3 proven hacks for The ‘Jobs-to-be-Done’ approach: Empathy that Matters for Learning experience Design with Ger Driesen

This episode of The Digital Adoption Show features Ger Driesen, Learning Innovation Leader at  NewSpring. He has over 30+ years of experience in L&D. He also has been partially self-employed as a leadership and skills trainer for 20 years.

He is a big advocate of the JTBD approach and its relevance in the L&D space. 

Ger Driesen’s journey as an L&D professional and the organizations he has worked with so far.

• Ger has 30 years of experience in the field of L&D. 
• He currently works for NewSpring, a blended learning platform, as a learning innovation leader for six and a half years.
• He also has been partially self-employed as a leadership and skills trainer for 20 years.
• He started his career at a Dutch technical company and moved to Fuji Photo Film as a training manager for the Dutch branch of the Japanese company. He has been in the L&D field his whole career and hopes to continue for many more years.

Ger’s take on the evolution of L&D - the emergence of new tools, tricks, and shortcuts.

• Ger believes that every time something new innovations, give new opportunities to make learning and work more productive and easy. 
• He started his career when PCs were brought into the workplace, and his work as an internal training consultant had to do with organizing and facilitating all kinds of PC software training.
•  From that time to now, he says that the pace of everything has increased. He emphasized that the way we use technology determines whether it's good or bad and thinks it's essential to have a balance between the positive and negative aspects of technology.

The JTBD approach its  relevance from a professional perspective

• The JTBD (Jobs To Be Done) approach, as Ger explains, originates from marketing and innovation literature, but it is a focused empathy approach. 
• It starts with understanding what people are trying to achieve in their life, and what the gains and pains are that they experience in that endeavor. By using empathy to design solutions that optimize the gains and minimize the pains, the approach can be highly relevant from a professional perspective.
• He shares the example of a milkshake study conducted by Clayton Christensen, where the marketing department tried to improve milkshake sales by asking customers about their preferences. However, when they analyzed why people bought milkshakes, they found that commuters wanted something to entertain them during their dull commute and to prevent hunger until lunchtime. By understanding this job to be done, the company made the straws thinner, which lasted even longer, and sales increased.
•  This approach can also be applied to learning and marketing, as it involves identifying the problem and finding a solution based on empathy with the customer's needs.

Different types of Jobs-to-be-Done (JTBD) approaches.

There are four types of JTBD approaches. 

• The first one is called functional jobs to be done, which relates to the tasks or job that people want to accomplish. 
• The second type is emotional jobs to be done, which refers to how a person is feeling or feels during or after completing the functional job.
•  The third type is social jobs to be done, which is more about status and how people perceive the person doing the job. 
• Finally, the fourth type is consumption chain jobs to be done, which has more to do with how easy or hard it is to have access to the solution. 
• These types of JTBD approaches are relevant to different kinds of personas based on the job that they have to do.

Hacks for designers to focus on empathy in learning experience design

• According to Ger, the first hack is to never look at the person, not connected to a job that they want to accomplish, but always connected to the job that they are trying to accomplish. 
• The second hack is to keep in mind the emotional and social aspects of trying to get a job done. 
• Additionally, doing interviews to really understand what people are trying to accomplish is very important. Ger also recommends using the word "exactly" in open-ended questions to open up a different level of answers.

Building a better relationship with technology and employees with a focus on the JTBD approach

The key, Ger explains, is to take into account the emotional and social components attached to introducing new technology or adopting technology. If we have a clear eye on these components, it would be helpful for digital adoption. Combining digital adoption with the jobs-to-be-done approach, focusing on the functional jobs and emotional and social aspects, would be a fruitful combination for building stronger relationships.

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