Jobs-to-be-done at scale: Disrupting the status quo with customer focus

This paper shows how Stepstone leveraged the Jobs-to-be-done (JTBD) framework to achieve customer focus at scale. Transformations typically span a decade and often fall short of initial goals. In under three years, however, Stepstone successfully ingrained a strong customer-focused mindset throughout the organisation, with tangible contributions to its product pipeline. Four phases were critical. First, recognising the need for change, setting a vision and getting senior leadership in touch with JBTD was critical. Secondly, an extensive customer research project identifying opportunities was conducted; indepth qualitative research uncovered Jobs-to-be-done and unmet user needs and a large sample size survey quantified these unmet needs. Thirdly, internal JTBD champions in the product and research departments were trained on the insights and provided with tools to apply them in workshops across the organisation. Finally, JTBD insights were integrated into regular product development. Stepstone is on course for shifting the mindset from inside-out (ie a technology-driven perspective focused on optimising and scaling existing solutions) to an outside-in viewpoint (ie a focus on unmet user needs in the market and user-focused growth and innovation).