AR2021-What is Research Strategy? (Chris Geison, Senior Research Strategist, Workday)

—> I want to start this talk by acknowledging you

 

—> You are dialing in from home, in a million different directions, in the midst of global trauma
—> You might be in an introvert’s paradise, holding together, falling apart, but I’m glad you’re here

 

—> You are the reason of this talk, I’m tired of seeing researchers I respect, doing work that wastes their time and talent

 

—> We talk about how to do research, but not what research should be done
—> We don’t talk about research the same way people talk about it, as a basket of investments for either a) de-risking decisions or b) driving innovations
—> If we can’t talk about research this way, we won’t have seat at the table
  • But we do deserve this seat of the table
—> I want to see company’s driven by research.
  • But we need to get more strategic part of about our practice

 

 

—> Strategy is a topic often lumped into leadership, but not solely leadership responsibility.
  • My concern is that focusing on leadership, excludes research consultants, teams of one, non-profits, etc.
—> Regardless of where we are, we can take strategic approach to what we do

 

—> My title says I’m a research strategist, so many people ask what is research strategy

 

 

—> My candid answer initially was “I don’t know”.
  • I was conducting foundational research to demonstrate to the org that research could drive strategic decisions
—> My real contribution would be helping researchers across org have more strategic impact
—> So I came up with some ideas

 

—> My initial definition was a set of practices for research activities that are deliberate, effective, and aligned with research orgs

 

—> But a friend said this definition was boring

 

—> So I have a revised definition, that is a work in Progress, as the strategy is always evolving
  • At end of presentation, there is a link where you can access resources discussed during course of talk, and invitation to join him
  • Need people in space who are interested in this work, to collaborate with him, and define research strategy

 

 

—> Well then, what is strategy?
  • Libraries could be filled trying to figure out that definition
—> Goal and a plan to achieve the goal

 

—> As pointed out by Michael Porter, strategy is about what not to do
  • Researchers need to get better at saying no, otherwise they have no strategy, but just sense of urgency
—> Does your org have a research strategy?
  • Don’t feel bad if you don’t
  • Kate Towsey of ReOps, ran a workshop and attendees included leaders from all big companies
    • She got many blank stares and question marks, when she asked these leader about their strategy
—> Many don’t have a strategy, but does that mean you shouldn’t
  • Marketing, Sales, IT will provide a strategy. Why can’t research do the same?
  • Otherwise research won’t be taken seriously

 

 

—> Many factors influence strategy, including
  • Locus of decision making (individual, team, org)
  • Org structure
  • UX maturity level
—> Populate space with tools and techniques to address these different contexts
—> Today goal is to share tools with broadest applicability

 

—> Four essential components
  • Define strategy
  • Collecting research opportunities
  • Prioritizing opportunities
  • Measuring research actvitiies
—> This is the essence of research strategy outside of leadership or enterprise
—> For each, I will share tool or technique I’ve found useful with some applicability

 

—> For each goal, a specific technique
  •  Defining through a mission statement
  • Collecting through question workshops
  • Prioritizing through assessment grids
  • Measuring-it depends, but I have some thoughts on that too

 

 

—> A mission statement is typically not applied to a research org, rather a summary of broader strategy
—> Instead, the most common research strategy is researching what ever most politically expedient
  • This is a default research strategy
    • Driven by most urgent demands, greater political clout, and the rest put into a backlog
—> So what about the following mission statement: Insights to support product strategy decisions
  • But what are we saying “no” to here?
—> How about this mission statement: Most important interactions for greatest number of users?
  • What are we not doing ?
    • Who determines what is important, and does a small number of users get minimal attention?
  • Looks to be optimizing product, rather than doing foundational, generative work

 

 

—> Things to consider with a mission statement:
  • What kind of impact?
  • What will it take?
  • Your SWOT?
  • What is your value proposition? You should say this succinctly and compellingly.
  • What are you saying no to?
  • How to measure success?
—> Having statement for yourself as individual/org is critical for what to shoot for and what to say no to

 

—> A questions workshop, is a team workshop for showing research opportunities
  • Shout-out to Sinead Davis Cochrane for providing this inspiration
—> I initially used an assessment matrix with the intent to have more informed discussions about which projects to work on, but I felt the assessment matrix didn’t generate opportunities.

 

—> Goal of questions workshop is to see unknowns in the research project

 

—> The workshop can be run to address whenever you want to address: a backlog, new priorities, new teams forming, etc.

 

 

—> First focuses on ideation, and surfacing unknowns and questions we have
—> Second, defining, and turning into research opportunities
Workshop 1 involves a:
  • Manager, researchers, designers, PMs (depending on org)
  • Goal to develop muscles for good research, and  questions for the business
    • Since teams are a site of good thinking
  • Create a space where surfacing ideas is critical

 

 

—> In first workshop, people put up assumptions questions that are unknown, against two themes:
  • Two themes (People/Product)
  • Revealing Objectives or Driving Objectives (the solution space)
—> Ask if we are understanding a problem space or solution space?
—> Nice thing of organizing all unknowns helps identify themes, and allows us to overlay a grid to show what types of research need to be considered to answer questions we have

 

—> Workshop 2 is 90+ minutes , with managers and researchers, and research specific
—> The goal of the workshop is to turn unknowns into questions, identify methodologies and add to an assessment matrix

 

—> We then use an assessment matrix to facilitate discussion and align the team
  • Facilitating discussion is critical as goal of any framework is not to answer question, but provide a structure for discussion
    • Surface issues, clarify issues, and document them

 

—> Do an assessment matrix whenever you complete a questions workshop

 

—> I will now go through the matrix overall
—> Left most side has different projects
—> Across the columns, there are areas of consideration

 

—> Purpose of simplicity criteria is to figure out how much work is required.

 

—> Risk is critical column and can determine ultimate prioritization, but need to place it against other factors

 

—> The value to users, organization, or specific to research organization itself, will show case research orgs ability to do certain things

 

—> Buy-in is not discussed enough, but is a key success factor
  • Don’t assume every project requested has strong buy-in. Be clear on what level of stakeholder buy-in is required to help determine level of resources, and level of partnership

 

—> Is there enough time to conduct research, and enough time to analyze findings and make them relevant?
  • We need time to implement significant findings
  • And if users don’t see utility of solution, is there time to check what can be done?

 

 

—> We need to ask if research will address next release, or have durable, lasting value

 

—> In the end, after considering all these criteria, you have an image like above
—> Goal of the assessment matrix, is to surface areas  of consideration to make sure there is alignment and clarity, and have that be documented in the matrix

 

—>  Finally, there is no single measurement of research success
  • Or is there?

 

 

—> There are two key question.
  • Did project achieve aims?
  • Was the research used by stakeholders?
—> Did project achieve aims?
  • There are lot of metrics that float around orgs, and PMs are assessed on certain metrics like reducing churn, usability scores, etc.
    • Researchers need to ask what  these metrics are, and ask whether project achieved the aims of these metrics in some way
—> Was research used?
  • This can be measured and can be tracked and can be done

 

 

—> So that’s it here are the tools I think can be used to inform research strategy
—> Critical moment in maturation of field, where people worked on problems, without vocabulary and shared community to collaborate
  •  I hope you’ll join me,  as I want us to get this right together,
—> Thank you!

 

Q&A
  1. What to address if organizational objectives are many?
A: My point that broader org has strategy of their own and senior executives are clarifying what they prioritize most highly
For research org, your strategy should be aligned to broader corporate strategy
  1. What’s an example of a project / initiative / research study you’ve said no to?
—> Was told that research needed to be done on a particular product, but stakeholders hadn’t bought in
—> People didn’t see need for research, so it wasn’t worth pursing
  1. What happens when you feel you need to say no to leadership? How does leadership respond?
—> Depends on circumstances, but you need to try
  • Thing to keep in mind is that by saying “no”, you are saying “yes” to something else.
  • You have limited resources and need to figure out where to invest
  1. To what degree can we build a useful/helpful research strategy when the organization itself doesn’t have a well-formed mission or strategic perspective?
A:  If no clear corporate strategy, hard to figure out research strategy
—> My feeling is you can have chance to drive strategy from where you are and with more clarity