Beware the ideation zealots

Does everyone really have a Job To Be Done?

By Derek McInnes

Ideation frameworks are great, but they’re all flawed in some way, and won’t always work.??

There I said it. If you come across someone who only ever pushes one approach (which will typically be “Jobs to be Done” or “Design Thinking”), they are usually just selling something, or just don’t understand it in the first place.?

Even though I’ve worked a lot with Jobs to be Done for years, every time I see a brief that says, “we need to understand the jobs to be done”, a little piece of me dies inside. What if we don’t need to? What if something else will help more??

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Start with real problems?

I remember some years ago speaking to a colleague who was struggling on a project. He was helping a big snack business ideate in ‘everyday crisps’. But only on flavour. He was absolutely not to venture into the “premium space”, no mature cheddar or balsamic vinegar allowed, nor look at new pack formats, or any other product changes.?

His problem, and his client’s, was that no one else had a problem with ‘everyday crisp’ flavours. This was a business need-driven programme, not a consumer driven one.??

At its heart, any innovation or ideation engagement is about solving peoples’ problems.??

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Frameworks give space and focus?

Getting to the problems is the key. To do that, we need to understand people in all their many facets, and having some kind of guiding principle really helps do that. This is why ideation frameworks are used so much; they’re great!??

They do three important things:?

1. They externalise thoughts. They get things out of people’s heads and make them shareable.?
2. They create opportunity to collaborate. They give different people, with different skills, a consistent language to work together.?
3. They put the customer at the centre of the problem to solve. They make everyone focus on the customer’s problem and try and crack that.?

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Pick the one that helps the most?

Here’s the thing though, all of the popular frameworks, Consumer Needs, Jobs To Be Done, Design Thinking, Missions, or Customer Journeys, do all those three things. But they don’t all work equally as well on every occasion.?

I don’t work with snack businesses these days - I work with less tangible things, like financial services, telecoms, digital services, travel and entertainment.?

They have the same problems though: they want to grow, they need more people to buy more stuff from them. They still have to develop new ways to meet customer needs, and if anything they have a closer, or at least more complicated relationships, with their customers, so the needs can be equally complex.??

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Fit it to your challenge and your team?

What is really clear is that just as different businesses have many different ways of doing things, there are ideation frameworks that work better and less well for them.??

Right now I do work much more with Jobs To Be Done and Customer Journeys than, for example, with Consumer Needs. These approaches seem to fit better for the clients; both the teams we work with and the businesses they work in. They get them, they fit the relationship they hold with their customers. JTBD and Journeys are making it easier for them to truly understand what their customers problems are, and that is what is important. But when we need to use a different approach, for a specific challenge, we do. ?

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If someone tells you that their way is the best and only way, be sceptical. At Incite we get ideation and innovation, and we have a strong view about what makes its work. But we’re not rigid on how it has to be done. We’re used to working in different ways, for different problems, with different teams, in different businesses. And so should you.?