Theory of Jobs to be Done

Good theories are like good chai — strong, simple, and best shared. Theory of Jobs to be Done qualifies.

The theory's gift is vocabulary. Once you have the word, you can see the thing — in your office, in your family, in the news. Before the word, it was only a vague discomfort after dinner.

It is worth keeping in your pocket not because it is always right, but because it is always available. A tool you carry beats a perfect tool you left at home.

A joint family runs on unspoken job descriptions. The day someone writes them down, half the quarrels lose their employment.

An organisation is only a group of people who have agreed, for now, to pull in roughly the same direction. Carry it lightly. Ideas, like umbrellas, are useful only when actually opened.