Developing a Comprehensive User Experience Research Roadmap: A Strategic Approach
Crafting a User Experience Research (UXR) roadmap is a nuanced and multi-faceted process that requires careful consideration of various stakeholder needs, alignment with business goals, and strategic planning. To many researchers, it might come across as a time suck and challenge, but it’s worth the effort to align with the product planning process.
Here’s a step-by-step guide to building an effective UXR roadmap:
1. Engaging with Stakeholders to Understand Needs
Initiating Dialogues with Cross-Functional Teams: The first step involves initiating conversations with Product Managers (PMs), Designers, Data Scientists (DS), and other key team members. Understanding their roadmaps and identifying areas where research can add value is crucial. This interaction helps in pinpointing short-term priorities, typically spanning 3–6 months, which often align with immediate product development needs.
Consulting with Executives for Long-Term Strategic Insight: Engaging with company executives is vital for gaining insight into long-term priorities that extend beyond a year. This step is essential as PMs and designers, often focused on immediate delivery, may not always have a strategic long-term perspective. Conversations with executives allow researchers to align their work with the broader company vision and contribute to shaping the product strategy.
2. Aligning Goals
Articulating Business and Research Objectives: It’s important to articulate how the research will support overarching business goals, such as enhancing user engagement (more relevant for B2C companies), increasing customer satisfaction, or driving sales (relevant for both B2C and B2B companies). Ensure that each research project aligns with the company’s published annual or quarterly priorities. This is also an opportunity to take a stab at coming up with preliminary research goals for each project. This exercise would help in creating a shared understanding of what each research project will accomplish and help in prioritization.
3. Incorporating Research Team Perspectives
Adding Researcher-Driven Projects: Encourage your research team to propose projects based on their interactions with customers and their professional judgment. It’s crucial for the research team to have a strong point of view on what projects they should undertake, including regular operational projects or ‘Keep the Lights On’ initiatives like product trackers or any other project that the team does at a regular cadence. This is also an opportunity to look at previous research and make an assessment whether some of the research questions can be answered through previous research.
4. Conducting a Road mapping Workshop for Prioritization
Facilitating Collaborative Decision-Making: Organize a road mapping workshop with all stakeholders. This collaborative approach, akin to a design thinking workshop, ensures a democratic and consensus-driven process for project prioritization. Encourage stakeholders to contribute and vote on research projects to enable prioritization. Researchers can use the workshop to create a timeline for projects. Conducting a workshop helps in reducing project thrash and ensures that research prioritization is not dictated solely by the loudest voices. There are several templates that are available in Miro and Figjam that researchers can leverage. There is no need to start from scratch. Here is a pro tip for the workshop: Start the workshop with music. It brings a lot of positive energy into the meeting. My former colleague Isabel O’Meara from Lyft is a master at workshopping, and I learned a lot from her on how to run road mapping workshops effectively.
5. Implementing T-Shirt Sizing for Project Assessment
Balancing Project Types and Sizes: Assess the scope and scale of projects using the T-shirt sizing method. Each researcher should ideally have a mix of large, extensive projects and smaller, quicker projects like usability testing. Encourage researchers to engage in both generative and evaluative research to demonstrate quick impact.
6. Evaluating Project Priorities
Deciding priority: Based on input from workshop and T-shirt sizing projects, researchers should determine prioritization for projects. Projects can be prioritized as P0 that researchers plan to do now, P1 that researchers will do after projects that are prioritized are completed and P2/P3 which are de-prioritized. This is an opportunity to use company priorities to decide which projects are above the line and which are below. The projects that are below the line can either be done in the next quarter or be moved to the DIY program.
DIY Projects: When faced with an excess of potential projects, determine which ones will be led by researchers and which can be handled through a Do-It-Yourself (DIY) program. Projects with low complexity and impact may be suitable for a DIY approach, enabling researchers to focus on more complex, high-impact projects. I have used the following 2X2 to help my team figure out what projects should be research led versus which can be part of the DIY program.
7. Mapping Timelines with Gantt Charts
Visualizing Project Timelines: Utilize Gantt charts for timeline mapping. This helps in prioritizing projects within a quarter, identifying which projects may not be feasible, and determining which can be supported through a DIY program.
8. Sharing the Roadmap with Stakeholders
Communicating the Plan: Once the roadmap is finalized, share it broadly and regularly with all stakeholders. This ensures transparency and keeps everyone aligned with the research team’s direction and priorities.
Why should you build the roadmap:
If you are wondering, this seems like a lot of effort, and is it worth the effort? Here are some of the reasons why it’s worth setting some time aside every quarter to create and refine a research roadmap.
1. Providing Visibility into Research Projects
Ensuring Transparency at Individual and Team Levels: The foremost purpose of a UXR roadmap is to offer clarity and transparency into the research activities of both individual researchers and the team as a whole. This visibility is crucial for tracking progress and identifying potential overlaps or gaps in research initiatives.
Mitigating Project Thrash and Reprioritization: By offering a clear view of ongoing and planned research projects, a UXR roadmap helps in reducing the need for last-minute changes or reprioritization. This stability is essential for maintaining continuity and focus in research endeavors.
2. Prioritization of Research Projects
Centralizing Research Initiatives: By collating all potential research projects within a single team research roadmap, it empowers researchers to systematically evaluate and prioritize tasks. This centralized approach ensures that each project is weighed against its relevance and potential impact.
Aligning with Organizational Goals: Aligning research initiatives with broader company priorities is paramount. The UXR roadmap should be designed to reflect and support key organizational objectives, whether they are expressed through OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) or other strategic goals.
3. Resource Allocation and Management
Assessing Team Capacity: An essential function of the UXR roadmap is to facilitate the assessment of team resources. By scoping out the projects, the roadmap provides insights into whether the current research team is adequately staffed or if there is a need for additional or fewer resources.
Optimizing Resource Distribution: The roadmap serves as a tool for balancing workloads among team members. It helps in identifying underutilized resources or instances where researchers might be overcommitted.
4. Managing Research Timelines
Utilizing Tools for Effective Planning: Incorporating tools such as Gantt charts into the UXR roadmap enhances the planning and tracking of research activities. These visual tools enable researchers and managers to monitor project timelines and milestones effectively.
Minimizing Ad Hoc and Unexpected Work: With a well-defined timeline, the roadmap aids in reducing the frequency of unplanned or ad hoc tasks. This proactive approach to scheduling ensures a more structured and less chaotic work environment.
Enhancing Communication and Coordination: The visual representation of timelines in the roadmap facilitates better communication and coordination within the team. It allows managers to quickly ascertain the availability of researchers and allocate tasks accordingly.
When should you build the roadmap:
In my teams I have built the roadmap twice in the year at the beginning of each half when the company did annual planning so we would do roadmapping at the beginning of H1 in Q1 and H2 in Q3 for six months or two quarters and refine the roadmap midway into each half i.e at the beginning of Q2 and Q4.
I have also done roadmap planning every quarter when companies have done OKR planning every quarter. So the bottomline is that research should align planning with the company planning cycle.
Conclusion
Creating a UXR roadmap is a dynamic and collaborative process that requires a balance between strategic alignment and operational flexibility. By engaging with stakeholders, aligning research with business goals, incorporating diverse perspectives, and effectively managing resources and timelines, a UXR roadmap becomes a vital tool in guiding the research team’s efforts and ensuring that their work drives meaningful impact in line with the company’s objectives.
Please check out the Coda template that I have created that can be used for research road mapping. The template has Gantt and timeline charts.
