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The Operator’s Library · Workbench

JTBD Switch-Interview Kit

People don’t buy products, they hire them to make progress in a situation. This turns what you know about that progress into a job statement and the four forces behind a switch, then hands you an interview script to go verify it with real customers.

How this works

A “job to be done” is the progress a customer is trying to make, and the circumstance they’re in when they make it. A customer switches to you only when two forces pushing toward change (their dissatisfaction with the old way, the pull of a better outcome) outweigh two forces holding them back (the habit of what they use now, and the anxiety of switching). Name those four, and you know what to say and what to fix.

Fill in what you believe today. The kit builds your working job statement, maps the four forces, and generates a switch-interview script so you can test it against how customers actually decided, not how you assume they did.

Read the Jobs To Be Done concept in the Canon →

Example values shown. Edit any field to make it yours
Job and switch inputs

What the customer would be hiring.

Required

The job · the progress they’re trying to make

When… what’s happening in the customer’s world the moment they start looking for a better way? A concrete circumstance, not a demographic.

Required

I want to… what are they actually trying to get done? Include the functional job and, if it matters, the emotional one.

Required

So I can… the outcome that makes the progress worth it. What becomes possible, or stops being a problem?

Required

The switch · the forces around changing

The thing they’re switching from, and would keep doing if nothing changed: a competitor, a manual workaround, or nothing at all. This is the habit you’re up against.

Required

What’s frustrating, failing, or no longer good enough about what they do today. The circumstance above is the setting; this is the dissatisfaction that actually drives the change.

Required

The worry, risk, or friction that stalls the switch even when they want the progress. This is what your messaging and onboarding have to defuse.

Required

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The Operator’s Library

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Written by one person running the same automations, checkouts, and campaigns these books document. By Brian Kasday →