Ben Waber reviewed Competing Against Luck by Clayton Christensen
An Intriguing Approach to Understanding Customer Needs
3 stars
This case study-heavy book explains the jobs-to-be-done theory of product development, providing a powerful framework for businesses hoping to deeply understand their true market. Some of the case studies here have aged extremely poorly - one of the sections on margarine, in particular, would have lead to countless more deaths if Christensen's advice was heeded, for example - and most of the cases could have used a bit more reflection on tradeoffs from tying success too closely to particular jobs-to-be-done. I also wasn't a fan of the attribution of success of some companies to this approach rather than other, more structural factors, with examples from digital platforms being particularly egregious. That being said, this book provides practical and useful grounding for folks in the business community, and if you're not familiar with this approach you should definitely pick this up
This case study-heavy book explains the jobs-to-be-done theory of product development, providing a powerful framework for businesses hoping to deeply understand their true market. Some of the case studies here have aged extremely poorly - one of the sections on margarine, in particular, would have lead to countless more deaths if Christensen's advice was heeded, for example - and most of the cases could have used a bit more reflection on tradeoffs from tying success too closely to particular jobs-to-be-done. I also wasn't a fan of the attribution of success of some companies to this approach rather than other, more structural factors, with examples from digital platforms being particularly egregious. That being said, this book provides practical and useful grounding for folks in the business community, and if you're not familiar with this approach you should definitely pick this up