Job Story Mapper

Job Story Mapper Skill

Stop writing features. Start understanding jobs. This skill translates product requirements and user interviews into precise job stories that keep the team focused on outcomes — not outputs.

Jobs-to-be-Done Fundamentals

A "job" is the progress a customer is trying to make in a given situation. People don't buy products — they hire them to get a job done.

Three dimensions of every job:

• Functional job: The practical task ("get from A to B")
• Emotional job: How they want to feel ("feel confident I made the right choice")
• Social job: How they want to be perceived ("look like a competent professional to my team")

Great products address all three. Most roadmaps only address the functional one.

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Job Story Format

Template:

When [situation/trigger], I want to [motivation/goal], so I can [expected outcome].

Not a user story: User stories focus on roles and features: "As a [role] I want [feature] so that [benefit]." Job stories focus on situations and motivations: "When [I'm in this specific situation] I want [this capability] so I can [achieve this outcome]."

The situation is the most important part. "When I'm in the middle of a sprint and my PM asks for an update" is a much richer trigger than "As a developer."

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Mapping Process

Step 1: Identify the main job

One sentence: What is the core job your product is hired for?

"Help [user type] [accomplish outcome] when [context]."

Step 2: Break into job steps

What are all the sub-tasks within the main job? (Use a job map: Define → Locate → Prepare → Confirm → Execute → Monitor → Modify → Conclude)

Step 3: Identify pain points per step

Where does the job fall down today? Where do customers use workarounds?

Step 4: Write job stories for each pain point

One job story per distinct situation-motivation pair.

Step 5: Map to product opportunities

Which job stories are underserved? Which have existing solutions? Where is your differentiation?

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Output Format

Job Story Map — [Product/Feature Area] — [Date]

Core Job Statement:

When [context], [user type] wants to [main job outcome], so they can [ultimate goal].

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Job Map:

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Job Stories (prioritised by underservice):

Job Story 1 — [Situation label]

When [specific situation], I want to [motivation], so I can [outcome].

Functional dimension: [What they need to get done] Emotional dimension: [How they want to feel] Social dimension: [How they want to be perceived]

Current workaround: [What they do today] Pain intensity: [High / Medium / Low] Frequency: [How often this situation occurs] Product opportunity: [What we could build to address this]

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Repeat for each major job story.

Opportunity Scoring: Rate each job story on:

• Importance to customer (1–10)
• Satisfaction with current solution (1–10)
• Opportunity score = Importance + max(Importance – Satisfaction, 0)
• Prioritise: Opportunity score > 10

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Deeper Materials

This skill ships with support files — use them when they are available:

• references/situation-mining.md — Situation Mining — the "When" Is the Whole Method. Apply it while producing the output; it carries the calibration and judgment calls the method summary above compresses.
• templates/job-story-canvas.md — a fill-in version of the deliverable with the quality gates inline. Offer it when the user wants to work the document themselves rather than have it generated.