# Jobs-to-be-Done Examples

## Example 1: Project Management Software (Good JTBD Analysis)

**Functional Jobs:**
- Coordinate tasks across a distributed team
- Track project progress against deadlines
- Identify blockers before they derail the project

**Social Jobs:**
- Be seen as an organized, reliable project leader
- Demonstrate transparency to stakeholders

**Emotional Jobs:**
- Feel confident that nothing is slipping through the cracks
- Avoid the stress of last-minute surprises

**Pains - Challenges:**
- Team members use different tools (Slack, email, spreadsheets), causing information silos
- No single source of truth for project status

**Pains - Costliness:**
- Manually updating status reports takes 3 hours per week
- Meetings to sync everyone take 5+ hours per week

**Pains - Common Mistakes:**
- Forgetting to follow up on tasks without clear ownership
- Miscommunicating priorities, leading to wasted effort

**Pains - Unresolved Problems:**
- Current tools don't surface blockers automatically
- Hard to visualize dependencies between tasks

**Gains - Expectations:**
- Automatically updates stakeholders on progress without manual reports
- Suggests task owners based on workload and expertise

**Gains - Savings:**
- Reduce status reporting time from 3 hours to 15 minutes
- Cut sync meetings in half

**Gains - Adoption Factors:**
- Easy to onboard (< 30 minutes to set up)
- Integrates with Slack and Google Calendar

**Gains - Life Improvement:**
- Leave work on time instead of staying late to track down updates
- Feel proactive instead of reactive

**Why this works:** Jobs are specific and solution-agnostic. Pains are validated by research. Gains are measurable and prioritizable.

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## Example 2: Bad JTBD Analysis (Feature Wishlist)

**Functional Jobs:**
- Use AI
- Have dashboards
- Get mobile app

**Social Jobs:**
- Be seen as innovative

**Emotional Jobs:**
- Feel modern

**Pains:**
- Current tools are old

**Gains:**
- Better UX
- Faster performance

**Why this fails:**
- "Use AI" is not a job—it's a solution (what are they trying to accomplish with AI?)
- "Have dashboards" is a feature, not a job
- Pains are vague ("current tools are old" = not actionable)
- Gains are generic ("better UX" = everyone says this)

**How to fix it:** Interview users. Ask "What are you trying to do?" not "What features do you want?" Dig into specific tasks, obstacles, and outcomes.
