Words, tasks, skills and other thoughts on figuring out what people are trying to do

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Words, tasks, skills and other thoughts on figuring out what people are trying to do

In the fall of 2022, I talked to a group of professionals who had to measure a company's sustainability as part of their role. The goal of these interviews was to understand the steps people take to do their job and identify patterns across industries, verticals.

The conversations with each one of the participants detailed. They were all very systematic people working in fashion, supply chain, accounting, education and consulting. Across individuals and organizations, they spoke of similar processes and challenges. Their job, is primarily one of educating others on standards and policies, asking people for utility bills and communicating how sustainability impacts business.

It isn't rare that people across industries have similar patterns when performing the same task. I examined two transcripts from this interview to look at how they describe their tasks. A popular product strategy framework, Jobs To Be Done, uses a task as the unit of analysis, not market demographics or product features.

• A job: What someone is trying to get done
• Group: People who have to get this job done
• Market: Group of people trying to do a job

Job statement = verb + object of the verb (noun)

For example: Listen to music Locate utility bills Analyze uncertainty

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The Verbs

I compared the words in the transcripts to a list of Bloom's Taxonomy of Measurable Verbs, which matches them to an abstract core skill.

The Humans

I removed name and company from transcripts.

Interview A Supply chain for fashion brand well regarded for their sustainability. Reports to C-level. Works with marketing, auditors, and suppliers.

Top used words:

[('think', 47),
 ('sustainability', 31),
 ('goals', 24),
 ('factories', 15),
 ('process', 11),
 ('big', 11),
 ('people', 10),
 ('industry', 10),
 ('specific', 10),
 ('sort', 10)]

Interview B Ecologist background Works at CPA as a carbon emissions auditor Performs 3rd party audits

Common words words:

[('data', 50),
 ('think', 47),
 ('scope', 44),
 ('emissions', 35),
 ('because', 33),
 ('okay,', 31),
 ('different', 28),
 ('yeah,', 28),
 ('target', 25),
 ('usually', 23)]