Research ideas can come from anywhere: myself, my collaborators, my manager, company strategy, and more. Ensuring my work makes an impact starts with identifying what to take on. To understand this, here are some things I consider and discuss with my manager :

1. Whether a project aligns with the product’s quarterly, annual, or multi-year goals. Research should align with short-term or long-term product goals to be maximally useful.

2. Whether personnel resources are committed to the larger initiative. If research needs to create buy-in for a project, that will be more effort and require different tactics than if cross-functional resources are already committed.

3. How well the user research timeline aligns with the product development timeline. Will research be too late to make an impact?

4. What are the competing research priorities. There may be a need to balance an important tactical project with a longer term strategic project, along with other demands. Personal and team development goals can also weigh in.

Once a project is identified and the time comes for kicking it off, here are the high level steps I take to scope it.

1. Identify the stakeholders and build a RACI model to ensure everyone is included and the level of involvement they should have.

2. Meet with stakeholders closest to the project to gather context and collect research questions.

3. Draft a research brief with the initiative context, project goals, research questions, timeline, method, and RACI model.

4. Open the research brief for comments and questions to ensure alignment from all involved.

Each project has its’ own workflows and timelines, but these tasks I like to do regardless or the project.

1. Recruit participants. This may be as simple as contacting internal experts or as complicated as sourcing from multiple pipelines like vendors.

2. Establish communication channels with stakeholders to involve them in the research.

3. Conduct a pilot to ensure the study protocol is working and research questions will be adequately answered.

4. Provide updates and observations as the study progresses. Elicit stakeholders’ observations and questions to engage them.

5. Once the project wraps, reiterate timeline expectations with stakeholders.

6. Finish analysis and create a research artifact for sharing the findings.

How research is shared depends on the timeline, type of information the needs being conveyed, and the audience. Leadership requires a different format and higher level information than ICs. Here are some steps I like to take when sharing out:

1. Discuss findings and next steps with those closest to the project to ensure questions and answered and the findings will be used.

2. Share findings broadly to facilitate actioning the findings and educate the team on the user base. This may mean shortening the shareout and highlighting the high level findings that require coordination or leadership approval.

3. Put the research artifact in a shared drive and in relevant communication channels so the findings are easily accessible and top of mind.

4. If there is a special audiences that need to be informed like leadership forums or customer service teams, a shareout can be tailored to their needs.

After a research project, stakeholders may having lingering questions, or questions may morph as iteration progresses. Ideally, researchers are embedded within product teams, but that’s not always feasible. I like to check in with stakeholders after a week and then every few weeks to see how the project is progressing and what questions are open.

This is a great opportunity to answer those questions with existing data or consider the need for additional research.