In this playbook, I'll share with you how I do a Quick Discovery using Jobs To Be Done to understand better a problem or opportunity and find possible solutions to solve it.

This process may seem too bureaucratic at first, but as soon as you start applying it repeatedly, you'll get familiar with it and will do it faster.

If you have the right context of the problem it will take only a few minutes. If not, you'll discover that you were about to start solving a problem that you didn't even understand correctly.

These few minutes can save hours or days for you and your team.

When to do a Quick Discovery with Jobs To Be Done?

Always!

If you think a problem or request doesn't worth investing some minutes doing a Quick Discovery, so this is a big signal that the thing doesn't worth to be done.

Quick Discovery with Jobs To Be Done

Job to be done

As a CPO, I need to help my team to learn how to do a Quick Discovery with Jobs To Be done so everyone can do it.

How is it done today?

I have 3 videos showing the whole process, starting with discovering the priority problem with data analysis, understanding the problem with Jobs To Be Done, documenting and finding possible solutions.

When does it fail?

1. When all videos are in Portuguese
2. When the person is beginning this method and doesn't have access to data
3. When the content is private in other company knowledge base, not available to the current team

What happens when it fails?

1. Teammates who don't speak English can't understand
2. The person doesn't know how to start without data
3. The person can't see the content

How do we know the new solution is better?

• A) People from any language can understand the content
• B) The person can start a Quick Discovery without data
• C) The new team can access the content

What are the possible solutions?

• A) English-speaking people can understand the content
•  - Record the video in other languages
•  - Dub the vídeo in other languages
•  - Write the content, so people can use a translator
•    - Write the content, and provide a translation tool within the content
• B) The person can start a Quick Discovery without data
•  - Describe the Quick Discovery as a process that can be done separately, then connect with other processes that can complement it.
• C) The new team can access the content
•  - Add to the new company knowledge base
•  - Share it publicly on the web

What's the quickest and cheapest solution to validate if it solves the problem?

We believe that by writing only the Quick Discovery with Jobs To Be Done process in English and sharing it publicly on the web we can achieve the A, B, and C goals.

That's it!

This was a real Quick Discovery I did that resulted in writing this article.

I didn't start with the article, I started with the Quick Discovery then I wrote the article because this idea showed to be a good one.

I use to do some Quick Discoveries every day. This brings me clarity about what needs to be done and helps me understand the minimum amount of work to reach a result based on the success criteria identified (How do we know the new solution is better?).

I develop this method after reading Research give us the problem, not the answer, by Ryan Singer.

In future articles, I´ll write about details to rapidly find the answers for each question, also about how to find problems and opportunities through data and what to do after the Quick Discovery.

Work smart. Keep growing 🚀