The moral of the story is to uncover the problems and not jump to solutions. In other words, what is the job to be done? What are the current state, the desired

The moral of the story is to uncover the problems and not jump to solutions. In other words, what is the job to be done? What are the current state, the desired state, and the gap separating the two? Most people I see using this quote often will talk more about Steve Jobs, and ignoring customers or the market and solely relying on intuition and creative genius. I don't know how to put it, but most people who think like that are missing the point. When you develop a product or do consulting, you solve a problem. One must never, ever, forget that. One must also recognize when people are spitting solutions thinking they are giving you problems. Asking "what are you trying to accomplish?" "What's the desired state?" What's hurting you? Why is this a problem? Why is it a problem now or was it there before? If I told you I've solved the problem, what would you look for to check I have actually solved your problem? How do we know we've solved the problem? These are questions we ask over and over again in different forms working with our clients, because not doing so would lead us to solving the wrong problem or adopting the wrong solution to the underlying problem. You peel away layers of solutions and get right down to the actual problem, and once you do that, you can start solving that problem. That is the moral of the quote. The job to be done may be to transport something from point A to point B, work the land, court a lady, etc. A faster horse is a "solution" or an "implementation" of the customer, not the the problem. XY problem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XY_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XY_problem