NUX Manchester. Operationalising Research. How Research Ops can help.
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Helping researchers do their best work. How Research Ops can help. In 2018, the Research Ops Slack community (@TeamReOps) undertook a global adventure with the #WhatIsResearchOps project culminating in the Research Ops Framework. As the definition and framework has been shared at conferences and meet ups, we’ve been asked a lot of questions such as, ‘how does this work in practice?’ and ‘how do I get started?’. In short, we’ve realised that it depends. You first need to understand what’s important to User Researchers. In this talk, Emma introduced the Eight Pillars – the broad areas that User Researchers care about. By understanding these pillars, you can start to think about how to operationalise research in your organisation and help researchers do their best work.
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NUX Manchester. Operationalising Research. How Research Ops can help.
- 1. Helping researchers do their best work. How Research Ops can help. NUX8, Manchester, Oct 2019 @teamreops / @emmaboulton
- 2. @teamreops / @emmaboulton Rea’s Story Doodles by @chrisspalton Words by @emmaboulton
- 3. @teamreops Words: @emmaboulton / Doodles: @chrisspalton
- 4. @teamreops Words: @emmaboulton / Doodles: @chrisspalton
- 5. @teamreops Words: @emmaboulton / Doodles: @chrisspalton
- 6. @teamreops Words: @emmaboulton / Doodles: @chrisspalton
- 7. @teamreops Words: @emmaboulton / Doodles: @chrisspalton
- 8. @teamreops Words: @emmaboulton / Doodles: @chrisspalton
- 9. @teamreops Words: @emmaboulton / Doodles: @chrisspalton
- 11. “How can Rea do her best work?” @teamreops / @emmaboulton
- 12. “How can researchers do their best work?” @teamreops / @emmaboulton
- 13. How can researchers do their best work? + Understand the challenges @teamreops / @emmaboulton
- 14. How can researchers do their best work? + Understand the challenges + Find the right solution @teamreops / @emmaboulton
- 15. How can researchers do their best work? + Understand the challenges + Find the right solution + Get started with Research Ops @teamreops / @emmaboulton
- 16. The Challenges Photo credit: Ruth Ellison, Canberra Australia@teamreops / @emmaboulton
- 17. In-house teams are getting bigger. More and more research is being done. Executives and management are looking to researchers for guidance and answers. And holding researchers responsible. User Research is being accepted as an essential part of design and delivery. + + @teamreops / @emmaboulton
- 18. Team size. Buy in. Support. Infrastructure. Coordination. To-do list. Pressures. @teamreops / @emmaboulton
- 19. Team size. Buy in. Support. Infrastructure. Coordination. To-do list. Pressures. @teamreops / @emmaboulton
- 20. Team size. Buy in. Support. Infrastructure. Coordination. To-do list. Pressures. @teamreops / @emmaboulton
- 22. Organisational context @teamreops / @emmaboulton Environment Scope People Data and Knowledge Management Governance Recruitment and admin Tools and infrastructure The Eight Pillars of User Research
- 23. Organisational context @teamreops / @emmaboulton Environment Scope People Data and Knowledge Management Governance Recruitment and admin Tools and infrastructure The Eight Pillars of User Research People silos Education Value of research Buy in Push back Internally focused Stakeholders Executives Colleagues
- 24. Organisational context @teamreops / @emmaboulton Environment Scope People Data and Knowledge Management Governance Recruitment and admin Tools and infrastructure The Eight Pillars of User Research People silos Education Value of research Buy in Push back Internally focused Stakeholders Executives Colleagues Cadence Sharing insights Prioritisation Integrating insights Processes Methods Protocols Research as a team sport
- 25. Organisational context @teamreops / @emmaboulton Environment Scope People Data and Knowledge Management Governance Recruitment and admin Tools and infrastructure The Eight Pillars of User Research People silos Education Value of research Buy in Push back Internally focused Stakeholders Executives Colleagues Cadence Sharing insights Prioritisation Integrating insights Processes Methods Protocols Research as a team sport Community of practice Professional development Staffing Mature career paths Leadership Org Design
- 26. Organisational context @teamreops / @emmaboulton Environment Scope People Data and Knowledge Management Governance Recruitment and admin Tools and infrastructure The Eight Pillars of User Research People silos Education Value of research Buy in Push back Internally focused Stakeholders Executives Colleagues Cadence Sharing insights Prioritisation Integrating insights Processes Methods Protocols Research as a team sport Community of practice Professional development Staffing Mature career paths Leadership Org Design Space Time Resources Budget R.O.I. Business constraints Market forces Org Maturity
- 27. Organisational context @teamreops / @emmaboulton Environment Scope People Data and Knowledge Management Governance Recruitment and admin Tools and infrastructure The Eight Pillars of User Research People silos Education Value of research Buy in Push back Internally focused Stakeholders Executives Colleagues Cadence Sharing insights Prioritisation Integrating insights Processes Methods Protocols Research as a team sport Community of practice Professional development Staffing Mature career paths Leadership Org Design Space Time Resources Budget R.O.I. Business constraints Market forces Org Maturity Incentives Scheduling Logistics Panel management Paperwork Timesheets Participant coordination
- 28. Organisational context @teamreops / @emmaboulton Environment Scope People Data and Knowledge Management Governance Recruitment and admin Tools and infrastructure The Eight Pillars of User Research People silos Education Value of research Buy in Push back Internally focused Stakeholders Executives Colleagues Cadence Sharing insights Prioritisation Integrating insights Processes Methods Protocols Research as a team sport Community of practice Professional development Staffing Mature career paths Leadership Org Design Space Time Resources Budget R.O.I. Business constraints Market forces Org Maturity Incentives Scheduling Logistics Panel management Paperwork Timesheets Participant coordination Research library Data silos Data gardening Document templates Knowledge management
- 29. Organisational context @teamreops / @emmaboulton Environment Scope People Data and Knowledge Management Governance Recruitment and admin Tools and infrastructure The Eight Pillars of User Research People silos Education Value of research Buy in Push back Internally focused Stakeholders Executives Colleagues Cadence Sharing insights Prioritisation Integrating insights Processes Methods Protocols Research as a team sport Community of practice Professional development Staffing Mature career paths Leadership Org Design Space Time Resources Budget R.O.I. Business constraints Market forces Org Maturity Incentives Scheduling Logistics Panel management Paperwork Timesheets Participant coordination Research library Data silos Data gardening Document templates Knowledge management Risk assessments GDPR Legal Infosec Consent Ethics
- 30. Organisational context @teamreops / @emmaboulton Environment Scope People Data and Knowledge Management Governance Recruitment and admin Tools and infrastructure The Eight Pillars of User Research People silos Education Value of research Buy in Push back Internally focused Stakeholders Executives Colleagues Cadence Sharing insights Prioritisation Integrating insights Processes Methods Protocols Research as a team sport Community of practice Professional development Staffing Mature career paths Leadership Org Design Space Time Resources Budget R.O.I. Business constraints Market forces Org Maturity Incentives Scheduling Logistics Panel management Paperwork Timesheets Participant coordination Research library Data silos Data gardening Document templates Knowledge management Risk assessments GDPR Legal Infosec Consent Ethics Procurement Software Hardware Labs Systems Technology Networks
- 31. Organisational context @teamreops / @emmaboulton Environment Scope People Data and Knowledge Management Governance Recruitment and admin Tools and infrastructure The Eight Pillars of User Research People silos Education Value of research Buy in Push back Internally focused Stakeholders Executives Colleagues Cadence Sharing insights Prioritisation Integrating insights Processes Methods Protocols Research as a team sport Community of practice Professional development Staffing Mature career paths Leadership Org Design Space Time Resources Budget R.O.I. Business constraints Market forces Org Maturity Incentives Scheduling Logistics Panel management Paperwork Timesheets Participant coordination Research library Data silos Data gardening Document templates Knowledge management Risk assessments GDPR Legal Infosec Consent Ethics Procurement Software Hardware Labs Systems Technology Networks
- 32. “How can researchers do their best work?” @teamreops / @emmaboulton
- 33. @teamreops Words: @emmaboulton / Doodles: @chrisspalton Part 1
- 34. @teamreops Words: @emmaboulton / Doodles: @chrisspalton
- 35. @teamreops Words: @emmaboulton / Doodles: @chrisspalton
- 36. @teamreops Words: @emmaboulton / Doodles: @chrisspalton
- 37. @teamreops Words: @emmaboulton / Doodles: @chrisspalton
- 38. @teamreops Words: @emmaboulton / Doodles: @chrisspalton
- 39. @teamreops Words: @emmaboulton / Doodles: @chrisspalton
- 40. Photo credit: Tomomi Sasaki, Tokyo Japan What is Research Ops? @teamreops / @emmaboulton
- 41. @teamreops / @Janereid73/ @BrigetteMetzler
- 42. Brigette Metzler / Australia Andrew Maier / USA Emma Boulton / UK Nishita Gill / India Chris Adams / Germany Dave Hora / USA Tomomi Sasaki / France / Japan Holly Cole / USA Judith Muehlenhoff / Germany Hugo Froes / Portugal Brad Orego / USA Mark McElhaw / UK Rebecca Wood-Spagnoli / USA The ‘Cheese Board’
- 44. ResearchOps is the mechanisms and strategies that set user research in motion. @teamreops / @emmaboulton
- 45. It’s not the craft. It’s helping researchers focus on the craft. @teamreops / @emmaboulton
- 46. Research Ops provides the roles, tools and processes needed to support researchers in delivering and scaling the impact of the craft. @teamreops / @emmaboulton
- 47. Organisational context @teamreops / @emmaboulton Environment Scope People Data and Knowledge Management Governance Recruitment and admin Tools and infrastructure The Eight Pillars of User Research People silos Education Value of research Buy in Push back Internally focused Stakeholders Executives Colleagues Cadence Sharing insights Prioritisation Integrating insights Processes Methods Protocols Research as a team sport Community of practice Professional development Staffing Mature career paths Leadership Org Design Space Time Resources Budget R.O.I. Business constraints Market forces Org Maturity Incentives Scheduling Logistics Panel management Paperwork Timesheets Participant coordination Research library Data silos Data gardening Document templates Knowledge management Risk assessments GDPR Legal Infosec Consent Ethics Procurement Software Hardware Labs Systems Technology Networks
- 48. @teamreops / @emmaboulton Space Time Resources Budget R.O.I. Business constraints Market forces Org Maturity People silos Education Value of research Buy in Push back Internally focused Stakeholders Executives Colleagues Cadence Sharing insights Prioritisation Integrating insights Processes Methods Protocols Research as a team sport Community of practice Professional development Staffing Mature career paths Leadership Org Design Research library Data silos Data gardening Document templates Knowledge management Risk assessments GDPR Legal Infosec Consent Ethics Incentives Scheduling Logistics Panel management Paperwork Timesheets Participant coordination Procurement Software Hardware Labs Systems Technology Networks Research Ops Organisational context Environment Scope People Data and Knowledge Management Governance Recruitment and admin Tools and infrastructure
- 51. Part 2 @teamreops Words: @emmaboulton / Doodles: @chrisspalton
- 52. @teamreops Words: @emmaboulton / Doodles: @chrisspalton
- 53. @teamreops Words: @emmaboulton / Doodles: @chrisspalton
- 54. @teamreops Words: @emmaboulton / Doodles: @chrisspalton
- 55. @teamreops Words: @emmaboulton / Doodles: @chrisspalton
- 56. @teamreops Words: @emmaboulton / Doodles: @chrisspalton
- 57. @teamreops Words: @emmaboulton / Doodles: @chrisspalton
- 58. @teamreops Words: @emmaboulton / Doodles: @chrisspalton
- 59. Get started with Research Ops Photo credit: María P. Arrilucea, Barcelona Spain@teamreops / @emmaboulton
- 60. @teamreops / @emmaboulton Space Time Resources Budget R.O.I. Business constraints Market forces Org Maturity People silos Education Value of research Buy in Push back Internally focused Stakeholders Executives Colleagues Cadence Sharing insights Prioritisation Integrating insights Processes Methods Protocols Research as a team sport Community of practice Professional development Staffing Mature career paths Leadership Org Design Research library Data silos Data gardening Document templates Knowledge management Risk assessments GDPR Legal Infosec Consent Ethics Incentives Scheduling Logistics Panel management Paperwork Timesheets Participant coordination Procurement Software Hardware Labs Systems Technology Networks Research Ops Organisational context Environment Scope People Data and Knowledge Management Governance Recruitment and admin Tools and infrastructure
- 61. @teamreops / @emmaboulton Space Time Resources Budget R.O.I. Business constraints Market forces Org Maturity People silos Education Value of research Buy in Push back Internally focused Stakeholders Executives Colleagues Cadence Sharing insights Prioritisation Integrating insights Processes Methods Protocols Research as a team sport Community of practice Professional development Staffing Mature career paths Leadership Org Design Research library Data silos Data gardening Document templates Knowledge management Risk assessments GDPR Legal Infosec Consent Ethics Incentives Scheduling Logistics Panel management Paperwork Timesheets Participant coordination Procurement Software Hardware Labs Systems Technology Networks Research Ops Organisational context Environment Scope People Data and Knowledge Management Governance Recruitment and admin Tools and infrastructure
- 62. @teamreops / @emmaboulton Space Time Resources Budget R.O.I. Business constraints Market forces Org Maturity People silos Education Value of research Buy in Push back Internally focused Stakeholders Executives Colleagues Cadence Sharing insights Prioritisation Integrating insights Processes Methods Protocols Research as a team sport Community of practice Professional development Staffing Mature career paths Leadership Org Design Research library Data silos Data gardening Document templates Knowledge management Risk assessments GDPR Legal Infosec Consent Ethics Incentives Scheduling Logistics Panel management Paperwork Timesheets Participant coordination Procurement Software Hardware Labs Systems Technology Networks Research Ops Organisational context Environment Scope People Data and Knowledge Management Governance Recruitment and admin Tools and infrastructure
- 63. @teamreops / @emmaboulton How research is systematised Organisational context Environment Scope People Data and Knowledge Management Governance Recruitment and admin Tools and infrastructure How research is supported
- 64. Getting started with Research Ops: 1. Talk to people 2. Audit all the things 3. Start somewhere 4. Evolve @teamreops / @emmaboulton
- 65. @teamreops / @emmaboulton How research is systematised Organisational context Environment Scope People Data and Knowledge Management Governance Recruitment and admin Tools and infrastructure How research is supported 1. Talk to people
- 66. Questions to ask 1. What are the challenges? 2. What works well? 3. What could be improved? @teamreops / @emmaboulton
- 67. Questions to ask - environment 4. Why does research happen? 5. Who engages with research? 6. What are the external and organisational constraints? @teamreops / @emmaboulton
- 68. @teamreops / @emmaboulton Chris Avore: https://uxdesign.cc/the-organizations-design-research-maturity-model-b631471c007c/ Research Maturity https://bit.ly/2mshsSy
- 69. @teamreops / @emmaboulton Chris Avore: https://uxdesign.cc/the-organizations-design-research-maturity-model-b631471c007c/ How do we move to mature?
- 70. Questions to ask - scope 7. How and when does research happen? 8. What methods are used? 9. What is covered? @teamreops / @emmaboulton
- 71. Questions to ask - people 10. Who is responsible for carrying out research? @teamreops / @emmaboulton
- 72. 'Researching the researchers' is the way we ensure we’re providing the best possible service. Lisa Perez, Home Office Digital @teamreops / @emmaboulton https://bit.ly/2niTVU
- 73. @teamreops / @emmaboulton Skills Framework https://bit.ly/2nw7xfHwO @teamreops / @emmaboulton Team ReOps: https://medium.com/researchops-community/a-researcher-skills-career-workshop-ce6926af1ffb
- 74. @teamreops / @emmaboulton How research is systematised Organisational context Environment Scope People Data and Knowledge Management Governance Recruitment and admin Tools and infrastructure How research is supported 2. Audit all the things
- 75. @teamreops / @emmaboulton Map the gaps https://bit.ly/2J4ZTzI @teamreops / @emmaboulton Hana Nagel: https://medium.com/@Miss_Hanie/how-to-draw-a-research-ops-owl-part-1-75ba340213a8
- 76. @teamreops / @emmaboulton How research is systematised Organisational context Environment Scope People Data and Knowledge Management Governance Recruitment and admin Tools and infrastructure How research is supported 3. Start somewhere
- 77. @teamreops / @emmaboulton Work in progress of User Research Tools maintained by the ResearchOps Community. The table is free for you to use under Creative Commons License ShareAlike 4.0 (https://creativecommons .org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Please always give credit to the "ResearchOps Community (https://researchops.githu b.io/www//) as its source. Tools https://bit.ly/2Z46mlg
- 78. @teamreops / @emmaboulton Recruitment https://bit.ly/2nbqSCtwO @teamreops / @emmaboulton Ben Cubbon: https://medium.com/participant-needs/participant-experience-discovery-findings-b19ab6797de
- 79. @teamreops / @emmaboulton Ethics https://bit.ly/2mm8YwO @teamreops / @emmaboulton GDS: https://userresearch.blog.gov.uk/2019/09/27/introducing-the-cross-government-user-research-ethics-network/e
- 80. Too often, valuable insight and research is lost over time and the danger is that teams are destined to make the same costly mistakes over and again. David Mann, DXW Digital @teamreops / @emmaboulton https://bit.ly/2oHPzHr
- 81. @teamreops / @emmaboulton Research Repos https://bit.ly/2oKp3gA @teamreops / @emmaboulton Microsoft: https://medium.com/microsoft-design/how-microsofts-human-insights-library-creates-a-living-body-of-knowledge- fff54e53f5ec https://bit.ly/2ocposz
- 82. @teamreops / @emmaboulton Research Repos https://bit.ly/2oJbez8 @teamreops / @emmaboulton https://medium.com/researchops-community/digging-into-research-repositories-join-the-reops-communitys- newest-global-project-de731c40883
- 83. @teamreops / @emmaboulton How research is systematised Organisational context Environment Scope People Data and Knowledge Management Governance Recruitment and admin Tools and infrastructure How research is supported 4. Evolve
- 84. @teamreops / @emmaboulton Research Ops Evolution https://bit.ly/2Yahcpt @teamreops / @emmaboulton Aaron Fulmer: https://medium.com/researchops-community/from-pain-points-to-empowerment-a-research-ops-evolution-8bf6f05cf99e
- 85. @teamreops / @emmaboulton Research Ops Evolution https://bit.ly/2PuWETKg Lucy Walsh: https://medium.com/researchops-community/from-participant-recruiter-to-research-ops-the-evolution-of-research-operations-at-spotify- a443a6260d46
- 86. Getting started with Research Ops: 1. Talk to people 2. Audit all the things 3. Start somewhere 4. Evolve @teamreops / @emmaboulton
- 87. Help researchers do their best work @teamreops / @emmaboulton
- 88. @teamreops Words: @emmaboulton / Doodles: @chrisspalton
- 89. Thank you + Follow @teamreops + Join the Slack waitlist + Come to one of our town halls + Watch town hall videos on Vimeo + Read our Medium page + Join the conversation: #ResearchOps Based on an original deck by Kate Towsey @katetowsey and @teamreops Doodles by @chrisspalton Branding and design by treemouse.com https://twitter.com/teamreops https://vimeo.com/user89807865 https://medium.com/researchops -community
Editor's Notes
- Good Morning! Before I talk about Research Ops, I’d like to tell you a story. I love a good story at the start of a talk. This time though I wanted something a bit different so I got in touch with Chris Spalton. Chris is a UX Designer and a sketch noter doodler extraordinaire. After seeing the amazing sketch notes Chris produced (of my User Research London talk) I asked him to collaborate with me on a comic. He’s produced something amazing that I’m excited to share with you for the first time today.
- This is Rea. Rea is a Senior User Researcher for a software company.
- Rea is embedded in a product team. She does a lot of tactical research for the product. Rea is also part of the UX team. There are two other researchers and six product designers. Most of the team do research and they also give advice to other people who do research in the business.
- As a senior with a lot of experience, Rea is often asked to help team mates with recruitment, admin and logistics for research projects. She also keeps track of licenses for User Research tools, stays up to date on GDPR guidelines, worries about ethics and monitors P11 data compliance.
- Rea is really, really busy and has a lot to do!
- One day Rea is asked to do some last minute usability testing for a new feature on the product. She has very little time to organise things and fires off a quick email to some customers from the sales database. Very few people respond so she has to email customers she has previously spoken to, just to make up numbers.
- On the day of testing, she realises she has forgotten to print out consent forms! If that wasn't bad enough, the camera breaks down! She can’t record the sessions!
- OH NO! This isn't good. Rea is normally so careful and she doesn't feel like she has done a good job of this research. What can she do?
- Does this story seem familiar to you?
- What can Rea do to improve her practice? How can she do her best work? I want to answer this question today.
- But I also want to answer this question today
- So, to help us answer this we are first going to talk about the challenges.
- Then we’ll talk about a solution
- Then I’ll give you some tips to get started
- User Research is being accepted an essential part of design and delivery. You must be close to your customers, or even obsessed with them. And a lot of people have worked very hard to advocate the importance of having a team of skilled researchers on board. And that means that in-house teams are getting bigger. 5 years ago, having an in-house team of user researchers was not a common thing. But that’s changing very quickly. And more and more, executives and management are looking to researchers for guidance and answers. And they’re often holding researchers responsible for the decisions that they make. Even if they don’t actually listen to the research!
- As buy-in and team sizes have grown, the to-do list has grown, the need for coordination has grown, and the pressures have grown too. And while that’s been happening, the support systems haven’t grown to meet those needs. In fact, sometimes it can be more like this...
- Or even this…
- Last year, I joined a Slack community of researchers who were discussing ways research can be operationalised. We decided to run a research project to find out more. We ran a survey and undertook 33 workshops across the globe. One of the things we asked about was what the challenges are of operationalising research.60 organisers globally
- We learned that as researchers, we face a lot of common challenges. These were the eight areas we heard about.
- Let’s talk about these in a bit more detail. Environment this was our biggest challenge and one I hear about all the time. Why does research happen? Who engages with what I do?
- Scope The nuts and bolts. Methods, processes How and when does research happen? What methods are used? What is covered?
- People Research maybe done by Designers or Product Managers. Can we create a community of practice to support and mature the craft? What does a career path look like?
- Organisational context What is the maturity level of the organisation I work in? What are the external constraints that affect me? Budget Resources Time Space
- Recruitment and admin How do I manage all the logistics and admin for research projects and participants?
- Data and knowledge management This is a really important area and something many researchers are concerned with - rightly so. Often valuable insights are lost over time as teams grow and change. How do we ensure the same studies aren’t repeated? What happens to the research findings, data and insights?
- Governance As a researcher what are the legal and ethical considerations that affect my work? Consent forms GDPR Ethics
- Tools and infrastructure What tools and infrastructure do I need to help me with my research?
- THIS IS A LOT! As researchers we are worrying about an awful lot of stuff! No wonder Rea messed up!
- With all this going on how can researchers do their best work?
- Back to Rea. Let’s recap. In part 1, Rea was really really busy and messed up big time! What does she do?
- The next day, Rea has a brain wave. She’s going to get more organised! She sets up some folders and creates a tool kit of things she needs for every research project. She creates a checklist of things to do/check before each session. She’s confident this will help her to remember everything next time. Now if she could just solve this recruitment challenge...
- The following week, it’s ‘Lunch and Learn’ and a few of the team are sharing learnings from their recent projects. Next up is Sam, Rea's colleague in another product team. Sam is a new Product Designer and works on a slightly different product. He also does a lot of tactical research.
- Part way through his talk, Rea realises that Sam has been working on a very similar research project to the one she just did. Not only have they similar goals but she has reached out to the same customers to ask them to take part in the research! This is really not good. Poor Rea. She’s feeling pretty hopeless. She feels frustrated that she didn't know about Sam’s work. It could have saved her a lot of time to be able to join forces with him. They could have had more impact with such similar goals and it would have prevented her from emailing the same people. She's stretching herself so much, she's starting to make mistakes. The stress and pressure are getting to her. Being organised wouldn’t have prevented this though. She knows this could have an impact on the business. What can she do?
- That evening Rea decides to attend a local meetup. Whilst she’s there, she hears a talk about an emerging field called Research Ops. It makes a lot of sense.
- As the presenter talks more and more, it’s like a light bulb switches on in her head. THIS IS IT! That night Rea decides to become...
- ‘ResearchOps Rea’!
- But, what is Research Ops you may ask?
- In March last year, Kate Towsey sent out a tweet about starting a slack channel and it was the beginning of a global adventure. That was the Slack channel that I mentioned earlier. This tweet didn’t appear from thin air however. Kate had been working on ResearchOps type stuff for more than half a decade. She thought she was only one of a few geeks in the world who cared about setting up systems to support researchers. But just 2 weeks later, there were 200+ people in the Community and the conversation was strong. I’ve been there, and in the core team from the beginning, and it has opened up my world to a new field. When I first joined the Slack channel. I was resistant to this new thing people were calling Research ops. Isn’t this just a researcher’s job to do this stuff? Why do we need this new thing called Ops? Haven’t we got enough Ops already? After much talking and thinking, my view has changed,
- Kate has stepped away from the community now to focus on other projects so we have bolstered the group of organisers running the community. We’re called the ‘cheese board’. We continue to move our understanding of this new practice forward.
- After we did the global workshops and survey we came up with a definition of Research Opsers globally
- ResearchOps is all about creating sustainable processes, efficiencies, and flows to keep the rhythm of business.
- Let’s go back to our eight pillars for a moment If we think about all these things above the pillars as tasks or things researchers care about it seems like we have a lot on our plates.
- If we bring in Research Ops as a layer these tasks start to move upwards and it could start to look like this
- It will work differently for different organisations. This is a framework we came up with the help map the different parts of Research Ops The framework can help map out what could be done by a Research ops specialist or team.
- So what did Rea do?
- Back to Rea...in part 2 Rea tried to solve the problem herself before realising that the problem was bigger than just her. She found out about Research Ops.
- At work the next day, Rea uses the Research Ops framework to create an outline plan. Then she arranges a meeting with her manager, the Head of UX.
- She explains to her what the problems are, what she has tried to do to solve them and how this is bigger than just her. She outlines the potential solution and how she sees herself being the one to get the ball rolling. Her manager is so impressed with her diligence, she gives her the green light! Rea is given a six month secondment to set up Research Ops for the organisation.
- YES! Rea can’t wait to get started!
- She starts by speaking to her colleagues and running a workshop to uncover all the other problems with research. Using the ResearchOps framework she creates a more detailed plan and asks her boss for budget and headcount.
- After three months, she successfully recruits a Research Ops co-ordinator (Jay) who sets to work organising tools and templates, forms, hardware and files. Meanwhile, Rea starts working with the sales team to create a participant panel for recruitment.
- Six months later, Rea and Jay have saved their colleagues countless hours. The team are no longer expending huge amounts of energy on repetitive tasks and have cut down on overlap. They have even saved money on external recruitment efforts. There is a new process and pipeline for research to ensure any projects are scoped properly and aligned to organisational goals. There is a managed customer panel for recruitment. There is also the start of a Research Library to house all of their insights and organisational knowledge.
- It’s a great start! There’s definitely more to do but with our Research Ops superheroes at the helm, anything is possible! HOORAY!
- That all sounds great doesn’t it? But how do you get started in reality?
- Let’s go back to this and dig into it in a bit more detail.
- These pillars are often where the pain is felt and can be the trigger for introducing Research Ops. This is where you can have the most impact in the short term. But...
- These pillars are where you need to start. These pillars are all about how the research gets done. By understanding the broader context of the Research organisation, you can really have an impact with Research Ops.
- The pillars on the left are about how research happens and what supports it. The context and the capability. The pillars on the right are about how research can be systematised and scaled. The core of ops. These things are in tension and you can’t really think about the things on the right, without considering the things on the left. So where do we start?
- First we need to think about the pillars on the left here. By talking to people and asking some key questions we can start to get an understanding of how research happens
- It’s obvious, but start with these.
- But then ask these to determine the environment in which research happens
- You can also use a maturity model. You can use the design research maturity model by Chris Avore. You can use this like a bingo card.
- Here’s one I did with a client recently What we realised by doing this was that the expectation around research was greater than their ability to deliver.
- Back to our questions. These are about scope.
- Finally people. What are their strengths and where are the gaps?
- Understanding your team’s strengths helps build out the Research Ops function
- ResearchOps is not just about efficiency, support and data. Building capability is also important. Researchers want clarity on their career path, and support in growing their experience, skill sets, confidence and opportunities. The community has been developing resources around Skills and are currently finalising a framework teams can use.
- Next you need to audit what you have already. Once you start to look around you will find lots of templates and tools, consent forms and more knocking around.
- Hana Nagel talks about this in her post here. Once you’ve done that, you can start to map out what you need.
- Once you have an understanding of the gaps, you can start! Try a few things over on the right hand side here.
- Tools and templates are a good place to start. Work in progress of User Research Tools maintained by the ResearchOps Community. Please always give credit to the "ResearchOps Community (https://researchops.github.io/www//) as its source.
- Another thing to start with is solving that recruitment challenge that Rea had. A good research recruitment desk should provide both internal and external sources of participants, understand design and user research processes and needs, and handle the full sweep from sampling and screening, to scheduling and paying incentives, to closing the loop with respondents and participants. This work by Ben Cubbon and Nic Price highlighted what the participant experience is like - another important Research Ops consideration.
- With GDPR recently many researchers and people doing research were pulling their hair out about what they could or should be doing. Governance is important for Research ops professionals to be able to provide researchers with an informed framework for conducting research that is safe, legal and very importantly, ethical. GDS have done a lot of work in this area as this post highlights.
- This is a great post from David Mann at DXW Digital.
- Microsoft have pioneered the Research Repository as a solution for this. The two links here are to a blog post and podcast where Matt Duigan from Microsoft talks about how their repo was created.
- But if you don’t have the scale or budget of microsoft, the ReOps community is doing some work on bext practice in this area as part of our latest community project. As with all our projects, all our findings will be shared and open sourced online.
- Research Ops is something that evolves over time. If you start with the things on the right, over time you will probably start to include more of the things on the left too. For example, a staff on-boarding programme, a Research methods playbook, a curated blog for sharing insights and so on.
- Here Aaron from the Microsoft team talks about how their practice has evolved.
- Here also Lucy from Spotify talks about her journey with Research ops last year.
- This is why I care about Research Ops. I care about helping researchers do their best work. This is why I became a Research Leader so I can help teams with this. This is my call to you today to do the same.
- Go forth and be Research Ops superheroes!