AR2021- Mission: Keep Talent in Research Roles (Rebecca Buck, Forge Studio)
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Digital products we use affect us deeply
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PhD candidate in public policy was bored to tears with running the same survey over and over
—> People also feel they have crummy relationship with manager, since its more likely for researchers to report to someone who doesn’t know what person should be doing
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It’s a journey rather than a ladder
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Applied through friends, but heard back that departments couldn’t see where I fit in
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Started getting critique that I wasn’t a real researcher
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Didn’t know people who moved from IC research to product, CEO roles
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Answer is “It depends” on company and how you define the role
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The smaller the company, the less defined the role
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But hiring manager and candidates are trying to assess if they will fit within role
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PhD Programs (Psychology, Sociology, etc.)
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Design Thinking (Agency background)
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Adjacent Roles (Started Somewhere else) and moved into UXR)
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So backgrounds listed are not only careers that lead to UXR
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And people don’t need training in PhD to succeed
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Agile was described to me as people trying to lay tracks for a train while train is moving
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Closest are track builders who are working with product teams, and steering as it’s built
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Above everything there are look-outs like managers, project leads to see what’s ahead and clear out a path
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Scouts: People who find location for next train station, and working on defining features a quarter or two out
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Explorers: People sent out to explore new territories for the company and in larger companies.
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If things don’t feel quite right for you, think of framing of where you are working and where you want to spend your time
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You can shift from external advisor to embedding in teams
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Structures can change so much, about right way to approach things, and timelines you like
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This step can help de-personalize the situation and help you think what fit might mean for you
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You can change team dynamics in many ways
—> Consider the questions above to figure out product-market fit
—> Use product market fit language to depersonalize a situation, and negotiate boundaries you have differently
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This requires syncing your definition of “good” with that of your colleagues
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Jess told Sam that the company stakeholders didn’t value research, so Sam was trying to expose stakeholders to fifty users in a single month
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Through running these sessions, stakeholders were starting to ask better questions about their users
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Jess needed to build relationships with project stakeholders
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Sam needed to get quality data
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Jess needed to show stakeholders that they didn’t understand the users, and that took priority over things like “What to build”
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He felt frustrated in that he expected iteration and wanted to skip experimentation and focus on shipping the product
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What resources are available?
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What constraints are we under?
—> So get curious about what quality means in a specific context, and expand your definition of quality
—> Work-related burnout is a bigger and bigger problem in tech
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If your recreational reading involves topics like hostage negotiation, you are either experiencing burnout or having more work related conflict than is desired
—> Consider working with a coach, or a program like Design Dept
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I learned I identify as researcher, translator, story-teller, and bridge-builder
- Any advice for handling the “shiny object” syndrome companies have?
- What if our research is the thing that draws scorn? If our data shows we’re being asked to build the wrong thing? What steps do you take to minimize the potential damage to users? Where do you draw boundaries personally?
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So choose your battles
- How do you balance your leadership style and values with what clients might expect research to be? What are the boundaries you set for yourself when making the tradeoffs you mentioned?
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Set expectations and pointing out largest risks.
- How can you advocate for your team to have a flexible structure? (ex: embedded product teams vs. external advisors)
- How might we encourage our product team to do the exercise to evaluate where we are/wanna be?
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Start seeding idea and have conversation with people.
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Take temperature and see if people are ready for idea