# The Jobs-to-be-Done Pyramid ## PROMPT 0 — Retrieval, provenance, and source limits ### Source record The local EPUB identifies this as W. Scott Burleson’s 2025 first edition, published by Palustris Press, ISBN 9781734695083 and ASIN B0DJS137SS. The EPUB archive passes integrity testing. Its OPF metadata, title and copyright pages, navigation file, and complete spine agree on the work’s identity. The local source provides complete Layer 1 coverage: introduction; a neuroscience section; twelve chapters; conclusion; three appendix guides; glossary; and author material. It contains no semantic reader-highlights. The installed environment has neither Readwise tooling nor a Readwise record for this task, so this review uses stable chapter anchors such as `JTBD-C07` rather than highlight IDs. The book’s own strongest source-limit disclosure appears in chapter 12: its Zpacks, Atlantic Packaging, and LEGO Education examples use secondary information and informed judgment as illustrative models, rather than primary research or field-validated case studies. That candor improves the book’s teaching value but caps the evidence for its claimed strategic results. ### Attribution and use contract | Layer | Use | Limit | | --- | --- | --- | | L1 | Burleson’s framework, taxonomy, process, examples, and explicit cautions | One practitioner-author; limited research detail | | L2 | [Christensen et al.’s 2016 JTBD account](https://hbr.org/2016/09/know-your-customers-jobs-to-be-done) | Supports the wider JTBD tradition, not the Pyramid’s unique layers | | L3 | [Microsoft Research’s JTBD overview](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/articles/jobs-to-be-done-a-useful-framework-for-driving-customer-value/) and later customer-insight research | External context, not validation of each Pyramid claim | | L4 | Vault links and suggested experiments | My analysis; never Burleson’s claims | The book asks product, marketing, sales, CX, and innovation practitioners to organize a customer’s motivations as product interaction, core outcomes, role identity, image identity, and emotions. I treat this as a research scaffold, not a license to infer hidden psychology from telemetry, community posts, or a single interview. ### Vault connection contract This review connects most directly to [[3. Resources/MOCs/DevRel MOC]], [[4. Archives/Book reviews/The Jobs to Be Done Playbook]], [[4. Archives/Book reviews/Jobs to Be Done — Theory to Practice]], [[4. Archives/Book reviews/Mastering Community Management]], [[4. Archives/Book reviews/The Community Manager’s Playbook]], [[4. Archives/Book reviews/On Value Creation in Developer Relations (DevRel) - A Practitioners' Perspective]], [[3. Resources/Permanent Notes/A Metric Is Vanity Only Against Your Own Outcome Data]], [[3. Resources/Permanent Notes/A Feedback Signal Not More Automation Is What Makes a System Self-Improving]], and [[3. Resources/Literature Notes/Making Data-Driven Product Decisions]]. The practical connection is not “apply marketing psychology to developers.” It is to ask a bounded, testable question: what progress is a developer, maintainer, community organizer, or technical buyer trying to make in a stated situation, and what product, documentation, support, or community conditions block it? ## PROMPT 1 — Contract, questions, priors, and drift > [!warning] Inferred inputs > No personal purpose or prior beliefs were supplied with this file. I infer a professional purpose from the book’s product-strategy subject and its adjacency to the vault’s DevRel and community-management material. Replace this inference if your reason for reading differs. ### Reading contract - **Purpose:** test whether the Pyramid improves product and DevRel discovery without flattening people into marketing targets. - **Practical use:** write sharper interview prompts, distinguish product friction from desired outcome, and keep feedback signals tied to decisions. - **Success:** retain useful distinctions between product, core, role, image, and emotional jobs; identify where research must validate them. - **Mind-changing evidence:** repeated research showing the five layers collapse in a given product context, or that they add no decision value beyond existing journey and outcome methods. - **What the source cannot establish:** prevalence of any job, causal product impact, accuracy of the illustrative examples, or a person’s identity from behavior traces. - **Constraints:** no reader emphasis, no interview transcripts, no raw opportunity-rating data, and no independent field evaluation of the proprietary method. ### Open questions 1. Is a job a long-lived goal, a situational outcome, or a product-use step? 2. When does “role identity” differ cleanly from “image identity”? 3. Does a pyramid imply a hierarchy that the author’s cross-level connections deny? 4. What evidence supports a five-level taxonomy over a simpler functional/social/emotional model? 5. How can an interview distinguish an aspiration from a socially desirable answer? 6. Can a Product Job be important without being the primary reason for adoption? 7. Which jobs are stable across contexts and which change with time, power, disability, or culture? 8. How are opportunity ratings produced, calibrated, and audited? 9. Who gets to define the “job executor” persona? 10. How does the Market Lens prevent false generalization while avoiding narrow stereotypes? 11. When should a product team leave an identity or emotional need alone instead of designing toward it? 12. What does valid consent look like when analyzing community and support data for motivation? 13. Can the framework aid DevRel without turning a voluntary community relationship into a conversion funnel? 14. What evidence distinguishes a cross-level-impact job from an attractive story? 15. How do accessibility barriers alter product jobs, core jobs, roles, images, and emotions? 16. Which decisions improve when the Pyramid is used, compared with a journey map plus direct user research? ### Prior seeds | Claim | Prior | Why | Evidence needed | | --- | ---: | --- | --- | | Customer progress is often more useful than demographics alone | Moderate-high | JTBD’s core reframing is broadly useful | Comparative research and decisions improved | | Product interaction friction can block desired outcomes | High | Direct mechanism and common usability evidence | Task observation | | Identity influences product choices | Moderate-high | Plausible and supported by wider motivation research | Interview and behavioral triangulation | | Five levels are universally distinct | Low | Human motives overlap and categories are cultural | Cross-context validation | | Job statements alone predict product success | Low | Markets, pricing, trust, access, and power also matter | Prospective comparative studies | | User research can ask about emotion and identity ethically | Moderate | Depends on consent, method, and data policy | Participant-centered protocol | | A framework can improve cross-functional alignment | Moderate | Shared language can help, though it may enforce bad assumptions | Decision-quality comparison | ### Drift assumptions The author’s 2025 claims remain fixed. Evaluation context can change quickly: AI-assisted research tools, privacy law and platform policy, market categories, accessibility standards, identity terminology, and what product analytics can infer. Reassess applied templates at least annually or whenever collection of sensitive motivational data changes. ## PROMPT 2 — Inspectional map and central project ### Book map | Unit | Purpose | Coverage anchor | | --- | --- | --- | | Introduction + neuroscience | Frames decision-making as functional, emotional, and identity-related | JTBD-INTRO | | 1. What is JTBD? | Explains progress and solution-agnostic jobs | JTBD-C01 | | 2. Overview | Introduces five linked levels | JTBD-C02 | | 3. Customer job of the Pyramid | Defines the framework’s own use | JTBD-C03 | | 4. Other motivational models | Compares Maslow, SDT, and reinforcement theory | JTBD-C04 | | 5–9. The five levels | Defines Product, Core, Role Identity, Image Identity, Emotional Jobs | JTBD-C05–C09 | | 10–12. Strategic analysis | Provides Market Lens, inventory, profiles, pathways, and illustrative analyses | JTBD-C10–C12 | | Conclusion + appendices | Explains scope, templates, rigor options, and glossary | JTBD-CONC; JTBD-APP | ### Central project Burleson argues that customary JTBD language bundles too much inside “functional” and “emotional” jobs. He proposes a five-level model: Product Jobs, Core Jobs, Role Identity Jobs, Image Identity Jobs, and Emotional Jobs. The model organizes a strategic analysis around a Market Lens: company, product category, job executor persona, use context, and core-job anchor. It then asks teams to list jobs, identify underserved levels, identify cross-level relationships, and make recommendations. The method is practitioner explanation and worked modeling. The audience is product, innovation, marketing, sales, customer-experience, and strategy teams. The modes are teach, persuade, sell a proprietary framework, and provide an implementation template. The best reading strategy is **full analytical read plus syntopical comparison**: the book is useful as a vocabulary and workflow but needs comparison with established JTBD, user research, accessibility practice, and real decision outcomes. ### Provisional summary This book reorganizes Jobs-to-be-Done as an “innovation architecture” for a customer’s full motivational situation. Product Jobs cover acquisition, preparation, use, maintenance, and disposal. Core Jobs state the larger solution-agnostic outcome. Role Identity Jobs express a person’s enacted role; Image Identity Jobs cover how they see themselves or seek to be perceived; Emotional Jobs name states to seek or avoid. Burleson does not treat the layers as separate silos: product execution can support higher aims, while identity and emotion can change how product use is judged. His strategic analysis adds a Market Lens, job inventory, opportunity and performance ratings, innovation profile, cross-level-impact hypotheses, cross-level connections, and strategic pathways. The model gives teams language for motivation that standard feature, persona, and journey discussions can miss. Its chief open question is empirical: the source establishes the framework’s coherence and teaching value more clearly than it establishes the five-layer taxonomy’s validity or predictive advantage. ## PROMPT 3 — Classification and terminology controls ### Classification This is a practitioner business book and proprietary product-strategy framework. It builds on JTBD and Outcome-Driven Innovation traditions, while also borrowing selectively from motivation theories. It is neither a validated psychological scale nor an empirical study. ### Controlled vocabulary | Term | Author’s use | Operational use here | Risk | Source | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | JTBD | Progress a person seeks in a situation | Outcome to investigate independent of one solution | Treating a task as the job | C01 | | Product Job | Acquisition, preparation, usage, maintenance, disposal | Interaction needed to realize value | Calling it the ultimate outcome | C05 | | Core Job | Solution-agnostic functional outcome | Stated outcome that anchors the analysis | Making it too broad to research | C06; C11 | | Role Identity Job | Who someone seeks to be through action | Enacted role aspiration | Collapsing social expectation and self-chosen identity | C07 | | Image Identity Job | Desired self-perception or others’ perception | Reputation or self-image outcome | Confusing image with a feeling | C08 | | Emotional Job | Feeling to seek or avoid | Momentary experiential state | Treating all nonfunctional motives as emotion | C09 | | Market Lens | Company, category, persona, context, Core Job | Explicit research boundary | Reifying a fictional persona | C11 | | Job executor | Person doing the job | Research participant in a named context | Ignoring co-users, gatekeepers, and affected people | C11 | | Opportunity rating | Estimate of unmet need | A decision input only when method is documented | False numerical precision | C10–C12 | | Innovation profile | Most underserved motivational area | Hypothesis about where to investigate | Presuming a level causes strategy success | C10 | | Cross-level-impact job | Job proposed to affect several levels | Testable cross-level hypothesis | Calling a persuasive story causal evidence | C10 | | Cross-level connection | Relation among jobs across layers | Explicit mechanism to test | Assuming a strict hierarchy | C02; C10 | ### Category-error watchlist | Risk | Status | Control | | --- | --- | --- | | Description confused with prescription | Present | State when the book describes a model versus recommends an action | | Identity confused with behavior | Present | Ask participants how they name the aspiration; do not infer it from clicks | | Correlation confused with causation | Present | Require comparison, timing, and alternatives for claimed impact | | Persona confused with population | Present | Treat personas as research aids, not demographic truth | | Emotion confused with moral entitlement to persuade | Present | Add consent and manipulation review | | Absence of evidence confused with evidence of absence | Present | Record missing voices and research gaps separately | | Taxonomy mistaken for natural hierarchy | Present | Test cross-level and context-specific relations | ## PROMPT 4 — Claims, evidence, and dependencies ### Claim inventory | ID | Claim | Type | Label | Expected evidence | Falsifier | Anchor | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | C-001 | People hire solutions to make progress in a circumstance. | Definitional | EA | Interviews and switching evidence | Decisions not explained by a stated progress goal | C01 | | C-002 | Jobs should be solution-agnostic. | Methodological | EA | Alternatives serving the same outcome | Outcome only exists with one product form | C01 | | C-003 | Functional/emotional labels blur important motivations. | Interpretive | EA | Coded interview ambiguity | Clear reliable separation with old labels | C02 | | C-004 | Product Jobs include acquisition through disposal. | Definitional | EA | Journey observation | A recurring interaction outside this scope | C05 | | C-005 | Product friction can block realization of a Core Job. | Causal | EA | Task observation and abandonment analysis | Core outcome unaffected by major friction | C05 | | C-006 | Core Jobs describe solution-agnostic goals. | Definitional | EA | Cross-solution research | No stable outcome across alternatives | C06 | | C-007 | Role Identity Jobs concern being someone through action. | Definitional | EA | Participant language and context | Job is only a feeling or image | C07 | | C-008 | Image Identity Jobs concern being seen or seeing oneself in a way. | Definitional | EA | Participant self-description | No image element is present | C08 | | C-009 | Emotional Jobs concern sought or avoided experience. | Definitional | EA | Accounts of feeling and situation | Reframed claim is only functional or identity-based | C09 | | C-010 | The five levels can organize a fuller motivational analysis. | Methodological | EA | Independent coding reliability and decision comparison | No added explanatory or decision value | C02 | | C-011 | Cross-level job links can reveal strategic priorities. | Causal/practical | EA | Prospective intervention and outcome evidence | Identified links fail to change decisions or outcomes | C10 | | C-012 | The Market Lens improves coherence by fixing actor, context, category, company, and core job. | Methodological | EA | Replicated analyses with less scope drift | Equivalent analysis works without context boundary | C11 | | C-013 | Opportunity ratings identify underserved needs. | Practical | EA | Transparent measurement and external outcomes | Ratings fail to correlate with unmet need or decisions | C10–C12 | | C-014 | The worked examples demonstrate the framework’s application. | Pedagogical | EA | Reader ability to reproduce process | Readers cannot reproduce it with real data | C12 | | C-015 | The examples establish real market opportunity. | Empirical | EA-limited | Primary research and market tests | Book itself says examples are illustrative simulations | C12 | | C-016 | A careful DevRel study can use jobs to connect product friction to intended progress. | Practical | RI | Ethical interviews, support research, outcome checks | No decision difference versus existing process | Review inference | | C-017 | Identity and emotion require consent and a non-manipulation boundary. | Ethical | RI | Research governance and participant feedback | Surveillance or coercion is needed to make it work | Review inference | | C-018 | A job inventory must include people affected by, not only executing, a product workflow. | Practical | RI | Stakeholder and harm mapping | Executor-only model captures material effects adequately | Review inference | EA = explicit author claim. RI = review inference, not Burleson’s sentence. C-015 is materially weakened by the author’s own limitation statement. ### Dependency graph ```mermaid flowchart TD A["Situation and progress claim C-001"] --> B["Core Job C-006"] A --> C["Product Job C-004"] B --> D["Role, Image, Emotional distinctions C-007 to C-009"] C --> E["Five-level inventory C-010"] D --> E F["Market Lens C-012"] --> E E --> G["Cross-level hypotheses C-011"] E --> H["Opportunity ratings C-013"] G --> I["Strategic pathways"] H --> I J["Consent, accessibility, affected people C-017 to C-018"] -.-> E J -.-> I ``` The load-bearing claim is C-010: the five levels must add a useful distinction beyond current JTBD practice. C-011 and C-013 can fail independently; a useful taxonomy does not prove cross-level effects or rating validity. ## PROMPT 5 — Evidence and calibration policy This book offers conceptual definitions, practitioner experience, illustrative examples, and process templates. It offers no independent sample, coding protocol, effect size, raw rating data, or pre-registered comparison. I use qualitative confidence bands and reserve numbers for a future applied study. | Band | Meaning | | --- | --- | | High | Clear definition or direct task mechanism, though not universal | | Moderate | Plausible framework claim with relevant limits | | Low | Claim needs independent validation or rests on illustrations | | N/A | Normative/ethical proposition, not empirically adjudicated | | Calibration risk | Severity | Reason | | --- | --- | --- | | Author/source dependence | High | The book repeatedly draws on one practitioner perspective | | Selection and survivorship bias | High | Examples are chosen to teach the method | | False precision | High | Opportunity and performance ratings are described without data here | | Confirmation bias | Moderate | A proprietary model has commercial and reputational incentives | | Proxy error | High | Analytics or stated preference may not disclose identity or emotion | | Cultural overgeneralization | Moderate-high | Five-layer language may travel differently across contexts | ## PROMPT 6 — Analytical scaffold ### Argument spine 1. Product teams should study progress, not feature lists or demographics alone. 2. Traditional JTBD leaves product interaction and identity motives insufficiently separated. 3. The Pyramid separates Product, Core, Role Identity, Image Identity, and Emotional Jobs. 4. A Market Lens makes a specific analysis coherent. 5. Inventory, ratings, cross-level connections, and profiles turn the map into recommendations. 6. Teams should validate the map through voice-of-customer research and feedback loops. ### Chapter scan | Area | Main contribution | Counterevidence or limitation | | --- | --- | --- | | C01–C04 | Reframes customer motivation and contrasts adjacent theories | Comparisons are selective and not formal theory tests | | C05–C09 | Defines the five levels and suggested linguistic forms | Boundaries can overlap; no reliability study supplied | | C10–C11 | Provides analysis components and a scope-setting Market Lens | Ratings and cross-level-impact classification need method detail | | C12 | Makes the workflow concrete through examples | Examples are simulations, not validated cases | | Appendix | Supplies a reproducible sequence and several rigor levels | Sequence cannot replace representative, consented research | ### Evidence ledger | Evidence | Supports | Independence | Quality | Limit | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Author experience | Framework usability | Low | Practitioner insight | No external audit | | Milkshake account and JTBD lineage | Core JTBD orientation | Medium | Widely circulated conceptual case | Case story, not proof of Pyramid | | Motivation-model comparisons | Need for conceptual distinctions | Medium | Useful orientation | Simplifies competing theories | | Three simulated analyses | How to fill the template | Low | Clear demonstration | No field validation | | Appendix methods | Research sequencing | Low-medium | Practical checklist | Method quality depends on execution | The weakest link is the move from a clearer five-level description to the claim that an Innovation Profile or cross-level-impact job produces better strategy. Repair: test decisions prospectively against a simpler JTBD/journey-map baseline, publish how ratings are derived, and include disconfirming interviews. ## PROMPT 7 — Fair evaluation ### Strongest reconstruction Burleson’s best argument is modest: teams fail when they treat customer behavior as feature use or demographic profile, and a shared vocabulary can make functional, identity, image, and emotional material discussable. His Pyramid can guide interviews, synthesis, and product discussion by locating each claim in a named layer and a stated context. This does not require the layers to be a natural hierarchy, only that they help people notice and test different kinds of motivation. ### Claim evaluation | Claims | Grade | Conclusion | | --- | --- | --- | | C-001–C-002 | B | Strongly aligned with established JTBD framing; still needs situational research | | C-003–C-009 | B/C | Useful distinctions, but their separability is asserted more than tested | | C-010 | C | Plausible organizational taxonomy; lacks reliability and comparative evidence | | C-011 | C | A good hypothesis generator, not demonstrated causal strategy evidence | | C-012 | B | Context boundary is a sound research discipline | | C-013 | D | Ratings cannot be judged without instrument, sample, and validation detail | | C-014 | B | Examples clearly teach process | | C-015 | F | The source’s own simulation disclaimer blocks an empirical reading | | C-016–C-018 | B/N/A | Sensible applied safeguards; they are review conclusions | The grade pattern shows a valuable method for noticing and organizing questions, with weak evidence for predictive superiority. The book earns trust by warning that chapter 12 is illustrative. It does not earn a claim that the examples prove market results. ### Repairs and counter-observations - Narrow C-010: the model is a **candidate coding and discussion framework**, not a universal map of human motivation. - Narrow C-011: cross-level links are **testable hypotheses**, not established causal amplifiers. - Replace C-013’s apparent precision with transparent qualitative ranking until evidence supports quantitative ratings. - Retain C-012 and require a second lens for affected non-executors, such as administrators, caregivers, contributors, or people excluded by design. - Credit the author’s C12 disclosure as a counter-observation against overclaiming. It explicitly instructs practitioners to conduct their own customer research. ### Bias scan The main concern is **framework confirmation**: a proprietary named Pyramid and training/consulting pathway create incentives to treat a new taxonomy as necessary. The text also risks **anecdotal fallacy** when familiar cases and hypothetical scenarios stand in for validation. This is not proof of bad faith. It is a reason to make application falsifiable and participant-accountable. ## PROMPT 8 — Systems, history, and vault synthesis ### Intellectual context The book belongs to the Clayton Christensen, Bob Moesta, Tony Ulwick, and Outcome-Driven Innovation branch of product discovery. Its core “hire a solution for progress” framing is compatible with Christensen and colleagues’ account of jobs as circumstance-specific progress, which includes functional, social, and emotional dimensions ([HBR](https://hbr.org/2016/09/know-your-customers-jobs-to-be-done)). Burleson’s distinctive proposal is to divide social/identity material into Role Identity and Image Identity, and product-use interactions into Product Jobs. This is a **convergent**, not causal, connection with the vault’s community notes: both this framework and community practice ask what people are trying to accomplish in a real situation. They operate at different units of analysis. JTBD maps an individual or participant’s progress; community practice examines shared knowledge, power, and relationship conditions. Do not substitute one for the other. ### Network connections | Vault note | Connection | Productive tension | | --- | --- | --- | | [[4. Archives/Book reviews/Mastering Community Management]] | RENEW and role-based community work can be examined through participant progress | Community care must not become identity-targeted conversion work | | [[4. Archives/Book reviews/The Community Manager’s Playbook]] | Community strategy and listening need a context-and-outcome boundary | Brand objectives differ from member-defined benefit | | [[4. Archives/Book reviews/On Value Creation in Developer Relations (DevRel) - A Practitioners' Perspective]] | DevRel value needs a chain from activity to developer outcome and organizational decision | Developer adoption cannot be reduced to a product funnel | | [[3. Resources/Permanent Notes/A Metric Is Vanity Only Against Your Own Outcome Data]] | Opportunity ratings require a stated outcome and baseline | A rating without method can create metric theater | | [[3. Resources/Permanent Notes/A Feedback Signal Not More Automation Is What Makes a System Self-Improving]] | Jobs guide what feedback question to ask | Feedback must have a decision and response path | | [[3. Resources/Literature Notes/Making Data-Driven Product Decisions]] | Market Lens and job inventory can structure evidence | Data cannot infer motive without research context | ### Systems map ```mermaid flowchart LR P["Participant in a stated context"] --> J["Progress / Core Job"] F["Product Jobs and friction"] --> J R["Role Identity"] --> J I["Image Identity"] --> J E["Emotional experience"] --> J J --> D["Research evidence and synthesis"] D --> S["Product, docs, DevRel, or community decision"] G["Consent, accessibility, power, affected people"] -.-> D G -.-> S ``` ## PROMPT 9 — DEIB, accessibility, and transfer audit ### Strengths The book rejects a purely functional account of people. It gives language for aspiration, self-perception, and emotion, which can prevent teams from calling these dimensions irrational noise. Its Market Lens also makes use context explicit, a necessary start for accessible and multicultural research. ### Risks and controls | Risk | Why it matters | Control | | --- | --- | --- | | Identity capture | Teams may infer identity from product behavior or community data | Ask only purpose-limited, consented questions; do not profile hidden identity | | Cultural flattening | “Role” and “image” vary across culture, class, disability, religion, and family structure | Test language with participants and permit local categories | | Ableist baseline | Product friction may be treated as generic rather than access-specific | Include assistive technology, cognitive load, sensory, and time constraints in Product Jobs | | Persona stereotyping | A composite can harden assumptions about gender, race, career level, or income | Document evidence and counterexamples; recruit beyond the default user | | Manipulative application | Emotional and image jobs can become pressure tactics | Prohibit dark patterns and fear-based messaging; retain user choice | | Digital divide | Remote research may exclude people by bandwidth, device, language, or schedule | Offer accessible formats and compensated participation routes | ### Transferability | Context | Adaptation | | --- | --- | | Developer documentation | Map the Core Job and Product Jobs, then test accessibility and time pressure | | Open-source contributor community | Separate contributor agency from sponsor goals; include governance and recognition risks | | Health, finance, employment, or education | Add subject-matter ethics review; do not make identity claims from inference | | Global product | Conduct local research and translate concepts, not just wording | | Small volunteer community | Keep the inventory small; do not impose corporate scoring systems | The prose is readable for business practitioners. Reference density is moderate because it assumes JTBD vocabulary and lightly summarizes psychology. The book needs companion reading on research ethics, accessibility, and power before use in vulnerable or high-stakes settings. ## PROMPT 10 — Notes pipeline ### Fleeting notes - A product’s acquisition, setup, maintenance, and disposal path can decide whether a larger outcome is ever reached. - “Core Job” should name progress in a situation, not a feature request. - Identity language needs direct participant evidence, not behavioral guesswork. - A Market Lens is a useful anti-vagueness control, but it must include affected people as well as the executor. - A cross-level-impact job is a hypothesis until a change and outcome support it. - A product framework can organize discovery without replacing research. ### Literature notes | Candidate | Source anchor | Connection | | --- | --- | --- | | Product Jobs versus Core Jobs | JTBD-C05–C06 | [[3. Resources/Literature Notes/Making Data-Driven Product Decisions]] | | Role, Image, and Emotional Jobs | JTBD-C07–C09 | [[4. Archives/Book reviews/Mastering Community Management]] | | Market Lens | JTBD-C11 | [[3. Resources/MOCs/DevRel MOC]] | | Simulated examples limitation | JTBD-C12 | [[3. Resources/Permanent Notes/A Metric Is Vanity Only Against Your Own Outcome Data]] | | Research rigor ladder | JTBD-APP | [[3. Resources/Permanent Notes/A Feedback Signal Not More Automation Is What Makes a System Self-Improving]] | ### Permanent-note candidates 1. **A five-layer job map is a research scaffold, not a psychological diagnosis.** Confidence: high. Scope: product discovery with direct participant research. 2. **Product friction can prevent a desired outcome before feature value is reached.** Confidence: high. Scope: journeys involving acquisition, preparation, use, maintenance, or disposal. 3. **Identity claims need participant testimony and consent, not analytics inference.** Confidence: high. Scope: product, DevRel, and community research. 4. **A Market Lens improves analysis only when it names context and affected people.** Confidence: medium-high. Scope: scoped product decision work. 5. **Opportunity ratings have no decision authority without an explicit method and outcome baseline.** Confidence: high. Scope: strategy prioritization. Do not attribute any permanent-note candidate or cross-vault connection to Burleson as written. They are review inferences. ## PROMPT 11 — Teaching pack ### Audience and objectives For product, DevRel, community, support, and documentation teams with basic customer-research literacy. By the end, learners can: 1. distinguish Product, Core, Role Identity, Image Identity, and Emotional Jobs; 2. write a Market Lens that includes context and affected people; 3. identify claims requiring direct research rather than framework confidence; 4. apply consent and accessibility controls to a job-discovery exercise. ### Session plan | Session | Activity | Misconception check | | --- | --- | --- | | 1. Map a situation | Convert a feature request into Product and Core Job hypotheses | A job is not the feature requested | | 2. Test higher layers | Compare role, image, and emotional statements from interview excerpts | Do not infer identity from demographic or telemetry data | | 3. Build a Market Lens | Name actor, affected people, category, context, and Core Job | A persona does not prove a population claim | | 4. Choose a decision | Link one evidence-backed job to a reversible product or documentation change | A rating is not validation | ### Facilitator cautions - Do not teach the Pyramid as settled motivational science. - Do not ask participants to disclose identity, disability, trauma, or financial circumstances without a clear purpose and choice. - Use fictional or participant-provided low-risk cases; do not mine community data as a covert study. - Explain that chapter 12 examples are illustrative simulations. ## PROMPT 12 — Actions, experiments, and drift ### Action inventory - **Take:** Use a short Market Lens before a DevRel or product-discovery interview set. - **Consider:** Add Product Job friction to documentation, onboarding, and event-registration retrospectives. - **Avoid:** Treating “emotional” or “identity” insight as permission to optimize dependence, anxiety, or social pressure. - **Need evidence:** Whether the five-layer model changes a real prioritization decision better than current research tools. The most likely misuse is using the Pyramid as a polished rationalization for a preselected roadmap or growth tactic. The control is to predefine the decision, invite disconfirming evidence, and preserve an option to make no change. ### Reversible experiments | Experiment | Hypothesis | Measure | Stop condition | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Map one onboarding issue | Product friction blocks a stated Core Job | Task evidence, help requests, participant explanation | Stop if research turns into individual performance tracking | | Run five consented interviews | Role/image/emotion categories add useful context | Coded themes and decision difference | Stop if categories feel imposed or sensitive data is unnecessary | | Compare two planning briefs | Market Lens reduces scope confusion | Team can state actor, context, outcome, and exclusions | Reject if it adds ceremony without decision clarity | | Audit one community program | Sponsor goal and member progress diverge in places | Published trade-offs and member feedback | Pause if feedback has no response path | | Record a null finding | A presumed cross-level-impact job does not change the decision | Decision log and counterexample | Keep the null record; do not rewrite it as success | ### Decision rules and drift Adopt a template only if direct research changes a decision and participants find the language accurate. Adapt it if Product/Core distinctions help but the identity taxonomy does not. Defer if no research capacity or consent path exists. Reject a claimed opportunity rating when its method, denominator, or outcome baseline is missing. Review every 12 months for privacy policy, AI-research capability, accessibility practices, product category shifts, and terminology changes. The 2025 text and its source anchors do not themselves drift. ## PROMPT 13 — Visual thinking pack ### Pyramid model ```mermaid flowchart BT P["Level 1: Product Jobs\nAcquire, prepare, use, maintain, dispose"] C["Level 2: Core Jobs\nSolution-agnostic progress"] R["Level 3: Role Identity\nBe someone who acts"] I["Level 4: Image Identity\nSee or be seen as"] E["Level 5: Emotional Jobs\nFeel or avoid feeling"] P --> C --> R --> I --> E E -. "cross-level influence; test, do not assume" .-> P ``` ### Applied analysis map ```mermaid flowchart LR L["Market Lens\nactor, affected people, category, context, Core Job"] --> J["Five-level job hypotheses"] J --> R["Consented research and disconfirming evidence"] R --> O["Opportunity / performance assessment"] O --> D["Reversible decision"] X["Accessibility, privacy, and power review"] -.-> L X -.-> R N["Null findings"] -.-> D ``` ### Comparison matrix | Tool | Best question | Does not replace | | --- | --- | --- | | JTBD Pyramid | What layers of progress and motivation should we investigate? | Representative research | | Journey map | Where does the experience break down? | Outcome definition | | Persona | Whose context differs materially? | Evidence about all people in a segment | | Community analysis | How do relationships, governance, and shared practice shape outcomes? | Individual job research | | Metrics dashboard | What changed? | Causal explanation or participant meaning | No timeline is included because the book is conceptual rather than chronological. No causal-loop diagram is included because the source proposes cross-level links but does not establish feedback dynamics strongly enough. ## Session completion check | Check | Result | | --- | --- | | Source identity and EPUB integrity verified | PASS | | Complete source coverage recorded | PASS | | Reader-emphasis substitution disclosed | PASS | | Prompts 0–13 have usable output | PASS | | Prompt 7 uses Prompt 5 calibration and Prompt 6 scaffold | PASS | | Author claims and review inferences separated | PASS | | Simulated-example limitation preserved | PASS | | DEIB, accessibility, consent, and power audit included | PASS | | Existing vault connections verified as outbound links | PASS | | One-file constraint honored | PASS | ### Final verdict The Pyramid is a well-explained research and synthesis scaffold. Its practical advance is the separation of product interaction, outcome, role, image, and feeling, plus a context-setting Market Lens. Use it to create better questions and to locate product friction that ordinary feature discussions miss. Do not treat its levels as a universal psychology, its ratings as validated measures, or its identity vocabulary as a substitute for consented research. Its best contribution to this vault is a disciplined bridge between a feedback signal, an actual person’s stated progress, and a product or DevRel decision that can still be revised.