3 ResearchOps Questions for Leon Mpaka, Spotify
A ResearchOps Member Spotlight — Bringing experience in international health to ReOps, building standardization around the research process, and considering options for knowledge management.
Our ResearchOps community is made up of members with diverse backgrounds, working on varied operations in their organizations, with dreams of advancing researchers’ craft even further. By spotlighting individual members, we grow awareness of common challenges and new strategies to think bigger about ResearchOps.
3 questions for Leon:
1. How did you get started in ResearchOps? What background do you bring to your current role?
I originally worked in project management within the international health field, this also exposed me to research projects in international health, although I wasn’t doing any research but mostly analysing data, so I had some transferable skills managing multiple projects and overseeing programs.
It’s weird because this was my first role at a tech organization so I had a lot to learn but my team and manager gave me a lot of support which allowed me to flourish (Shout outs to Kaela!!!).
2. Which aspects of ResearchOps have you focused on, and what advice do you have for people getting started on the same?
My role focuses more on the program management/operations side of things and less so on doing things like actual research or research coordination etc. My role focuses more on managing the tools, initiatives and processes to support every researcher rather than overseeing individual research projects.
I would recommend for folks starting out to focus on how to best support the whole research community, looking at initiatives that create the most impact for their stakeholders, it’s important to build standardization around the research process in the beginning to make it easier in the long run to put out fires in your day to day.
When i started off i was a bit too eager and tried to do everything and help everyone so at times wasn’t prioritizing the most important work, over time I have learnt to not over exert myself and think more strategically, in research ops there’s always things to be done but I know it can’t all be done so don’t lose sleep over it as much, try to prioritize the most impactful work first to better empower your stakeholders.
3. What would you like to see as the next big thing for ResearchOps in your organization?
I think in terms of knowledge management, this is an area I’m still learning and trying to figure out. There’s definitely tools out there that can be used as a research repository but figuring out which is the right one and what process to put in place always gets me thinking. Another thing is, do you rely on a tool already available or build something in house, of course using something ready made is the easy way to do things and seems like a no brainer but that also has its pitfalls in the long run as you end up being married to that specific tool.
You can find Leon in our ResearchOps slack community and on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leon-mpaka-56760212b/
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