Research Team of ̶O̶n̶e̶ Two: Scaling the DonorsChoose Research Practice

Research Team of One

Three years ago, in June of 2018, I published an article titled Research Team of One: How DonorsChoose.org Learns More With Less. The gist of that article was how, at a scrappy nonprofit with finite resources, I leveraged various tools and a highly-collaborative team culture to make product research happen. Whereas my former research roles at other organizations leaned heavily on study design, moderation, analysis, and presentation, at DonorsChoose I was also charged with recruitment, participant management, note taking, and operational tasks.

I learned a lot from being the sole researcher, like how to balance rigor and speed, how to involve designers, product managers, and other stakeholders in research, how to strip down my operational processes to the essentials, how to prioritize, how to say no. These lessons were invaluable, and are ones that I’ll carry with me and build on throughout my career. I don’t regret working solo; in fact, I’d say that doing so is a great way to hone any researcher’s resourcefulness, ingenuity, collaboration, and self-management skills. But there were a number of reasons why the Research Team of Me™ just wasn’t cutting it, given how I saw research evolving within DonorsChoose:

1. Despite streamlining recruiting and harnessing tools to automate scheduling, participant management was still taking a considerable amount of time. Finding the right participants, scheduling (or rescheduling) them, paying them, and tracking their participation all required their own processes executed by yours truly.
2. Our research studies were limited to usability testing because, at a minimum, t’s important that we test our products with real users before they ship. We didn’t have time or resources to expand our capabilities to include the kinds of exploratory research that can help us uncover needs and innovate. Plus, other teams at DonorsChoose had research needs, too, and it was difficult fitting that work in.
3. Socializing findings were essentially limited to project share outs and informal kitchen conversations.
4. Annnd our product team has grown! We used to be one product manager and two designers. Now we’re two product managers and three designers. Everyone needs research! Gah!

Research Team of Two

If you read the title of this post, you know where this is going. After two years makin’ it work, we added a new role — UX Research Operations Specialist — and a new team member to fill that role! A couple years later, we’ve learned some things about how to divvy up and structure our work so that we’re now a well-oiled team extraordinaire!

From left to right: Liam, UX Research Ops and Josh, Lead UX Researcher

Our new research team consists of a research lead role and a research operations role. Let’s break down the work we’re each responsible for.

The research lead is responsible for:

1. Identifying Research Opportunities — developing research strategy, prioritizing research resources, determining needs across the Product Team and the rest of the organization.
2. Doing Research — designing studies, executing methods (moderating, writing surveys, etc.), and analyzing data.
3. Sharing Research — socializing findings across the product team and the organization. Making sure the user’s voice is heard where it’s needed.
4. Lifting-up others — mentoring other people at DonorsChoose who may be taking on their own research. Democratizing research when it makes sense to do so.

The research ops role is charged with:

1. Participant management — recruiting and scheduling, preparing participants for a study, managing incentive structures and delivering payment, and tracking participation in our internal database.
2. Study logistics — booking conference rooms, configuring our remote research tools, communicating research schedules to project teams, sharing out recordings of research when applicable, updating our org-facing research calendar.
3. Supporting data collection and analysis — taking notes on qualitative research, distributing on-site and email surveys, being a partner in data analysis and presentations
4. Special projects — taking on projects to level up our team. Examples include: iterating on recruiting email copy, building out dashboards that help us see how representative our survey samples are, and tracking demographics so we can ensure we’re hearing from a diverse group of participants in line with DonorsChoose’s equity goals.

More and Better

Adding a research ops role has benefited our team in a myriad of ways. On the team front, we’ve gotten our house in order — we established a research team focus, documented our policy and approach to data confidentiality, standardized participant consent forms, created better structures for kicking off projects, and solidified our modes of communication with stakeholders so they know what to expect when research is in flight. A dedicated focus on research operations has resulted in more contact with research participants before a remote study, resulting in dramatically reduced no-shows and avoiding surprising technical issues that can cut into interview/testing time.

We employ a variety of methods to uncover user needs and validate that DonorsChoose’s digital products are usable and useful for teachers, donors, and other stakeholders. — Our team focus

The quality of our research is better, too. There is more time to create rigorous research plans, we have a dedicated note-taker on every study, and a more collaborative process when creating meaningful insights during debriefs and analyses.

And we can do more research. Splitting research and recruiting duties has meant that we can do things like iterative studies where we recruit for multiple rounds of testing at once, helping the whole product team make faster decisions and spin up new solutions to test. We’ve gone into schools to hold contextual interviews with teachers in their classrooms, something that I never would have done alone because of the logistical lift of recruiting for this type of research, the task load during an interview (running camera equipment, note taking, and moderating all at once) and for safety and comfort considerations. COVID-19 put a (hopefully temporary!) stop to that practice, but also created a whole host of unknowns about teachers and their resource needs during a pandemic. Our ability to quickly launch studies to understand new teaching contexts, assess DonorsChoose’s COVID response, and iterate on adaptations to our model were in no small part possible due to our research team of two.

Research Team of You

Research teams of one will always be a reality, and if that’s you, don’t fret! There are certainly ways to excel under those circumstances. But if, like I was, you’re finding it difficult to keep up with research demand, grow your impact, and manage operational lift, consider advocating for a new role at your organization. A research ops role will not only reduce your task list, but can help you build and strengthen your team and your capabilities. Check out resources like the Re+Ops community, who are doing tons of good work to establish the field of research operations. I’m extremely grateful to my colleagues and DonorsChoose leadership for seeing the needs over here in my tiny corner of the Product Team and for investing in our potential. And a very special thank you to Liam, our rockstar research ops specialist, who’s moving mountains every day to recruit participants, bring our team to new heights, and keep our house in order. Read about his recruiting process to get a peek behind the curtain!