In November 2023 I hosted and spoke at a product management academy meetup in Amsterdam. It was a networking evening near Amsterdam RAI with two talks, and mine was on user-centric product management, the JTBD way. The other talk was about the potential of generative AI in product management.
Jobs to be Done (JTBD) is a way of looking at products through the job a person is trying to get done in their life, instead of through features or demographics.
It’s always exciting for me to talk about it, because it’s one of those ideas that sounds simple and then keeps showing up in every product decision.
For the talk, I walked through a Jobs to be Done canvas on the big screen. It starts with the customer and the main quote, then the job itself with its situation and context, and then the desired outcomes on the functional, emotional and social sides. Also, there’s room for the pains and the gaps around that job.
To be honest, hosting and speaking on the same evening was a great pleasure. So for me, JTBD is still the best starting point for user-centric product management. I’ve kept coming back to it since then, and the latest time was in my Product Discovery with AI workshop, where it sat right next to Netnography and Pre-mortem.