Thinking about Research Democratisation
With the recent round of layoffs happening across tech/product organisations, many roles feel like they were the most impacted, which could easily be the topic of a whole other edition.
In this edition however, I want to touch on the role of researchers in all this craziness and the increased interest in Research Democratisation.
Back to basics
The first time I personally heard of Research Democratisation was back in 2018 when I came across articles by Tomer Sharon on the work they were doing at WeWork.
I’m not sure if anyone explored the topic before and if so, I ask that you forgive my ignorance, but this was the first I heard of it.
It also aligned well with my first attempts at building a research repository. I have since learnt from Daniel Pidcock’s Atomic Research and the incredible work done by the Global Research Ops community, but I’ve gone a bit off topic.
The reason I do touch on these though is that Tomer Sharon was talking about how everyone in an organisation can and should contribute to the insights we build about our users and their needs.
It’s not only a small group of people that have access to the people who use our product, but rather people across the whole organisation and with all types of users. If we wanted to do a better job, we needed to make the most of all those inputs.
Like many roles, Research as a discipline has been hit really hard and much like many other roles, it seems to become more important to be able to produce the same amount of insights, with much fewer researchers available.
Basically, researchers need to clone themselves without overworking, thus democratising research.
The misconception
I’m seeing many folks discussing how research democratisation is the best solution for our current challenges, but with a potentially incorrect perception.
The way I see it, Research democratisation is not about research stepping away and letting everyone else do the research. It’s not about making research a free for all.
The misconception is that now everyone is a qualified researcher, which propagates various myths:
- Anyone can be a researcher — Let’s be clear, anyone can contribute to research, but not everyone can actually be a researcher. Being a researcher is more than just watching users or asking questions. It’s about asking the right questions the right way. It’s about extracting insights from the smallest indicators that an untrained person might miss. Have you ever seen a trained researcher conducting an interview? It borders on being an art form. We propagated the myth that anyone can be a designer, let’s not do the same with research.
- There’s no such thing as too much research — You’ve done research, then your colleague doesn’t trust your research so they conduct their own research, a third colleague decides they need to hear it from customers themselves. Potentially all three of you have now conducted the same research, which in itself is wasted duplication. However in some cases, you may have also burnt out an entire portion of user base who now does not want to discuss the topic again or even talk to you about anything else. Congrats! You’ve wasted tons of time, resources, and customer feedback that you will never get back. If only someone had told you too much research was a thing…
- Any research is better than no research — NO! This is probably the biggest myth of them all. There is such a thing as bad research, which can actually create more harm than benefit. Just because you ask questions or observe users, that does not mean you’re doing meaningful research (Please go back to the first myth). I’ve seen entire user research that was worthless, because it was biased, directive or done in such a way that only confirmed assumptions rather than understanding the real behaviour of users. Best case, you made a simple mistake and can bounce back; worst case, you make a huge leap of faith built on those assumptions and biases and invest in the completely wrong direction.
All of these myths exist because way too many people don’t understand the value of doing proper research, conducted by a professional researcher.
So research democratisation is a myth?
Not at all, but we need to be clear on how we approach it, and I do not have all the answers, but I can share how I’m approaching it.
These are 5 simple guidelines that I hold myself accountable to when thinking about research democratisation.
#1 — Everyone can contribute to research
There’s a very clear distinction between contributing to research and actually conducting research.
Interactions that sales and cs are having with customers should be feeding into the insights, just like online feedback in social platforms or any other form of feedback. Without including these inputs, we may be missing insights.
But who conducts research is a more complicated topic.
As a rule of thumb, I prefer that researchers be focused on more strategic research that requires a deep dive into the research as a priority. The more tactical research is where I think some of the folks on the teams can own the research.
What do I mean by tactical? It’s more related to specific details or validations at the ground level.
However, even allowing for that ownership of research, I feel research has to do some gatekeeping (see point 3) to avoid pointless or duplicated research.
#2 — It’s about connecting all the insights
Connected to point one, when we think about insights, the sources of those insights aren’t exclusive to a single role or team.
We should find ways that leverage the various resources that exist or are being created. If we connect things well enough, half the work is done and we may find we need to do a lot less research than we first expected, because we already have the insights.
So we can stop wasting everyone’s time.
#3 — Researchers are the “gatekeepers”
Some folks think they are good enough researchers because they’ve read some books/articles and have attended some workshops, but it’s not that simple.
More than that, many folks working on the product have a hundred things going through their heads. This mean a certain type of research seems ideal to answer your questions, however if you add a professional to the mix, often you may find that the approach you were considering will yield the wrong results.
Equally, those experts can help you frame the questions or the approach to yield higher returns.
Nothing more frustrating than doing inconclusive research, or the wrong research to discover too late that it was done badly.
#4 — Research Synthesis needs to be defined
This is an important part. Regarding the synthesis of research, we need to define a clear and consistent approach to how it’s done.
More than that, we also need to assign clear ownership of that synthesis. Different profiles and different functions will have a different viewpoint and by adding too many opinions to the mix often creates a confusion.
Really good research professionals have worked hard to be as unbiased and objective as possible, whereas most other roles haven’t. There may be some professionals in other functions that can do that really well, but it’s the exception rather than the rule.
At the end of the day, we need to make sure we have the right people to handle the research consistently and objectively. And we need to find the people that can do that best, which often are the researchers.
#5 — Research needs to be curated for consumption
This one here is the clincher for me and something that is easily overlooked. We can do all the research in the world, but if it isn’t answering the questions we need and isn’t usable beyond that initial report, we are wasting people’s time.
Research doesn’t end at the report we share out. Research should be findable and usable for as long as it is valid. That may mean months or even years.
If I did research 6 months ago and now need to do it again because I can’t find or understand the original report, I have duplicated work.
Equally, if product teams need to find research and have to sift through too many reports and qualitative data to understand something, what do you think they will usually fall back on? Either doing the research again or asking the researcher to summarise for them… which is also a waste of everyone’s time.
Again, research needs to be easily findable, usable, and functional for everyone.
Final thoughts
I feel there is a lot of conversation around research democratization, but there is also an assumption that it’s an easy fix. It isn’t, but we also need to ensure we’re approaching it right, or this conversation will never end and we’ll just be back here in a few months.
Whether you agree with my approach or not be sure you figure out what you mean by research democratisation before implementing; doing it on the fly will not yield the results you expect.
Equally, understand the makeup of your team and how they’re working. Find a direction that enables better, more efficient research, not a quick fix that fits a trend.
How are you approaching Research Democratisation?
Originally published at https://hugofroes.substack.com.
