Competing Against Luck: The Story of Innovation and Customer Choice

by Clayton M. Christensen

Developing a full understanding of the job can be done by assembling a kind of storyboard that describes in rich detail the customer’s circumstances, moments of struggle, imperfect experiences, and corresponding frustrations. As part of your storyboard, it’s critically important to understand the forces that compel change to a new solution, including the “push” of the unsatisfied job itself and the “pull” of the new solution. It is also critical to understand the forces opposing any change, including the inertia caused by current habits and the anxiety about the new. If the forces opposing change are strong, you can often innovate the experiences you provide in a way that mitigates them, for example by creating experiences that minimize the anxiety of moving to something new.

Push of the unsatisfied job and pull of the new solution