People hire products to solve for particular jobs (aka problems) they have. Sometimes the way they use a product is not always how the product was intended to be used. Identify the jobs that your customers are hiring your product to do so that you can accurately map the product to customer needs. Clayton Christensen can explain.
Pattern
1. Collect information about the users of your product or product space.
Interview 8-10 people and identify how they are currently solving the problem that you look to solve. Capture what they say and what they do.
2. Synthesize the information that you've collected from the observations.
Go through your notes, identify snippets that are relevant to what you are looking to understand. Translate those snippets onto sticky notes. Organize those sticky notes into logical groupings. Label each grouping.
3. Conclude what your findings are from what you synthesized.
Summarize your main take aways. Figure out if you need additional observations to be conducted.
4. Plan what you'd like to do next.
If you have enough info to act, move forward. If not, get more data. Identify what job your customers need to have done and what job your customers are hiring your product to do.
Why
In order to build a successful product, you need to understand what job your customers are hiring it to do. Direct observation will provide you with the necessary insights so that you can refine your current solution or build a new one.
