Competing Against Luck
Competing Against Luck: The Story of Innovation and Customer Choice, published in 2016 by Clayton M. Christensen, Taddy Hall, Karen Dillon, and David S. Duncan. The book formalizes the Jobs to be Done theory: customers don’t buy products, they “hire” them to fulfill a specific job in their lives. Innovation succeeds when it addresses these jobs better than existing alternatives. Christensen argues that understanding the job, not the customer demographics, is the causal mechanism behind successful innovation. The framework shifts focus from “who is the customer” to “what progress is the customer trying to make,” providing a practical lens for product strategy and competitive differentiation.