The 5 Cs of Opportunity Identification

I was reading this post somewhere last night, and I felt its importance in our everyday activities, including how we interact with ordinary people and friends. Enjoy... Simply asking, "What job is the customer trying to get done?" can be a powerful way to enable innovation because it forces you to go beyond superficial demographic markers that merely correlate with purchase and use. Instead, it focuses on the frustrations and desires that truly motivate purchase and use. The simplicity of this approach hides a rich and robust set of tools for identifying opportunities. Through our experience utilizing the "jobs-to-be-done" concept in various settings, my colleagues and I have developed five tips for aspiring innovators — the five Cs of opportunity identification (modeled after marketing's famous four Ps: price, product, place, and promotion). 1. Circumstance. The specific problems a customer cares about and the way they assess solutions are highly dependent on their circumstances. For example, a parent looking for a convenient way to diagnose whether their child has an ear infection thinks and acts very differently from someone who has suffered a broken arm. In the first scenario, MinuteClinic and other convenience-oriented, kiosk-based solutions work effectively; in the second, they clearly fall short. Creating a simple "job-circumstance" matrix with primary jobs-to-be-done on one axis and common circumstances on the other can help visualize opportunities for innovation. 2. Context. Asking a customer to report what they did in the past will likely yield an account that only loosely resembles reality. Asking them to describe what they will do in the future often results in even less accurate guesses. As innovation thought leader and former Procter & Gamble executive Karl Ronn puts it, "You have no conscious memory of how you do routine tasks." The key is to understand the context — finding a way to be with the customer when they encounter a problem and observing how they attempt to solve it. Ronn, who helped P&G turn Swiffer and Febreze into billion-dollar brands, believes that small-sample contextual research is much more valuable than larger sample focus groups. 3. Constraints. One proven path to growth is developing innovative methods to overcome barriers that constrain consumption. Southwest's low-cost airline service attracted people who might otherwise take the bus or not travel at all, and Nintendo's Wii gaming console appealed to families seeking simple entertainment. However, understanding why a customer does not consume a product is critical. If existing solutions are too expensive, require specialized skills, or are inconvenient, then innovation is possible. But if it's due to basic indifference, success might not be as achievable as you hope. 4. Compensating Behaviors. One of the biggest challenges for innovators is determining whether a job is important enough to target. A clear sign of importance is when a customer is spending money trying to solve a problem. After all, it’s easier to redirect existing spending than to create new demand. Even if customers aren’t spending money on a comparable product or service, they may be spending time through compensating behaviors — using a product or service in unintended ways to try to solve a problem. A classic example of innovation stemming from compensating behavior is Intuit’s popular QuickBooks product. About 20 years ago, Intuit noticed that many customers of its personal financial software, Quicken, identified as small business owners. This puzzled Intuit because Quicken lacked the ability to do double-entry accounting, a cornerstone of any robust financial system. However, small business owners had a straightforward job to do: "Make sure I have enough money to pay my bills at the end of the month." Even without double-entry accounting, Quicken helped them achieve this goal. This insight led to the development of QuickBooks, which quickly became the leading small-business accounting software in the United States enough money in my checking account to meet payroll. This finding led Intuit to develop QuickBooks, which became a massive success because it addressed a job small business owners were trying to get done. 5. Criteria. Finally, recognize that jobs-to-be-done have both functional and emotional components. The functional aspect involves solving a practical problem, while the emotional aspect addresses how the solution makes the customer feel. For instance, a mother shopping for baby food wants to ensure her child is well-nourished (functional), but she also wants to feel like a good parent (emotional). Successful innovators pay attention to both aspects and align their solutions accordingly. By understanding the job a customer is trying to get done, the context in which the job arises, and the constraints they face, innovators can discover new opportunities. Observing compensating behaviors and understanding both the functional and emotional criteria of the job will also guide the creation of valuable solutions.