Learnings on scaling research insights and operations
I attended a Research Ops Town Hall a few months ago where leaders in the industry discussed how to scale research and operations on teams. This is what I learned!
Top Takeaways
- Creating a Voice of the Customer, presenting that to leadership, and looking at current strategy and roadmap will help you create impact across the organization
- Scaling requires democratizing research so that others are empowered to ask questions. You do this by aligning teams around the large problems you're trying to solve and what you want to learn. This will provide guardrails for asking better questions.
- Knowledge management is key to having an impact because research should be something that builds upon itself to help create a map that your team and company can follow. Without knowledge management you can end up in a cycle where you're only looking on what action to take now rather than looking at insights collectively.
What is an insight? An insight is something newsworthy that we didn't know before. It helps us get to the "so what" so we can take action. It is highly contextual to the people you are working with and those you are trying to serve.
How can you get better insights?
-
Cross reference all your data. Putting qualitative and quantitative data together will help you find better information
-
Get everyone aligned around what you are trying to learn at a high level. This creates guardrails within which you can create better questions and ask better insights.
-
Research is a garden in that you plant an idea and watch it grow. You can find better places for your questions to grow and bloom.
-
Make sure that your participants are diverse and mirror your entire demographic.
-
Check in frequently to see if the information is providing valuable
How can we help research have an impact across the organization
- Invest in and involve your stakeholders. It shouldn't feel like you're all by yourself, there should be others that are working with you to help drive toward a better experience for your users
- Build a Voice of the Customer program. Every month Hubspot sits down with the C suite and plays customer commentary to the team and then spends time discussing the current roadmap and strategy.
Risks to look out for
- Knowledge management is key. Using knowledge as a way to make decisions, rather than a building block for strategy and prioritization
- Doing bad research has an impact on your brand
- To democratize research you have to let go of certain things, but must have guidelines that help keep people on track