JTBD Discovery Techniques

Use when conducting interactive discovery conversations to uncover jobs users are trying to accomplish. Adapted from Bob Moesta's Switch interview methodology for AI-guided feature discovery — the user describes their situation, Luna extracts forces and jobs through structured questioning.

Four Forces Extraction

Map user responses to Four Forces of Progress. Each force has characteristic language patterns to listen for and prompts to surface them.

Force 1: Push of Current Situation

User says: "I'm frustrated that..." | "It keeps breaking when..." | "I waste so much time on..." | "The last straw was when..."

Prompts:

• "What's your biggest frustration with how things work now?"
• "Tell me about the worst experience with the current approach."
• "What finally made this intolerable?"
• "What triggered this request — was there a specific incident?"

Force 2: Pull of New Solution

User says: "I want to be able to..." | "I imagine being able to..." | "My colleague said it could..." | "I need it to..."

Prompts:

• "What would the ideal outcome look like?"
• "What could you do that you can't do now?"
• "What specific capability excites you most about this?"
• "If this worked perfectly, what would change in your workflow?"

Force 3: Anxiety of New Solution

User says: "I'm worried that..." | "What if it doesn't..." | "I'm not sure I can learn..." | "The risk is..."

Prompts:

• "What concerns do you have about this new approach?"
• "What could go wrong that would make you regret this change?"
• "What would need to be true for you to feel safe adopting this?"
• "Is there anything that almost made you not request this?"

Force 4: Habit of Present

User says: "I'm used to..." | "At least with the old way, I know..." | "I've already invested..." | "My team is comfortable with..."

Prompts:

• "What do you like about the current approach, despite its problems?"
• "What feels safe or familiar about staying as-is?"
• "What would you have to give up or relearn?"
• "What workaround have you built that actually works well enough?"

Force Balance Assessment

After extracting forces, assess the balance:

Balance	Meaning	Action
Strong Push + Strong Pull	High motivation to switch	Proceed — real demand
Strong Pull only	Shiny feature syndrome	Probe for Push — is there real pain?
Strong Push + Weak Pull	Pain without clear solution	Explore solution space before committing
Strong Anxiety or Habit	Adoption barriers	Address anxiety in design; plan migration path

Critical rule: Stories driven only by Pull without Push are low-priority candidates. Real jobs have real frustrations.

Job Dimension Probing

Functional Jobs (surface first)

The practical task the user is trying to accomplish.

Questions:

• "What are you trying to get done?"
• "Walk me through the steps you take today."
• "What does 'success' look like in practical terms?"
• "What tools or resources do you use currently?"

Emotional Jobs (require deeper probing)

How the user wants to feel during and after.

Questions:

• "How does the current situation make you feel?"
• "What are you worried about at that point?"
• "When it works (or fails), how does that feel?"
• "What feeling are you trying to avoid?"

Social Jobs (often unarticulated)

How the user wants to be perceived by others.

Questions:

• "Who else is involved or aware of this?"
• "What would your team/manager/stakeholders think?"
• "How does this affect how others see you or your work?"
• "Is there anyone you're trying to impress or reassure?"

Question Bank: Deepening Techniques

Use these patterns to go deeper when surface-level answers are insufficient.

Technique	Pattern	When to Use
Timeline probe	"When did you first realize this was a problem?"	User gives vague frustration without specifics
Contrast probe	"How is this different from [related thing]?"	User conflates multiple concerns
Consequence probe	"What happens if you don't solve this?"	User can't articulate urgency
Concrete probe	"Can you give me a specific example?"	User speaks in generalities
Inversion probe	"What would make this feature useless to you?"	User gives only positive requirements
Scale probe	"How often does this happen? Daily? Weekly?"	User describes pain without magnitude

Anti-Patterns

Anti-Pattern	Problem	Fix
Asking hypotheticals	People are poor predictors of future behavior	Ask about past events that already happened
Yes/no questions	Shallow data, no insight	Open-ended: "Tell me about a time when..."
Leading the witness	Contaminates data	Stay neutral; do not suggest answers or validate
Asking about features	Gets wants, not jobs	Ask about struggles and desired progress
Rushing to solutions	Misses real job	80% of interview on problem, 20% on solutions
Accepting first answer	Surface-level understanding	Probe deeper: "Can you say more about that?"
Projecting emotions	Assumes how user feels	Ask directly: "How did that make you feel?"
Skipping social dimension	Misses organizational context	Always ask who else is affected or aware

Synthesis Pattern

After extracting forces and dimensions, synthesize into job story format:

When [situation/push], I want to [motivation/pull], so I can [outcome/functional+emotional].

Validate with user: "Did I capture that correctly?" Refine until the user confirms.

If multiple jobs emerge, note each separately — opportunity scoring (load jtbd-opportunity-scoring) determines priority.

Cross-References

• For core JTBD theory and job story format: load jtbd-core skill
• For prioritization using opportunity scoring: load jtbd-opportunity-scoring skill
• For translating discoveries to BDD scenarios: load jtbd-bdd-integration skill
• For original Switch interview methodology (human-to-human customer research): see Bob Moesta, "Demand-Side Sales 101"