Day 2- Research Democratization: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly
— Happy to be here, and would like to share my take on research democratization or RD
-
Want to promote different sides of this tool
-
Some parts are good, bad, and ugly, so I’ll speak how to use properly
— What is RD?
-
Empowering people who are not professional researchers to start doing research, and gathering data and providing insights
— Can be powerful in so many ways
-
I use it quite a lot in my practice, and something powerful in our practice
— Last week, I asked what people thought about RD. Was it good, bad?
-
Wide range of responses with many takes on this and a lot to explore
-
Some may see value or may be ambivalent
— If we look at what other experts say we can also see conflicting opinions
-
Leis Reichelt said DR can be used to incentivize team to move too quickly and can lead to bad research results
-
Jared Spool asked what is meant by DR, and that the term can be used in an arrogant way
— So let’s explore the gray part and think what the tool can do for you and when not
-
I’ve built a framework and a set of case studies to analyze
— Framework is 2×2 with research maturity in organization as the x axis
-
If insights drive company decisions, then you have impact, and are mature
-
For this can look at a UXR maturity model
— Presence of Researches is the Y-axis, and this is not just a numerical amount
— Where are you in all this?
-
As team of one
-
Embedded: Tactical research that’s hard to snap out of
-
Strategic Power & Impact: Many people and driving decisions, and high research maturity and peers to do research with and impact on product
— Have you decided where to go? How can RD help you with your goals?
— If you are in the holy grail of maturity, and research presence, does RD work?
-
Question you might ask: Why bother, given that you have the resources?
— Don’t have to do DR in this case, but dimension you are in is not static as team may shrink, and maturity might change
-
In sense doing some work with research will help you nurture empathy and understand audience better
— Not a must have though
— But what if there is research capacity, but focused on tactical research?
-
It can be very useful to help you understand work and how it’s needed
— The more researchers help others learn what’s it’s like, the more you will learn that research has a lot of value in early stage/last stage of process
— So a story from the field, pre-pandemic
-
I was working for media house and had relatively large team
-
Often asked to be involved at late stage in projects, like validation
— Asked if we could do an experiment with them
-
Did research safari to see if staff members would get involved with first hand research
-
Around 40 staff members signed up from marketing, journalism, product and tech
— Throughout week, helped by facilitating interviews by talking first hand through the audience and doing guerrilla testing and hosting group discussions, card sorting exercises
-
Outcome was not amazing insights for our team
— We ran around trying to facilitate and organize, and people were going in blind to how things were done before and not asking why
— We did get good experience though
-
In company, there was buzz around conversation and having departments work together and conversations with subscribers that they didn’t have before
-
They grasped the value of qual research, and the team was involved further
— It helped increase the understanding of our team
— What if you have low-presence, but high maturity?
— This is where DR helps you advocate for expansion and grow more
— A story from field, where I was product designer, which involved the entire team
-
Involving whole team in both taking notes and analyzing, got better discussions
— One stepping stone after insights, and helped increase case for hiring more researchers
-
People were more eager to expand budget for research team
— Another thing can happen is that people in the company who experience UXR can also be internally converted to join the team
— For those who are team-of-one, and company does not have a great understanding of value you can bring to the company, and lack of complexity
— DR can work to free up time for high value goals
-
But here it becomes murky and ugly
-
Quite often, in this situation you will have long and messy road
-
Can also be that you will end up overloaded with work of facilitating and organizing admin portion of research
-
— For example, there was executive demand to empower decisions, but it felt too overwhelming to do that by yourself
-
Risk of high expectations, but inadequate capacity to pull it off. That can be very hard
— Pitfalls to watch for:
-
Risk of research happening in silos, disconnected from sharing insights widely
-
Doing research and not connecting to other insights to build on
-
-
Another is admin overload, and support for a ResearchOps function can overwhelm your duties as a UXR
-
Professional development can gain from DR from teaching it to others, but is that where you will grow and learn most
-
For some this may be yes
-
For others this might not be the case
-
-
People will learn and understand craft themselves
-
Example of Greg Bernstein, big advocate for DR, who wrote article that he changed his mind— and letting researchers do research
-
Worth talking with teams, and what helps people in their professional development
-
For if people feel they are not growing professionally, they will go elsewhere
-
-
— Looked at framework.
-
Idea of time and space to do more strategic work is a fallacy
— DR does increase presence of power and impact
— DR had increased understanding and help increase presence of researchers, The more you share your craft, the more you can share
— We often deal with impostor syndrome, and sense of ‘are you any good in what you’re doing?’
-
One way to teach others and how to share practices
-
Also more than one way to do DR, which involves lots of experimentation
-
Fun to see how much energy can be brought o an effort
-
— Overall pros and cons that depend on what you want to do, and where you want to push yourself and researchers within company
-
Maturity, Hiring, or Professional Growth
-
Up to you to explore where you want to go
— Topic is dear to my thought and would love to talk more through Slack/email
— Can be super-creative to work this way
Q&A
-
I’m still a junior researcher. Can you clarify what you mean by democratized research?
—> When democratizing, you teach others and empower them to do research themselves and letting them sit in on a session
-
You let them write manuscripts and analyze outcomes
-
How to negotiate tension between being expert and sense of ‘anyone can do it’?
—> Commonly heard that if anyone can do UXR, why have a research team?
-
Takes so much more than just taking right questions, but rather understanding what these questions mean
—> Showing people what it is, leads to greater demand
-
How to address issue of researchers having different conclusion than stakeholders?
—> People might go into some sessions, and prove ideas in their heads, and use that knowledge against you. This happens when they are not involved in the whole process
—> It’s a risk that can happen
-
When you let other teams do research, do draw conclusion that you do not see and risk of the work
-
You said that it’s a fallacy that democratization does not lead to more time for strategic research? Is this because more time is needed to support DR?
—> Yes, it’s a fallacy
—> You need a ReOps function to enable and facilitate things.
-
And you will find yourself doing operational work instead of research
-
Different decisions of DR? Executives involved?
—> Not well-defined and one standard of democratization. Including in interviews can be DR
-
But many levels, and where you do things and doing things hands-on like whole process
-
Such as setting objective and outcomes used in a product
-
-
Different levels, can be all-in or a try-out
-
Have involved executive leadership in this
-
Did similar experiment and CEO took notes and sat in on work-sessions
-
-
Do like having everyone involved, as that gets so much buy-in