The reason so many innovators fail and so many products flop is that innovators don’t really understand what it is their customers want. Moreover, they don’t know what inputs they need from customers to make innovation predictable.

The team at Arm & Hammer’s Animal Nutrition business was all too familiar with this challenge. Despite the technical success of their products, the business had suffered through several disappointing product development efforts and launches over the course of several years. Although they had been relying on industry-leading consultants to provide the insights to drive their innovation process, the commercial response to these innovations was lackluster.

Fortunately, all Arm & Hammer needed was a new perspective.

They needed Jobs-to-be-done.

Jobs-to-be-Done is best defined as 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.