Mapping where a communications software platform could do more

The question

A software company’s platform was built for PR teams, who lean on it for much of their week. The company was looking for where it could do much more.

The team chose to start from the work itself: what PR professionals are trying to get done, where their tools help, where they get in the way, and which of those jobs offer the most room to grow.

Our approach

We heard from PR professionals in agencies, brands, the public sector and charities who use a mix of tools, so the jobs belonged to the work, whatever the product.

With journalists, the other side of every PR relationship, we talked to people working on the news that PR feeds into, and kept every conversation on the job itself. At the debrief, the product team walked a gallery of the jobs with us, talking through each one.

What the team came away with

With both sides of the PR relationship mapped, the product team could weigh each job by what it means to the people at either end of a story.

The PR work delivered a jobs-to-be-done map, a set of personas and a gallery the team could walk together. The journalist work added a full jobs map, the areas it groups into, a persona and a short guide to using them.

The guide was written for a choice: pick the one or two big jobs that best fit the company’s strengths, then plan against the detailed jobs beneath them, with the personas there to keep real users in view.

Because the jobs describe work people do whatever tool they use, the maps stay useful as the market and the product change.