of "The Innovator's Dilemma". For most of our clients, the "job to be done" means helping them make the necessary progress while addressing any anxieties or inertia that may be hindering them. Although we cannot know all the problems our clients are facing, we need to be clear that the "job to be done" is not an all-purpose catchphrase. Jobs are complex and multifaceted, and the circumstances surrounding them are more important than customer characteristics, product attributes, new technologies, or trends.

Our focus is on developing innovative solutions that solve customer problems that have no or inadequate or expensive solutions, by looking at the jobs they have to do and the circumstances they have. But it's extremely hard to do it. Designing products and services around jobs and in a given circumstance that customers are no easy feat.

But who said that solving complex problems is easy?

In talking and meeting with clients and their workforce (believe it or not, we spend a lot of time talking to them too), we realized that it's never just about the function that people are looking for. We get so used to using software solutions, and smartphone applications…so having another one doesn't really matter. What matters is how we feel about the solution. Is it easy to use? Is it easy to read? Is it intuitive? Are the buttons logical? But most importantly does it help me to do the jobs that I want to be done? Does it help me to do it effectively and seamlessly? 

One of our design principles is to prioritize the user's control in initiating and managing actions, rather than the product's influence. This approach allows users to feel more engaged in the process, leading to better outcomes. By emphasizing the user's experience, we can create products that are not only effective but also enjoyable to use.

So, what we're launching soon is not just another software solution. It's a solution that enables our customers to build and grow smart organizations. We can praise its performance of it, the powerful technology, the world-leading eye-tracking technology that's integrated into it, or how our immersive products are better than our rival products. But that's not the point. Our focus is on helping our customers achieve their goals and create a better experience for their workforce, and that's what our solution is designed to do.

https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=46

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Ferenc Boroczky
Founder and CEO of anet360
With more than 15 years in design and technology focused on people, I've dedicated myself to growing a business that makes a real difference. I'm the Founder and CEO of Another Set of Eyes (anet), a company my wife and I built from scratch. We've come a long way without financial backing from investors, proving our resilience and innovation and developing a high-quality, yet user-friendly software solution. Our mission is to change how organizations gather and use important information, share insights, and train their teams.

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