Jtbd on Chaotic Thoughts

JTBD: day one - how to make a product

logrusadm@gmail.com (Anton Golubtsov) — Sun, 25 Aug 2024 11:22:58 -0700

bare minimum about the Jobs To Be Done framework

JTBD: why people buy

logrusadm@gmail.com (Anton Golubtsov) — Sun, 25 Aug 2024 11:22:58 -0700

Emotions

All problems comes from some emotions like frustrations, anger, sadness, guilt
Emotions help to think to highlight a problem, to move you attention towards something, so you can fix it.
Emotions give energy to act.
90% of decisions are automatic

Internal narrator and conflict resolution

Internal narrator is a conflict resolution mechanism or a consensus protocol. It stitches the pieces of really when something is done in a conflict and explains why it is ok. “I decided not to drink BUT today is ok because it was a tough day.”
- This reminds how LLM works they predict w
- Brain predict future and uses senses to correct its predictions. When something is not going at it was predicted it generates signals to correct it though “pain”, pleasure OR lies. It reminds me of LLMs with their hallucinations and predictions of next character they need to produce.
Lisa Feldman Barrett wrote a book How Emotions Are Made where she explains how brain constantly hallucinate of future, lies, and use emotions to correct human behavior.

Internal investor

The brain acts like an investor, it observes the available options and tries to invest effort/resources in things which more likely will give higher-return.
The brain tries to reduce costs which is associated with “pain” centers in the brain and increase the reward which is associated with “pain”. See: Neural Predictor of Purchases Purchase == (pleasure from purchase - “pain” of losing money) > 0
In the product management we have the same process persuasion of pleasure (positive emotions) and “pain” avoidance (negative emotions).
- It will be interesting to see if these mechanism can be used to improve kids performance at school by tweaking how much “pain” they get to receive a reward. Like doing less for the same reward, or doing the same amount but for higher reward.
- It is also interesting is there some level of “pain” which practically block the path forward. Could it be that kids are not doing something till the very last moment because only at the very last moment the negative impact of not doing something finally lower than effort of doing something.
- Or how can we use it in other aspects of our life?

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JTBD: day two - Advanced Jobs to Be Done

logrusadm@gmail.com (Anton Golubtsov) — Sat, 24 Aug 2024 11:22:58 -0700

Key insights

jobs are more important than product of features because they help to find a product or features but not the other way around
head of the customer is the main source of truth, not the head of a product manager
analyze customer jobs and job graphs, not a product.

Sequential jobs

step-by-step
the value is received in the end of the entire job chain
because a next job depends on the results of a previous job
you need to know dependencies and possible branches
fix issues first because they affect the whole chain
the chain issues, or results affect high-level jobs

Frequent jobs

viral jobs - jobs which the user does for somebody or with somebody else like “prepare slides so they can present them in a meeting,” or “write a restaurant review”, “work together on slides”

Tax/Penalty jobs

When something goes wrong the user needs to adjust their plans those adjustments create “penalty” or “tax” jobs. For example, the user arrives to a gas station but they couldn’t pay because something was wrong with credit card payments and they had no cash. In this situation the user invested their resources (time, and effort) to get to the gas station, and now the user needs to invest more resources to get what they need. The brain does not like mis-calculations and the user will remember the pain associated with a situation or a product. Next time the brain may try to avoid the pain associated with your product

JTBD: reading list

logrusadm@gmail.com (Anton Golubtsov) — Sat, 24 Aug 2024 11:22:58 -0700

Strategy and business value

Why people buy

Must read

- How People Change - The Body Keeps the Score - The Molecule of More

JTBD: B2B specifics

logrusadm@gmail.com (Anton Golubtsov) — Fri, 23 Aug 2024 11:22:58 -0700

personal goals go first
new product new challenges
- teach, train, hire, fire
- explore internal kitchen
- showing useful to the potential customer information in advance 3x increases probability of success
personal contact is more important than a product. people perceive familiar people as more reliable so more likely to provide support in the future and so secure the position of a decision maker who buys the product
personal jobs is a sales driver - 90% personal goal of a decision maker (promotion, status, job security) and only 10% business goal
- for decision makes who has higher personal connection to the business goals, like CEOs, the distribution is 50/50 between personal and business goals.
- Personal goal of decision makers
  - job security - personal contact, remember?
  - status - “I’m better at something”, “Look how cool I’m”
  - fun - “I really like that thing”
  - support in the future and risk mitigation - related to job security
- insight -an expensive product can be 8x likely to be bought if it is aligned with the decision maker personal goals
you need to understand that is the decision making process and who is involved in the process so you know who else you need to talk to.
- also try to understand that are the decision making criteria so you can focus on meeting those criteria
types of people in B2B
- Decision makers - talk to them first the rest are less important or sometimes irrelevant
- Budget holders - they can block the decision
  - don’t hesitate to ask about the budget and make sure you understand the process
- Influencers - people inside (or outside) the company who can influence the decision one way or another. Work with then if you can
- Recommenders - people who can be asked for their opinion about your product
- Saboteurs - people who can be strongly against your product - like a decision maker who bought previous solution
talk to decision makers first

What to take out of a B2B interview

jobs and goals both business and personal
problems
decision making process, people involved and their roles, evaluation criteria
budget - first establish contact with your respondent before asking this question - mid or end of an interview can be a good point to ask

How to find an decision maker

work as a team
send some that personalized email like “you were recommended to us by …”
- recommendations from real people work the best
ask for people you can talk to
bring some value with you
LinkedIn is a good place to start

JTBD: day three - solution value and how to create it

logrusadm@gmail.com (Anton Golubtsov) — Fri, 23 Aug 2024 11:22:58 -0700

Solution value can be defined as a difference between perceived benefits provided by a solution and perceived costs associated with a solution. In addition to that there can be a perceived cost of switching to the solution. We use “perceived” here since there is usually a gap between reality and perception and value is in the eye of the beholder.

$value(solution) = benefits(solution) - costs(solution)$
value is relative. It is hard to assign a value number to a solution so people usually compare one vs another.
main paths to add value:
- add benefits
- reduce costs
- both
- sometimes it is cost increase but providing much more benefits
aha-moment or value activation - aha-moment is the moment when the user realizes the value of a solution. For example, for a new expensive car the status value of a car can be activated at the point when you gave a ride to a friend and they said “wow, that was great.” For a report, it can be a moment when you receive positive feedback for the quality of the report and not the moment when you generated a report.

Top mechanisms to bring more value

do an important job nobody else does
fix problems in the main job
provide base quality for your solution - people expect it as bare minimum
eliminate low-level jobs
do more jobs within a user using one solution so the user uses your solution more frequently and value it more as a tool
move to a different segment with a same solution
do the immediate next job after current job - Figma is a good example, current job “create a report”, and next job “share report”
reduce the cost of a job
add more benefits to a job
fulfill basic needs: status, safety, social contact etc
communicate that a solution fulfills one of the basic needs
wake up a sleeping job - higher level jobs which can be completed more efficiently but using a different solution
correct expectations - the user may have unreasonable expectations correcting them in advance will reduce disappointment when unreasonable expectations are not met

An algorithm for solving business problems with a product

clarify and challenge the goal
find mechanisms which may help to achieve the goal
find raw material to pick right mechanisms: analytics + JTBD interviews
apply mechanisms: Airtable - How to pick value mechanisms
rank mechanisms by RICE (Reach, Impact, Confidence, Effort)

On RICE

RICE (Reach, Impact, Confidence, Effort) is a mechanisms for ranking different solutions. Confidence can be tricky to estimate you can try to use Idea Prioritization With ICE and The Confidence Meter for estimations.

JTBD: B2B specifics

logrusadm@gmail.com (Anton Golubtsov) — Thu, 22 Aug 2024 11:22:58 -0700

Before an interview

in a customer interview studying the reality not their imagination.
you should have a goal before an interview so:
- come prepared
- have a hypothesis
- know your customer segment unless you are looking for one
preparation steps:
- research the topic if you are not familiar with it - it will help you to earn the interviewee’s trust and so get more insights out of the interview
  - know the domain specific language
  - talk to experts if needed
- decide what the duration of the interview should be. It is usually between 30-90 minutes. 30 minutes maybe too short since you may need to earn some trust first or you may want to go deeper into the details. 90 minutes may be mentally and physically hard.
- prepare an interview script but remember that it is a blueprint and you can adjust it as you go
recording and notes
- video recording is nice to have if you want to review but it is better to use notes so you don’t need to spend another hour which you can use for an interview to view the recording
- ask for permission to record a video even if you asked it before the interview
- inform that you will be taking notes
- avoid any distraction it is important for establishing the contact and trust
- video is preferred since 55% of information is non-verbal
- prepare a notes template to fill in
- you need to feel comfortable during the interview: meditate, find a place from which you will be comfortable to interview

During an interview interview

Contact

smile
open posture
look into the camera or keep eye contact
use active listening - it help to reduce the stress through affirmation

Set boundaries

introduction. try to switch to less formal language (for languages with different formality modalities)
explain the interview process
- in B2C hide product details till the last moment or do not expose them at all (also you may not have a product yet)
- explain the timing
tell that you will be taking notes
tell that you may ask about their feelings and emotions
let them know that they don’t have to answer questions they don’t want to answer
ask if they are ok with video recording

Interview

don’t reveal the goal of your interview to avoid lies and hallucinations in an attempt to please you.
start with simple and qualification questions to give a sense of safe space and to know better qualification factors our like their interests or life priorities etc. Those factors can be very insightful.
avoid domain specific terms and slang - use general language
don’t ask about the future or imaginary situations - people will lie and hallucinate
ask about past experience and to tell a story
- if a respondent drifts towards imaginary situations carefully redirect them to the main topic - the past experience
ask open questions
ask problems and associated emotions and their scale
- be careful with wording not to shut them down by rejection or misbelieve
one question at a time
avoid interrupting, carefully correct the topic of discussion
talk less, don’t fear the awkward pauses. The pauses can nudge the respondent to start talking about things they wouldn’t tell otherwise. People don’t like silence and will try to fill it with their thoughts.
ask follow up questions like “why?”, “so what?” etc
if a team want to join
- limit the number of participants
- come up with a protocol for asking questions by the team members
- introduce the team
- you may want to put team of camera if they are not actively talking

After the interview

Analyze the interview as soon as possible while you have all the context fresh.

JTBD: day four - segmentation

logrusadm@gmail.com (Anton Golubtsov) — Thu, 22 Aug 2024 11:22:58 -0700

Choosing a segment is one of the most important decisions. It will define the results you can achieve.

We can’t build a product for everyone.

A free interpretation of from Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance: Porter, Michael E.: 9780684841465: Amazon.com: Books

Our goal is to become the best in a specific, and maybe in initially narrow segment, through precise knowledge of the jobs in the segment and implementation of a significantly better solution that competing solutions.

JTBD: day five - conversion and sleeping jobs

logrusadm@gmail.com (Anton Golubtsov) — Wed, 21 Aug 2024 11:22:58 -0700

What does the customer purchase depend on

#	Dependency	What to do
1	attracted a lead with a job we have a solution for	Find, and choose a right segment. JTBD for a segment selection + marketing
2	offered higher value than current solution or competitors	Create value by utilizing JTBD for product discovery and comparing our solution, and the competitors
3	the lead realized/understood the value of our solution	Iterate over hypothesis for loading the value into the head of the lead and test them in decision interviews
4	the lead does not have concerns, or fears toward our solution	Iterate over hypothesis for decision barriers elimination and test them in decision interviews
5	the lead does not have concerns, or fears toward the job execution	Iterate over hypothesis for job completion barriers elimination and test them in decision interviews
6	the lead was able to activate the value: didn’t abandoned the solution due to high effort/costs and realized what value it will receive	*Discovering value, finding aha-moment* and moving the value communication earlier in the funnel,** test them in decision interviews and UX-tests
7	the lead was able to get through	Iterate over decision interviews and UX-tests to fix problems

#tbd decision interviews

JTBD: days six and seven - Product Strategy

logrusadm@gmail.com (Anton Golubtsov) — Tue, 20 Aug 2024 11:22:58 -0700

Three insights

Product strategy is not a kind of magic; it is an algorithm.
Strategy is a path, not a destination.
Small daily decisions we make are a part of the strategy.

Note: Companies that operate outside of market rules do not need a strategy since their decision-making process is not market-driven—for example, the government.

The main mistake is the ignorance of current trends.

Sandy san, Our current success is the best reason to change. We must be permanently dissatisfied in order to succeed.