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Research & Discovery

JTBD Extractor

Extract Jobs-to-be-Done statements from research data to uncover innovation opportunities.

# Drop into ~/.claude/skills/jtbd-extractor/
curl -L https://github.com/sunnyyang-hicks/pm-skills-for-claude/raw/main/jtbd-extractor/SKILL.md \
  -o ~/.claude/skills/jtbd-extractor/SKILL.md

Overview

Feature requests tell you what customers think they want. Jobs-to-be-Done tell you what they actually need. This skill extracts JTBD statements from raw research data so you can build for motivations, not wish lists.

Core Concept

A "job" is the progress someone is trying to make in a particular circumstance. People don't buy products — they hire them to do a job. Understanding the job unlocks solutions the customer couldn't have articulated.

Before You Start

Ask the user:

  1. What research data do we have? — Interview transcripts, survey responses, support tickets, behavioral data, feature requests.
  2. What domain? — Product area, user type, business context.
  3. What decision will this inform? — New feature ideation, positioning, roadmap prioritization, competitive differentiation.

Extraction Process

Step 1: Identify Job Signals in Raw Data

Scan the data for signals that reveal underlying jobs:

  • Struggle moments: "I always have to..." "It's frustrating when..."
  • Workarounds: "What I usually do instead is..." "I use [competitor/hack] for..."
  • Desired outcomes: "I wish I could..." "If only it would..."
  • Context switches: "When I'm in [situation]..." "Right before [event]..."
  • Hiring/firing moments: "I started using..." "I stopped using..."

Step 2: Formulate Job Statements

Main Job Statement Format: "When [situation/trigger], I want to [motivation/progress], so I can [desired outcome]."

Rules for good job statements:

  • The job exists independent of your product. It existed before your product and will exist if your product disappears.
  • Focus on the progress, not the solution. "Quickly understand my team's status" not "view a dashboard."
  • Include the circumstance. The same person has different jobs in different contexts.
  • One job per statement. If it has "and" in the motivation, it's probably two jobs.

Step 3: Map the Job Layers

For each main job, identify:

Functional job: The practical task they're trying to accomplish. "Quickly identify which deals are at risk of slipping this quarter."

Emotional job: How they want to feel during and after. "Feel confident I'm not missing anything when I report to the VP."

Social job: How they want to be perceived. "Be seen as the manager who always has their finger on the pulse."

Step 4: Identify Outcome Expectations

For each job, list the desired outcomes using this format:

"Minimize the [time/likelihood/effort] of [undesired outcome]" or "Maximize the [speed/accuracy/completeness] of [desired outcome]"

Examples:

  • Minimize the time it takes to identify at-risk deals
  • Minimize the likelihood of being surprised by a missed target
  • Maximize the accuracy of my forecast to leadership

Step 5: Assess Opportunity

Rate each outcome on two dimensions:

| Outcome | Importance (1-10) | Satisfaction (1-10) | Opportunity Score | |---------|-------------------|--------------------|--------------------| | [outcome] | [how much they care] | [how well current solutions work] | Importance + (Importance - Satisfaction) |

Opportunity score > 15: Underserved — high innovation potential Opportunity score 10-15: Appropriately served — incremental improvement Opportunity score < 10: Overserved — don't invest here

Output Structure

# Jobs-to-be-Done Analysis — [Domain/Product Area]

## Summary
[2-3 sentences: how many jobs identified, biggest unmet need, key insight]

## Job Map

### Job 1: [Main job statement]
**Functional:** [practical task]
**Emotional:** [desired feeling]
**Social:** [desired perception]

**Context/Trigger:** [when does this job arise?]
**Current Solutions:** [what they hire today — competitors, workarounds, manual processes]

**Desired Outcomes:**
| Outcome | Importance | Satisfaction | Opportunity |
|---------|-----------|-------------|-------------|
| [outcome] | [1-10] | [1-10] | [score] |

**Evidence:** [N] data points
- "[supporting quote]" — [source]
- [behavioral data point]

[Repeat for each job]

## Opportunity Ranking
[Rank all outcomes by opportunity score — highest = biggest unmet need]

## Strategic Implications
[What should we build, stop building, or explore further based on this analysis?]

Save as JTBD-ANALYSIS-[domain].md.