thinkhard.SI

Prompt repository Product

Write jobs-to-be-done statements from customer interviews

You have interview notes and want the jobs customers are trying to get done, in their own words, with outcomes you can measure.

Registry no.
PRD-030
Collection
Product
Laid out for
Any chat model
Score
10 out of 10
Blanks to fill
4
Added

ProductAny chat

The prompt

Score 10 of 10, Excellent

Use it when You have interview notes and want the jobs customers are trying to get done, in their own words, with outcomes you can measure.

  • {{audience}}
  • {{product_area}}
  • {{participants}}
  • {{interviews}}
Full prompt and why it works
Prompt
Write jobs-to-be-done statements from the customer interviews below, for {{audience}}, so that the team can judge product ideas against the progress customers are trying to make rather than against the features they ask for.

Product and area of interest: {{product_area}}
Who was interviewed: {{participants}}

Interview notes or transcripts, each with an ID:
"""
{{interviews}}
"""

How to write each statement:
- Use the form "When [situation], I want to [motivation], so I can [expected outcome]."
- The situation is a specific circumstance, such as a trigger, a deadline or a constraint, not a persona or a demographic.
- The motivation is the progress the customer wants, never a feature. "I want to see which invoices are overdue" is a motivation; "I want a dashboard" is not.
- Support each statement with at least one verbatim quote and its interview ID, and count how many interviews support it.

For example: "When a client still hasn't paid at month end, I want to know which invoices are late without opening each one, so I can chase the right people before payroll." That example shows the form only.

Produce:
1. A summary table with the columns Job group, Statement, Interviews (count of total), Strongest quote (ID). Aim for 3 to 8 main statements.
2. For each job group: the statements; any emotional or social jobs the interviews show (how people want to feel or be seen); what they use today instead, including workarounds and doing nothing; and 2 to 4 outcomes to measure, each written as a direction, a measure and an object, for example "Minimize the time it takes to find overdue invoices."
3. Heard once: jobs only one interview supports, listed as signals to test, not findings.
4. Gaps: questions the interviews did not cover that would change the picture.

Keep the text outside the table under 900 words.

Rules:
- Quote only words that appear in the notes. If you paraphrase, say so and do not use quotation marks.
- Keep distinct situations apart, even when the motivation sounds similar; do not merge them to make a job look bigger.
- Refer to people by interview ID only. Leave out names, employers and personal details.

If the notes are summaries rather than the customer's own words, say so at the top and mark statements built on them "from notes, not quotes". If an interview has no ID, number the interviews in the order given and say that you did.

Variables

{{audience}}
Who will use the statements, for example "the product team planning next quarter".
{{product_area}}
The product and the part of the work you are studying, for example "invoicing for small agencies".
{{participants}}
Who you interviewed and how many, for example "12 office managers at small clinics".
{{interviews}}
The interview notes or transcripts, each starting with an ID such as P1, with names removed.

Why it works

  • What good looks like. The motivation must be progress, never a feature, and a pair of examples shows the difference, so the statements stay useful when the solution changes.
  • Background facts. Every statement carries a verbatim quote and a count of interviews, and jobs heard once are kept apart as signals to test.
  • If unsure. Notes that are summaries rather than customers' words are flagged, and statements built on them are marked as such.

How to use it

  1. Press Fill in blanks and type your details into each blank. What you type stays in this browser.
  2. Copy the filled prompt into the AI tool you already use, such as ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini, or open it in the Grader or the Prompt Tester here.
  3. Before you rely on it, try it on three or four real examples. The Prompt Tester runs them all at once and shows which ones go wrong.
Use it from code

Get this prompt as JSON from the free REST API, with your own text in the blanks, or let an AI assistant fetch it through the MCP server. No key.

curl -s https://thinkhard.si/api/v1/prompts/jobs-to-be-done-statements

With the MCP server added to Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor or VS Code, call get_prompt with {"prompt": "jobs-to-be-done-statements"}, or just ask for it by name.