Future Jobs to Be Done
Ipsos spins the traditional “Jobs to Be Done” framework forward with future Jobs to Be Done (fJTBD).
This builds on the theory that people buy products and services to fulfill certain needs or accomplish specific tasks. For example, we don’t buy a baby monitor; we hire it to help us keep an eye on our babies as they sleep and to give us peace of mind so that we can sleep. We don’t buy our kids jackets; we hire them to help our kids be fashionable, express themselves, and keep them warm.
To bring it into the future, we envision powerful and plausible scenarios through strategic foresight. While many needs are enduring and do not change over time, the context of that job will change along with the potential solutions and alternatives. These scenarios help us define the circumstances in which people may find themselves, like considering how to balance providing for their children with affording daycare and life expenses vs. actually being there for them. We use fJTBD to tie these scenarios to actions that organizations can take to help people meet future needs.
While it’s typical in foresight to create fJTBD clusters, we’re sharing one scenario here as an example.
Help me take care of my family, our present and our future
In a world where our population is rapidly aging, the roles of family members have shifted as more households are multi-generational ones. Parents are working more than ever with grandparents taking on more of a daily caregiving role for their grandkids. Of course, parents don't want to be left out of rearing our most precious resource: our kids.
Potential fJTBD:
- Help me be fully present at the key daily and life moments of my kids
- Help me seamlessly shift between work mode, parent mode and elder caregiver mode
- Prevent me from missing out on anything important (work promotions, kids' milestones, unexpected curveballs, etc.)
Imagine a world where ... adults of working ages are needed to power our economy and pay for increasingly unaffordable day care and elder care. In this world, there are more multi-generational households where everyone has a key role to play.
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