Job Stories
Neha Saigal
Founder & CEO of N5
The job story has its roots in Jobs-to-be-done (JTBD) which is a theory that aims to explain why consumers buy and use products. The idea behind jobs is that people hire products to get some sort of job done. JTBD focuses on a customer’s motivations and situations rather than attributes and job stories are a great way to design for motivation. Written from the customer’s perspective, the format for a job story is “[When______] [I want to_____] [so I can_____]”. “When” refers to the context, “I want to” elaborates on the motivation, “so I can” refers to the desired outcome.
STATS
Time
45-60 mins
Activity
Individual
Sprint Type
All
Directions
- Get someone on the team to share the customer perspective
- Individually write down job stories in the format “[When______] [I want to_____] [so I can_____]”. Write one job story per sticky note
- Stick them up on the whiteboard
- Categorize job stories into themes, removing duplicates
- Name categories, discuss and rearrange as needed
- Select the job stories that seem most critical
