The state of Washington approached NASA to ask them to build a protective clear structure around their beloved monument and save it from corroding. By using the five whys problem solving method they saved the state money by recommending they didn't need any structure they just needed to turn the lights off earlier...

Using 5 Whys Problem Solving To Save The Washington Monument

Problem: One of the monuments in Washington D.C. is deteriorating.Why #1 – Why is the monument deteriorating? Because harsh chemicals are frequently used to clean the monument.

Saving The Washington Monument: First Of Five Whys

Problem: One of the monuments in Washington D.C. is deteriorating.Why #2 – Why are harsh chemicals needed?To clean off the large number of bird droppings on the monument.

Saving The Washington Monument: Second Of Five Whys

Problem: One of the monuments in Washington D.C. is deteriorating.Why #3 – Why are there a large number of bird droppings on the monument?Because the large population of spiders in and around the monument are a food source to the local birds

Saving The Washington Monument: Third Of Five Whys

Problem: One of the monuments in Washington D.C. is deteriorating.Why #4 – Why is there a large population of spiders in and around the monument?Because vast swarms of insects, on which the spiders feed, are drawn to the monument at dusk.

Saving The Washington Monument: Fourth Of Five Whys

Problem: One of the monuments in Washington D.C. is deteriorating.Why #5 – Why are swarms of insects drawn to the monument at dusk?Because the lighting of the monument in the evening attracts the local insects.Solution: Change how the monument is illuminated in the evening to prevent attraction of swarming insects.

Saving The Washington Monument: Fifth Of Five Whys

Great example of the five whys in design thinking

The 5 whys example about the crumbling monument is known to most in the Lean, Six Sigma & improvement worlds, but very few know the true story. Until now.

Business thinking

5 Whys Example: The Truth Behind a Monumental Mystery

"Help me brush my teeth in the morning” is not a great example of a Job to Be Done statement.It infers an existing solution (a toothbrush) and there’s only so far you’ll be able to expand your thinking within that bubble.It's a valid approach to designing innovations that impact customer satisfaction in the near-term. But it will not lead to disruptive new products and services.For more innovative product design and more 'aha' moments we could use:“Keep my teeth healthy.”This is people focused - the same problem people faced hundreds of years ago, face today, and hundreds of years from now.

How To Write A Jobs To Be Done Statement

Jobs to be done is a leading way of writing user and business problems, and when done right it can feed into agile product development, by linking the customer need to the feature.

If you're trying to integrate Jobs to Be Done into your design process, you've probably found yourself looking for some concrete examples of Jobs to Be Done statements to be sure you're on the right track.

How to Write Jobs to Be Done Example Statements

JOBS-TO-BE-DONE is a perspective — a lens through which you can observe markets, customers, needs, competitors, and customer segments differently, and by doing so, make innovation far more predictable and profitable. <ul><li>Markets aren’t defined around products, but groups of people trying to get a job done.</li><li>Customers aren’t buyers, they are job executors.</li><li>Competitors aren’t just companies that make products like yours, they are any solution used to get the job done.</li><li>Customer segments aren’t based on demographics or psychographics, they are based on how customers struggle differently to get a job done.</li></ul>

What Is Jobs To Be Done Theory

People buy products and services to get a “job” done.Jobs are functional, with emotional and social components.<ul><li>A Job-to-be-Done is stable over time, customer needs don't change - only evolve.</li><li>A Job-to-be-Done is solution agnostic.</li><li>A deep understanding of the customer’s “job” makes marketing more effective and innovation far more predictable.</li><li>People want products and services that will help them get a job done better and/or more cheaply</li><li>People seek out products and services that enable them to get the entire job done on a single platform</li></ul>

The 5 Key Tenets Of Jobs To Be Done Theory

Jobs to be done is an important form of business problem solving and user centred design

Jobs-to-be-Done Theory is comprised of a group of principles or tenets that explain how to make marketing more effective and innovation more predictable by focusing on the customer’s job-to-be-done.

The Core Tenets of Jobs-to-be-Done Theory

Upgrade your user, not your product. Don’t build better cameras — build better photographers.

Jobs to be Done is a theory of consumer action. It describes the mechanisms that cause a consumer to adopt an innovation. A Job to be Done is the process a consumer goes through whenever she aims to change her existing life-situation into a preferred one, but cannot because there are constraints that stop her.

What is Jobs to be Done

In the factory we make cosmetics; in the drugstore we sell hope.

If you understand the job a consumer aims to complete and the process they are going through, it will make designing the product they need clearer. Consumers don't buy the product, they buy the outcome the product will help them achieve and JTBD helps in understanding the outcome, the motivation to achieve the outcome and the obstacles preventing consumers from doing so no.

Why use Jobs to be Done?

Let's look at "store and retrieve music" or "listen to music". Store and retrieve music - these are tasks, describing how you use a product or what you do with it. Listen to music - that's an activity that depends on the context. Someone listening to music so she can maintain his motivation during a workout others are going to the opera to listen to music.

JTBD is not a task or activity

It answers the question, “How are you better since you started using [product X]? Psychologist Albert Bandura described humans as “proactive, aspiring organisms”. JTBD carries this idea into markets, claiming that we buy and use things to improve ourselves, to make progress. If you’re not describing a Customer Job in terms of progress, you’re probably describing something else.

Job to be Done describe the “better me.”

Ten thousand years ago, we were hunter gatherers and used our feet to roam the earth. Today, we have fast food restaurants and autonomous cars. Why did we change? Because we have an intrinsic desire…

Bite-sized knowledge
to upgrade
your career

#jtbd

IDEAS ABOUT #jtbd

5 Whys Example: The Truth Behind a Monumental Mystery

How to Write Jobs to Be Done Example Statements

It's time to

READ

LIKE

A PRO!

The Core Tenets of Jobs-to-be-Done Theory

What is Jobs to be Done (JTBD)?

Bite-sized knowledgeto upgradeyour career

#jtbd

IDEAS ABOUT #jtbd

5 Whys Example: The Truth Behind a Monumental Mystery

How to Write Jobs to Be Done Example Statements

It's time to

READ

LIKE

A PRO!

The Core Tenets of Jobs-to-be-Done Theory

What is Jobs to be Done (JTBD)?

Bite-sized knowledge
to upgrade
your career