Can you truly create breakthrough innovations with a systematic approach? In this podcast hosted by VNS Health Product Director Mark Bailes, Strategyn Founder & CEO Tony Ulwick speaks on making product innovation predictable. Tony shares his groundbreaking Jobs to Be Done theory and reveals how companies can increase their innovation success rate by understanding customer needs at a deeper level.
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Show Notes
- Innovation is a process, not just a strategy, focused on creating market-winning product concepts
- Jobs to Be Done theory reveals customers buy products to solve specific functional, emotional, and social needs
- 90% of product teams don’t agree on what a customer need actually is, creating innovation barriers
- Define markets by groups of people trying to get a specific job done, not by demographics or technology
- Successful innovation requires getting a job done 15% better than existing solutions
- Unmet customer needs are the key to predictable innovation, not random brainstorming
- There are multiple types of jobs: functional, emotional, social, consumption chain, and financial
- Technology isn’t always the answer – innovative solutions can use existing technology creatively
- The iPhone represents the ultimate platform innovation, serving multiple customer groups simultaneously
- Business model innovation can be as impactful as product innovation
- Align product teams around customer data and unmet needs for more predictable outcomes
- Avoid the “ideas-first” approach that intertwines development and innovation inefficiently
- Solve innovation variables one at a time: market first, then needs, then solution
- Measure innovation success by how significantly a product improves job completion
- Understand different customer types: job executors, buyers, and product support teams
- Innovation should be controllable and focused on specific, measurable improvements
- Long-term vision comes from focusing on stable, consistent jobs over time
- AI and new technologies should be applied to solve specific unmet customer needs
- Executive leadership must support and fund a systematic innovation process
- Customer-centricity means directly connecting organizational actions to what matters most to customers
About the speaker
Tony is the pioneer of Jobs-to-be-Done Theory, the inventor of the Outcome-Driven Innovation® (ODI) process, and the founder of strategy and innovation consulting firm Strategyn. Tony has applied his ODI process at some of the world’s leading companies and across nearly all industries to inform breakthrough innovations—achieving a success rate that is 5 times better than the industry average. Philip Kotler calls Tony “the Deming of innovation” and credits him with bringing predictability to innovation. Published in Harvard Business Review and MIT Sloan Management Review, Tony is also the author of best sellers What Customers Want and JOBS TO BE DONE: Theory to Practice.
About the host
I am passionate about using technology to solve problems and I take great pleasure in helping others to achieve their goals. I live these values every day working in Product.