As with other professions, AI has been a presence in the industry, both as one that can help or perhaps replace us as budget cuts and reductions in workforce hit ReOps.

The articles, webinars and interviews we hosted have reflected how ResearchOps is working to continue to prove its value with strategies and tools even as the industry tightens: how to work with AI, demonstrating the value of ReOps, and some wonderful case studies and examples of research in action.

8 Pillars 8 years later

To celebrate 8 years since the Eight Pillars of User Research was published we organised a series of events to discuss them. We partnered with Great Question to discuss the pillars’ impact — check out the posts which also includes the videos you can find on our Vimeo channel.

• People & Environment: The 8 Pillars, 8 Years Later
• Scope & Organizational Context: The 8 Pillars, 8 Years Later
• Recruitment & Admin: The 8 Pillars, 8 Years Later
• Data & Knowledge Management: The 8 Pillars, 8 Years Later
• Tools & Governance: 8 Pillars, 8 Years Later

Community calls

Along with the 8 Pillars revisited we also had the following community calls:

• Shared Repositories to Reduce Research Waste
• August Community call

Medium articles

As always we were fortunate to have a range of voices from across the globe contribute to our publication and share their experience and thoughts. We’ve grouped 2025 articles into three themes: how ReOps adds value; working with AI; and case studies of working in ReOps.

ResearchOps adds value

Research operations has been a target for cuts, often as the way that organisation operate it can be tricky to align outputs with organisational value. We spent time talking about how ReOps is not a “cost centre” but a “value centre” that adds information and insight.

• The first cut is to ResearchOps, and how to avoid it — Kate Towsey talked about her experience at Atlassian on how to make your impact so visible that they can’t afford to let you go.
• Adapting the Value Proposition Canvas to Communicate Research Value — Dawn Ta took a marketing tool and adapted it to explain what we do in a language that stakeholders actually understand.
• Setting up a ResearchOps capability — Lessons learnt — Voula Gkatzidou shared her journey of building a ResearchOps, including “I wish I had known that” moments.

Does AI have a place in ResearchOps?

AI has gone from a fun if flawed tool to something that has rapidly spread throughout the broader UX industry, including ReOps. We have some practical advice on using it in research operations.

• The future of research ops: AI as a role-redefiner — Part 2 of our interview with Kate Towsey on how AI can handle the drudgery so we can focus on strategy and operations.
• Using AI Tools to Augment User Experience Research Workflows — Adam Malamis broke down six ways to use these tools right now, from planning to sentiment analysis, without losing the “human” in human-centered design.
• AI-Augmented Workflows: Making Insights Actionable — Nathaniel Steinrueck argued that AI in ReOps can go beyond better recruitment of participants but can also surface existing research to ensure it’s not forgotten.

Practical experience of researchops

While AI is the current fad, the day-to-day work of finding the right people and mapping complex systems is still where most of our energy goes. This year, we saw some brilliant examples of the hard parts of ReOps.

Cases studies highlight how different researchops professionals operate, and this year we had a global series of examples:

• Research as a Product — Prama Ayalasomayajula shared an insight she had about researchops: stop thinking about one-off projects and start building relationships
• Loving the “Impossible” Operational Problems — What happens when a well-intentioned research project seems to end in disaster? Prama show us how to fall in love with the ReOps problems and position yourself as a valued team collaborator.
• A Framework for Multi-Actor B2B Journeys — Daniela Nguyen Trong shares a step-by-step guide for mapping complex B2B ecosystems across multiple countries.
• Designing Recruitment Posters That Actually Work — Sometimes the most effective solution for recruitment is the simplest one: a poster or flyer posted in the right place. Written by Ariel Wang.

2026 and research operations

If Research Operations is critical to your work, here’s to a new year ahead. Join the ResearchOps Community Slack and grow as a ReOps professional.

If these articles inspired you to share a few well-earned experiences, submit an article proposal to ReOps Medium and make 2026 the year that you become published!

Have questions about submitting? Contact the editors, Jonathan and Clara on the ResearchOps Community Slack.

ResearchOps 2025 roundup: AI, scaling ReOps, tools and revisiting the 8 pillars was originally published in ResearchOps Community on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Hvordan lykkes med brukerinnsikt? I den første i en serie på tre artikler får vi en introduksjon til det som må være på plass.

Dette er den første av tre artikler om de åtte pilarene i brukerinnsikt som forklarer hva som må være på plass for at brukerinnsikt skal lykkes.

Rammeverket med de åtte pilarene i brukerinnsikt. Last ned rammeverket.

Brukerinnsikt som begrep handler om aktiviteter og metoder for å forstå og analysere brukernes behov. Ifølge DOGA: «[Kan] brukerinnsikt … hjelpe deg med å snevre inn fokuset for designet og skape en bedre løsning». Rammeverket for ResearchOps ble laget i 2018 og er resultatet av en brukerundersøkelse med svar fra over 300 personer og 33 workshops. Det representerer hva som må være på plass for at organisasjonen skal lykkes med brukerinnsikt i stor skala. Når en eller flere av disse aspektene mangler, forblir det vanskelig å ha en profesjonell tilnærming til innsiktsarbeid i organisasjonen som igjen påvirker sluttresultatet på det vi lager.

ResearchOps er mekanismene og strategiene som setter arbeidet med brukerinnsikt i bevegelse. Metoden sørger for at organisasjonen har de rollene, verktøyene og prosessene som trengs for å støtte de som arbeider med brukerinnsikt, slik at de kan levere og skalere effekten av arbeidet i hele organisasjonen.

ResearchOps er til for alle som gjennomfører og tar i bruk innsiktsarbeid (People Who Do Research — PWDRs på engelsk) og ikke bare designere eller de som arbeider med brukerinnsikt.

Til tross forat det har blitt et populært verktøy og rammeverk er det flere som synes det var vanskelig å forstå hvor de skulle begynne. Etter å ha gått over datagrunnlaget på nytt endte vi derfor opp med å lage de åtte pilarene i brukerinnsikt. Pilarene representerer bredden i brukerinnsikt med grupper av faktorer innsiktsarbeidere og “personer som jobber med innsikt” (PWDR på engelsk) er opptatte av, der flere av disse faktorene er utfordringer knyttet til operasjonalisering av innsiktsarbeid. Ved å forstå disse pilarene kan vi danne oss et bilde av hvor og hvordan ResearchOps kan bidra til å operasjonalisere innsiktsarbeid i organisasjonen. Her er de åtte pilarene i brukerinnsikt forklart.

1. Miljøpilaren

Hvorfor gjør vi innsiktsarbeid? Hvem er engasjert?

Denne pilaren handler om hvordan innsiktsarbeidet blir oppfattet eller støttet i organisasjonen. Dette inkluderer blant annet å informere/lære kollegaer om verdien av innsiktsarbeid, hvordan dette arbeidet blir verdsatt og hvordan interessenter (f.eks ledelsen, andre avdelinger osv.) investerer i innsiktsarbeid. Det dekker også siloer i organisasjoner, innvendinger mot å gjøre innsiktsarbeid og andre utfordringer som påvirker ansatte som arbeider med brukerinnsikt. Denne pilaren ble identifisert som den største utfordringen for ResearchOps i undersøkelsen og workshopene.

2. Omfangspilaren

Hvordan og når gjøres det innsiktsarbeid? Hvilke metoder benyttes?

Det er her vi velger metoder, planlegger og prioriterer oppgaver knyttet til innsiktsarbeid. Pilaren dekker blant annet hvor og hvordan funnene fra innsikten blir formidlet ut i organisasjonen, og hvordan ulike team deltar i innsiktsarbeidet og tar eierskap til prosessen. Innsiktsarbeid er en lagsport, og denne pilaren representerer den konkrete gjennomføringen av innsiktsarbeidet. Ifølge deltakerne i spørreundersøkelsen, har denne pilaren størst innvirkning på hverdagen til de som jobber med innsikt.

3. Pilaren for rekruttering og administrasjon

Hvordan klarer jeg å administrere prosjekter og deltakere?

De fleste som gjør innsiktsarbeid sliter med å administrere deltakere og prosjekter. Dette er ofte oppgaver som utløser behovet for ReseachOps. Denne pilaren omfatter blant annet rekruttering av deltakere til studier og alt det administrative arbeidet, som insentiv, tidsplan, logistikk, paneladministrasjon og papirarbeid.

4. Pilaren for data - og organisering av kunnskap

Hva skjer med funnene, dataene og innsikten?

Flere deltakere sa at verdifull informasjon ofte går tapt over tid, etter hvert som teamene vokser og endres. Denne pilaren sikrer at vi ikke gjentar de samme studiene og handler om hvordan vi behandler kunnskapen vi får, for eksempel at vi bygger et innsiktsbibliotek, lager dokumentmaler og bryter ned datasiloer.

5. Pilaren for medarbeidere

Hvem har ansvar for å gjøre innsiktsarbeid?

Som tidligere nevnt er innsiktsarbeid ikke bare for de som jobber profesjonelt med faget. Dette arbeidet kan gjøres av designere, produktledere, marked, HR, brukerstøtte og andre. Pilaren oppmuntrer oss til å skape et fagmiljø (for eksempel «community of practice») for å støtte veksten rundt innsiktsarbeid, få til profesjonell utvikling og skape karriereretninger. Denne pilaren har stor innvirkning på organisasjonsutvikling og sammensetning.

6. Pilaren for organisasjonskultur

Hvilke interne og eksterne begrensninger har vi?

I denne pilaren tenker vi på organisasjonens modenhetsnivå og de eksterne begrensningene. Dette betyr å være strategisk med tanke på plassen der innsiktsarbeidet skjer, allokering av tid, ressurser og budsjett. Denne pilaren tar hensyn til markedskrefter, forretningsmessige begrensninger og fokuserer på å fremheve R.O.I. (Return On Investment) for å lage sterkere businesscases.

7. Styringspilaren

Hvilke juridiske og etiske vurderinger må vi gjøre?

Denne pilaren håndterer de juridiske og etiske faktorene og risikoene som påvirker arbeidet vårt. Det gjøres gjennom f.eks risikovurderinger, samtykke, informasjonssikkerhet, GDPR med mer.

8. Pilaren for verktøy og infrastruktur

Hvilke systemer og verktøy trenger vi?

Denne pilaren støtter de som jobber med innsikt. De får hjelp med innkjøp av programvare, maskinvare og laboratorieutstyr. Under denne pilaren skal systemer, teknologi og nettverk gå som smurt for å sikre at de som jobber med innsikt er i stand til å utføre jobben.

Oppsummert

De fleste som jobber med innsiktsarbeid, vil gjerne fokusere på nettopp dette. Det er derfor ikke så rart at mange som jobber med innsiktsarbeid sa i undersøkelsen at alt ekstraarbeidet gjør at de føler seg stresset og mister fokus.

Husk at mange som gjør innsiktsarbeid også har andre arbeidsoppgaver. Flere kan være designere, produkteiere, ledere eller andre som trenger innsikt som en del av jobben sin.

Disse personene møter ofte flere unødvendige barrierer for å gjennomføre innsiktsarbeid eller å ta i bruk innsikt. Det er her ResearchOps kan gjøre jobben deres enklere.

ResearchOps-samfunnet er nå en stor gruppe mennesker (15 000 og voksende!) som er lidenskapelige opptatte av innsiktsarbeid og de fleste sliter med økt arbeidsmengde.

Hvordan skal vi utvikle ResearchOps som en yrkesgruppe? ResearchOps-utøvere er opptatte av å hjelpe organisasjoner som vil satse på brukerinnsikt.

De åtte pilarene fungerer som en bro mellom innsiktsarbeidere og ResearchOps samtidig som vi jobber mot våre felles mål. ResearchOps-samfunnet fortsetter å jobbe med dataene vi har fra denne undersøkelsen og workshoppene for hvert av våre globale prosjekter.

Teksten er skrevet av India Anderson med god hjelp fra kollegaer i Digdir. Teksten er basert på den engelske originalen, presentert av Emma Boulton under User Research London 2019 og senere videreutviklet av Kate Towsey, Nishita Gill, Brigette Metzler, Emma Boulton, Holly Cole, Jonathan Richardson og Tomomi Sasaki med bidrag fra ResearchOps-samfunnet og Cheese Board.

ResearchOps — De åtte pilarene i brukerinnsikt was originally published in ResearchOps Community — Nordics on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Prefacio

Este artículo fue escrito por Ian Hamilton, Emily DiLeo, India Anderson, Mark McElhaw y Annette Boyer en nombre de todo el equipo del Programa de Repositorios de Investigación.

Este artículo es el primero de una serie complementaria sobre taxonomías que respaldan los cuatro tipos de sistemas de gestión del conocimiento (SGC o Knowledge Management System, KMG, por sus siglas en inglés) descritos en la visión general de nuestro programa de repositorios de investigación. En este artículo, exploraremos el marco de tres capas de taxonomías para repositorios de investigación, describimos nuestro enfoque de “taxonomía mínima viable” (TMV) y proporcionamos el artefacto del Nivel 1 de la TMV.

El Nivel 1 de TMV es una taxonomía para clasificar documentos y artefactos de investigación que apoye los sistemas de gestión de conocimiento (SGC o Knowledge Management System, KMG, por sus siglas en inglés) del registro y biblioteca de investigaciones. Su propósito es proporcionar un punto de partida común para la taxonomía de diferentes tipos de repositorios de investigación/SGC, independientemente de la industria, el tipo de organización o la herramienta que se utilice.

Tanto si estás iniciando un repositorio o estás actualizando uno existente, esperamos que la TMV te ayude a abordar el trabajo, aparentemente simple y a menudo pasado por alto, de un taxonomista. Continúa leyendo para descubrir los antecedentes del programa, nuestro enfoque al crear la TMV, algunos consejos de la gestión del cambio requeridos para implementarla con éxito y lo que se viene a continuación en el programa de repositorios de investigación.

Los repositorios de investigación se están convirtiendo cada vez más usuales; sin embargo, continúan sin definición o son malentendidos en las organizaciones y en la propia comunidad de Research Ops. Probablemente, el mayor aprendizaje de nuestra investigación fue que muchas personas están creando repositorios sin aplicar un proceso de diseño centrado en el humano a sus sistemas de gestión del conocimiento (SGC o Knowledge Management System, KMG): es decir, sin conocer a los usuarios de sus SGC, sin definir sus objetivos o sin construir un proceso de gobernanza.

Con la gran cantidad de herramientas que permiten a los investigadores explorar otros modelos, es comprensible que la atracción de “Meterse de lleno y resolverlo sobre la marcha”, sea muy fuerte para las organizaciones que están explorando el espacio de los repositorios de investigación. Como hemos mencionado antes, esto de ninguna manera es una crítica a las herramientas de gestión del conocimiento disponibles en el mercado, ya que todos sabemos que es un proceso difícil que requiere más que solo implementación. Lograr que los investigadores quieran contribuir su investigación a un repositorio puede ser una de las partes más difíciles para lograr su compromiso. Cambiar corazones y mentes puede ser un proceso lento que va más allá de implementar una nueva herramienta. Todo este trabajo es una tarea ardua para los investigadores que a menudo son los que diseñan, construyen y promueven un repositorio mientras mantienen una agenda completa de actividades de investigación.

A través del proyecto de repositorios de investigación, buscamos abordar parte de esta incertidumbre y responder a la pregunta (entre otras): ¿a qué nos referimos cuando decimos repositorio de investigación? Nuestra investigación reveló cuatro modelos diferentes de manejo de conocimiento:

• Un registro de investigación
• Un repositorio de datos de investigación
• Un ‘centro de conocimientos’
• Una biblioteca de investigación

Es el último modelo, una biblioteca de investigación que despertó el interés de la comunidad de Research Ops y se convirtió en la base del primer nivel de la TMV. Las bibliotecas de investigación actúan como una interfaz de búsqueda dentro de una organización. Esto significa que diversos stakeholders pueden buscar por diferentes medios, por ejemplo, reportes de investigación, entregables y artefactos, y plantillas. Las bibliotecas de investigación que están disponibles públicamente, como la Hackney Council User Research Library, también sirve a usuarios más allá de los stakeholders la organización, democratizando los conocimientos y hallazgos de la investigación o reduciendo la complejidad al compartir el trabajo con stakeholders externos.

TMV Nivel 1 Plantilla PÚBLICA

El equipo

¡Hacer este proyecto fácil fue realmente muy difícil! Muchos de nosotros estábamos equilibrando el trabajo a tiempo completo, experimentando desempleo y, por supuesto, enfrentando la pandemia. Como un verdadero equipo, nos turnamos para liderar iniciativas y apoyamos cuando otros necesitaban dar un paso atrás.

Un especial agradecimiento a Mark McElhaw, quien fungió como una fuerza impulsora desde su inicio en 2019 y es el creador del enfoque de “mínimo viable” para las taxonomías que describimos aquí, Gracias, Mark ❤

Las personas responsables de la TMV nivel uno incluye Annette Boyer, Brigette Metzler, Dana Chrisfield, Emily DiLeo, Fatima Kamali, Holly Cole, Ian Hamilton, India Anderson, Jahnavi Mirashi, Lorenco Rodrigues, Rogerio Lorenco, ¡y muchos más!

Nuestra investigación

En el proyecto inicial de Repositorios de Investigación, cometimos el error clásico de la taxonomía 101 de abarcar todos los términos posibles. Esto hizo que el vocabulario inicial fuera pesado, poco atractivo para los voluntarios y, en consecuencia, algo inconcluso. El concepto de una taxonomía mínima viable surgió para dar a las personas un denominador común para iniciar una taxonomía en el nivel más básico: clasificar el trabajo existente.

Emergiendo del modelo de “biblioteca de investigación”, la idea de una “taxonomía mínima viable” evolucionó como un intento de crear una forma fundamental, flexible y funcional de catalogar y compartir la investigación en un formato de búsqueda destinado a ser utilizado por múltiples stakeholders e incluso entre organizaciones. Sin embargo, rápidamente comprendimos lo que aquellos en la industria y en el espacio de repositorios nos habían estado diciendo a lo largo de nuestra investigación: ¡que incluso en el nivel mínimo, una taxonomía es un proyecto complejo y, a veces, ambicioso!

A través de algunas pruebas, errores y reflexiones, nos dimos cuenta de que dividir la TMV en tres niveles nos ayudaría a empezar con los aspectos fundamentales de una biblioteca de investigación que podría adaptarse y ajustarse a la mayoría de las organizaciones. Al adoptar algunas lecciones clave de las prácticas de biblioteca y archivado, y utilizando nuestros
aprendizajes de la comunidad de ResearchOps, pudimos encaminarnos hacia el nivel 1 de la TMV, la cual esperamos ayude a organizaciones a superar los obstáculos involucrados en comenzar con taxonomías y en cambio, tomar ventaja de todo lo que tienen para ofrecer.

Inicialmente, creamos un TMV entre el equipo original. Sin embargo, queríamos practicar un enfoque de Diseño Centrado en el Usuario (UCD, por sus siglas en inglés) y también ver qué podría surgir de la comunidad mediante la comparación. Comenzamos pidiendo a la comunidad que presentara términos que usaran y que consideran críticos para clasificar sus artefactos de investigación. Clasificamos 44 elementos para filtrar sinónimos e incluimos algunos “valores atípicos” o “outliers” (términos basados en la práctica de la investigación en lugar de la clasificación, por ejemplo, el método de investigación, el plan de investigación).

Proceso de análisis de datos

Estos elementos fueron después incluidos en una clasificación de tarjetas cerrada utilizando la priorización de MoSCoW con 104 participantes. Posteriormente, los filtramos por las características de los participantes, como el tamaño del equipo de investigación y el tipo de organización. Eliminamos los valores atípicos u “outliers” y luego discutimos iterativamente los términos superpuestos, especialmente “fecha” (por ejemplo, la fecha de creación, publicación, finalización, etc.).

Una vez que tuvimos el TMV de nivel 1, nos preparamos para probar con la comunidad global de ResearchOps en dos sesiones. Las pruebas revelaron otros aspectos para ajustar, incluidas las categorías.

Cómo usar la TMV de nivel 1

La TMV de nivel 1 es una línea base para buscar un repositorio de datos sintetizados. Está intencionada para ser usada por un rango de stakeholders relevante para tu organización, incluyendo personas que hacen investigación (“PWDR´S”, por sus siglas en inglés) así como aquellos que no son investigadores.

Es importante mantener en mente que la TMV de nivel 1 es mejor implementada después de completar investigación de usuario en tu organización. Necesitas saber quién usará tu repositorio y qué es lo qué buscarán. ¿Cuáles son las expectativas de los colaboradores de tu repositorio en términos de su tiempo y esfuerzo? También necesitarás tener conversaciones con tu equipo (así como con un “equipo core de repositorio”) sobre cómo implementar cada término (consulta el artefacto para obtener mayor orientación al respecto).

La TMV Nivel 1 y sus definiciones

La TMV de nivel 1 contiene 11 términos/categorías, así como definiciones, ejemplos y casos de uso. También hemos indicado si será una sola entrada o múltiples entradas por término/categoría.

En general, es importante recordar que la TMV Nivel 1 es un marco de trabajo, y los términos/categorías deben adaptarse a las necesidades de la organización. Puedes optar por modificar un término o dejarlo fuera de su taxonomía por completo, pero en términos generales, tu repositorio debe ser buscable utilizando estos términos/categorías.

Cómo usar la TMV de nivel 1

La TMV de nivel 1 es una línea base para buscar un repositorio de datos sintetizados. Está intencionada para ser usada por un rango de stakeholders relevante para tu organización, incluyendo personas que hacen investigación (“PWDR´S”, por sus siglas en inglés) así como aquellos que no son investigadores.

Es importante mantener en mente que la TMV de nivel 1 es mejor implementada después de completar investigación de usuario en tu organización. Necesitas saber quién usará tu repositorio y qué es lo qué buscarán. ¿Cuáles son las expectativas de los colaboradores de tu repositorio en términos de su tiempo y esfuerzo? También necesitarás tener conversaciones con tu equipo (así como con un “equipo core de repositorio”) sobre cómo implementar cada término (consulta el artefacto para obtener mayor orientación al respecto).

La TMV Nivel 1 y sus definiciones

La TMV de nivel 1 contiene 11 términos/categorías, así como definiciones, ejemplos y casos de uso. También hemos indicado si será una sola entrada o múltiples entradas por término/categoría.

En general, es importante recordar que la TMV Nivel 1 es un marco de trabajo, y los términos/categorías deben adaptarse a las necesidades de la organización. Puedes optar por modificar un término o dejarlo fuera de su taxonomía por completo, pero en términos generales, tu repositorio debe ser buscable utilizando estos términos/categorías.

Artefacto: Taxonomía de la TMV

¡Y ahí lo tienes, estás a punto de comenzar con tu propio TMV! Si tienes alguna pregunta en el camino, siempre puedes preguntar a la comunidad cuando necesites de su opinión (canal de Slack #taxonomy). ¡Hemos empezado a trabajar en el nivel 2 de la TMV! No dudes en ponerte en contacto a través del canal de Slack #taxonomy si deseas participar en futuros aspectos del proyecto de taxonomía.

La Comunidad ResearchOps y las personas dentro de la Comunidad han reunido recursos para que los utilices. Todo lo que hace la Comunidad está registrado bajo la Licencia Internacional de Atribución-Compartir de Creative Commons. Por favor, amplía, comparte y modifica, pero siempre da crédito a la comunidad de ResearchOps como tu fuente.

El proyecto de repositorios de investigación ResearchOps tiene como objetivo desarrollar un conjunto de requisitos, directrices y marcos de trabajo para construir y evaluar un repositorio de investigación (repo)/biblioteca de investigación (sistema de gestión del conocimiento).

Cuando sea posible, ¡por favor comparte lo que has aprendido con la Comunidad para que podamos seguir creciendo y aprendiendo colectivamente!

Introducción a la Taxonomía Mínima Viable (Nivel 1) was originally published in ResearchOps Community-ES on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

By Kate Fisher and Julia Cowing

Current Reality

Research and Operations (Ops) teams play vital roles in driving innovation and growth. Researchers are responsible for gathering and analyzing data to understand user needs, while Ops teams are responsible for supporting the research process and ensuring that studies have the right participants and tools.

Despite their complementary roles, Research and Ops teams often face challenges in collaborating. This can lead to delays, frustration, and a diminished impact of research initiatives. However, by building strong relationships and working together as partners, Research and Ops teams can achieve more together.

We feel passionately about this topic because we’ve been in research and operations roles at different companies. We’ve also worked together at two companies with these different hats.

Common Problems and Pathways to Recover

Throughout the typical research study lifecycle, there are five common areas where tensions can arise between Research and Ops teams. In this article, we’ll explore these areas and provide strategies for Research and Ops teams to effectively navigate and resolve these challenges

Planning — Poorly designed screeners

Quickly created screeners are a common issue that can affect research projects. Screeners are used to filter out participants who are not eligible for a study. But if they’re poorly designed, they may exclude qualified participants or allow unqualified participants to participate. Because researchers sometimes rush through the process of developing a screener for Ops, responses can misrepresent the respondents, and then eventually undermine the quality of data collected during the research.

Designing Screeners Like Surveys for Accurate Participant Selection

👩‍🔬To address this issue, researchers should design screeners with the same rigor as any other survey. They can benefit from conducting a cognitive walkthrough with customers to see how they think through the questions. Taking the time to design effective screeners is critical to collecting valuable data.

👷‍♀️Ops can also play a crucial role in this process by allocating more time for co-creation with researchers. Having a question bank at hand, based on past screeners, can speed up the process and ensure that screeners are comprehensive and effective.

Example: Identifying Power Users from Screeners
At a company where Julia was in operations, the research team aimed to identify power users of certain product features and wrongly asked about workflows to identify them. However, users do not always label their workflows, nor do they always know what their workflow is called, making it challenging to recruit the right participants. In this case, Julia adopted a research-oriented approach and suggested that the interview questions should focus on specific tasks rather than the entire workflow. She also conducted brief phone screenings with candidates to ensure that they were high-usage users.

Execution — Low response rates

Poor response rates can be a major roadblock in research projects, leading to delays and creating tension between Researchers and Ops. Delayed recruitment reinforces the perception that research “slows things down,” which can damage the relationship between the two teams.

Maximizing Participant Engagement and Response Rates

👷‍♀️Ops teams can play a critical role in improving response rates by creating and tracking cohorts. By tracking response rates historically and learning what works and doesn’t work for different cohorts and study types, Ops can make recommendations on how to solve recruitment problems effectively. This involves creating a feedback loop with researchers to evaluate participants’ engagement and decide whether to include or exclude them in future research. This feedback loop feeds into cohort development and ensures that the right participants are selected.

👩‍🔬Researchers should provide feedback about participants after every study, enabling Ops to continuously improve the recruitment process and enhance response rates.

Example: Understanding Seasonal Movement of Financial Managers
Consider the example of the seasonal movement of financial managers, such as their summer trips. Kate strategically planned around these seasonal fluctuations, ensuring that research projects were not affected by factors like school holidays or “Earnings season.” By understanding and accommodating these movements, screener response rates were optimized.

Reporting — Poor stakeholder engagement

Stakeholder engagement is vital for the success of research projects, and Ops can play a significant role in making it happen. But, if Ops lacks a clear understanding of stakeholder needs and their context, it can be challenging to make smart communication decisions. If stakeholders are not engaged, they may be less likely to take action on the findings. This lack of engagement makes it difficult for Research and Ops to socialize research over time for greater impact.

Sustaining Stakeholder Interest in Insights

👩‍🔬Researchers should pilot test their share outs with Ops. This would then help Ops understand the topics of the study and know what stakeholders to invite. Research teams should invite Ops to report share-outs, ensuring that insights are not siloed.

👷‍♀️Ops can improve stakeholder engagement by inviting stakeholders to participate in the research process. This can include scheduling customer interviews on their calendars and including them in debrief discussions. Ops can also post videos and share takeaway snippets throughout the study to create buzz in communication channels. This proactive approach ensures that stakeholders are well-informed and engaged throughout the research process.

Example: Ops Curates a Theater-Like Experience
At one company, Kate in Ops took responsibility for the observer/note-taker experience, ensuring that stakeholders were set up for success. This approach is similar to the way a theater experience is curated to make it enjoyable. By building excitement, inviting stakeholders, and enhancing their experience, Ops can significantly improve stakeholder engagement.

Post-study — Short insights shelf life

One of the most significant challenges in research is the short shelf life of insights. Research and Ops teams need to have a system in place for storing and sharing research findings so that they can be accessed and used by stakeholders when needed. When researchers and Ops fail to store and share insights effectively, valuable knowledge can be lost, and stakeholders may not have the clarity needed to make informed decisions.

However, the difficulty in obtaining distilled research findings and metadata at the end of studies can exacerbate this issue. Without proper storage and sharing mechanisms, past insights may be lost, and research is more likely to be duplicated. Without a system in place, there is a greater chance for stakeholders to ask for research that has been done already.

Preserving and Sharing Insights Effectively

👷‍♀️To address this problem, Ops can play a pivotal role as a knowledge custodian. Ops can continuously create snackable, distributable insights that are constantly maintained and readily available. Ops can also standardize how information about studies is distributed and create an insights communication planning calendar similar to a Marketing content calendar.

👩‍🔬Researchers should provide research repository links and link out to other researchers’ findings at the end of report share-outs. Weekly or monthly insights reporting can also help in disseminating valuable information to various departments.

Example: A mega deck of insights

At one large company where the company was inundated with research insights, Julia created a mega-deck of insights. Each slide was an executive summary of a study. It proved to be a simple, effortless way to disseminate information in bite-sized format.

The Synergy of Research and Operations Teams

Imagine having research insights that are not only helpful but also easy to access at every step of the research process. This is the possibility when Research and Operations teams work together closely, using their different skills to help their organizations grow and improve.

But, there’s also a greater possibility!

The next level: Siloed data gets connected through Ops to articulate the holistic customer journey

Multiple ad hoc studies can often present a fragmented picture of the customer journey, especially in large companies where silos between different groups hinder a holistic understanding of customer needs.

We envision a remarkable transformation when Research and Operations teams form an effective partnership. Ops can serve as the central hub, a “clearing house of data,” connecting the dots and articulating the customer experience across ecosystems. This next level of collaboration paves the way for a comprehensive understanding of the customer journey and innovation opportunities.

Ops as a Partner, Not Just a Service

We hope this article has empowered you to bring this vision to life. If you take nothing else from this, remember to view Ops as equal partners, not service providers. When we invite them to the table, collaboration thrives, and the possibilities are endless.

Learn more at the ResearchOps Conference 2023

Join our talk at ReOps Conference to learn about more challenges and solutions for research and Ops collaboration!

Kate and Julia will be expanding on these ideas in their presentation at https://reopsconference.com/ on Thursday, 16 November 2023.

Register to attend!

Connect with us!

If you’ve read this far, we’d love to connect with you. We’re curious to hear about your experiences in Research and Operations. Thank you!

Kate Fisher and Julia Cowing

ROC2023 Preview: Relationship-building between Research and Ops — failure and recovery from it was originally published in ResearchOps Community on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

By Stephanie Marsh, Springer Nature.
Based on the upcoming https://reopsconference.com/ presentation.

I am very excited to have the opportunity to give one of this year’s keynotes at ROC. It has given me the chance to reflect on my career, what skills I have and how we and others view ResearchOps.

In this blog post, I want to talk about ResearchOps as a craft and what that means.

Before I moved into leading a ReOps team at the science publisher Springer Nature, I was the Head of User Research and Analysis at Government Digital Service (GDS) in the UK government. Community was an integral part of the culture and you would often hear people in the User Centered Design communities talking of ‘Design as a craft’ or ‘Research as a craft’. I don’t know as much about DesignOps as I would like, but Holly told me that it’s the same in the DesignOps community.

Maybe I’m not hanging out in the right places, but I haven’t seen anyone talk about ResearchOps as a craft, and I think it’s time to change that. You may be thinking… Why? What is the point in that? Well, let me lay out my thinking around this, and I hope this can become a community discussion.

From my GDS experience, the ‘craft’ discussions were born out of evangelizing and advocating for the skills required to do a particular job. No one questions the skills required to be a developer. You can either code or you can’t, there’s obviously a wide spectrum of capability within that, but coding is a hard core skill, no doubt about it. But if you are a user researcher or a content designer, for example, you will probably have come across the attitude that ‘everyone can talk to people’, ‘everyone can write’. So we need to educate people in the craft, the skills required, because user research is not just chatting to some randoms, and content design is not just throwing some words on a page.

And reflecting on my time being a user researcher myself for many years (going all the way back to 2003), having experienced a wide variety of highs and lows of the work in addition to non-researchers thinking they can do your job. On an obviously basic good day, your research confirms a hypothesis and everyone is very happy about it, they love you. And the lows of being you are seen as a blocker, or a thorn in PMs / Designers / other stakeholders’ side when the insights you deliver are not what they want to hear. You called their kid the ugliest on the block and now they hate you. Or research skeptics not taking your work seriously, ‘it’s not really evidence, is it?’ — all things I was familiar with as a researcher.

I have had a similar experience as an Ops person. Everyone loves you when you are seamlessly enabling research to happen, taking off the burden from the researcher. But then, when you tell them that can’t do something because it’s not GDPR compliant, or recruitment will take longer because we don’t have consent to contact the sales database or the stressed, overworked researcher decides they’ll do the knowledge management side of things later, as it’s not as important as delivering answers to the PO. Then the PM, Designers, Stakeholders and researchers don’t love you so much. And ReOps is still an emerging field, so people don’t really know what ReOps job entails — and they vary from organization to organization depending on what is needed.

We’re often dismissed as ‘just administrators’, Ops is more than administration. But it is very very important to say admin is an important part of Ops work and there is NO shame in having administrative or secretarial jobs. What is shameful is how people with such jobs are still treated, that they are less than people with ‘skilled jobs’.

We all have something to bring to the table, something of value that the team / department / organization needs. That is why you have such a job.

The image below is an excellent representation of how involved the research and ops cycles are.

There seems to be a trend of demand increasing for Ops but Ops budgets are remaining the same, which means we are all doing more with less. And that means likely one or a very small number of Ops people are covering the Ops process, both ResearchOps and KnowledgeOps, to support primary and secondary research — requiring a wide spectrum of specialist skills and knowledge. Administrative skills are also critical for Ops jobs including:

• Organization
• Communication
• Collaboration
• Service provision
• Problem solving
• Time (and budget) management
• Multi-tasking

Yes, these are generally skills that a user researcher needs too, but Ops people are putting these skills to use in parts of the research process that researchers don’t want to do or find it difficult to make the time to do, with everything else they are doing. Each skill can be broken down further, for example, here is one example under each of these umbrella categories;

• Organization:
  Organizing and maintaining records, files, and databases.
• Communication:
  Absorbing and disseminating information in a practical and understandable way.
• Collaboration:
  The ability to build solid, collaborative relationships with colleagues.
• Service provision:
  Complaint and problem resolution.
• Problem solving:
  Come up with creative solutions to problems
• Time management:
  Providing support when the researcher needs it or providing a way for them to self serve
• Multi-tasking:
  One of the key things my team is constantly practicing a balancing act. On one hand providing tactical reactive support that is needed to ensure the day to day research activities run as smoothly as possible for each person doing research at the same time within the current processes. On the other hand doing long term strategic work that will improve existing processes and infrastructure or building and implementing new things to improve the experience of doing research for everyone.
  Thinking about it now, that’s some kind of multitasking inception — supporting the needs of people at different stages of the research process right now as well as planning and delivering for supporting future research needs.

During my talk I will be reflecting on the transferable skills I used to start my first ResearchOps job, a part of which was establishing the practice and processes of having a ReOps team in the organization for the first time. I’ll also be reflecting on the skills I have learned / am learning whilst doing an Ops job.

So if you want to pivot from Research to Ops, or you want some inspiration for how to demonstrate the complexity of ResearchOps as a practice and professional, well I hope to see you there!

Learn more at the ResearchOps Conference 2023

Stephanie will be expanding on these ideas in their presentation at https://reopsconference.com/ on Thursday, 16 November 2023.

Register to attend

References

• https://www.travelperk.com/guides/administrative-tasks/administrative-skills/
• https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/administrative-skills

ROC2023 Preview: Let’s start talking about ResearchOps as a craft was originally published in ResearchOps Community on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

As Jake Burghardt, UX author and ResearchOps editor, states: “The 8 pillars have provided a framework for understanding the breadth of topics that we want to cover with ResearchOps-Community articles. It sets a scope.”

While this article will summarise the eight pillars we recommend that you read Emma’s original (which was based on input from Brigette Metzler, Emma Boulton, Holly Cole and Tomomi Sasaki) to get an in-depth understanding.

The ResearchOps 8 Pillars of User Research

The global ResearchOps community researched what are the main areas that user research operates within. As Discovery is a user research-led process it made sense to frame the questions within a user research framework.

The Eight Pillars that emerged are:

1. Environment — Why does research happen? Who is engaged?
2. Scope — How and when does research happen? What methods?
3. Recruitment and Admin — How do I manage all the project and participant admin?
4. Data and Knowledge Management — What happens to the findings, data and insights?
5. People — Who is responsible for carrying out research?
6. Organisational context — What are the internal and external constraints?
7. Governance — What are the legal and ethical considerations?
8. Tools and infrastructure — What systems and tools do I need for my projects?

How the 8 pillars have been used

We put out an appeal on the ResarchOps Slack (join us if you haven’t already) while Emma posted on LinkedIn to find out what impact the article had.

We got dozens of responses on how it served as guidance for user researchers and teams in various industries looking to establish or formalise their research operations functions.

The 8 pillars framework has helped them prioritise what needs to be done, advocate for dedicated roles, and create a solid foundation to build upon.

The 8 Pillars as a way to get started

From prioritising efforts to getting buy-in for new roles, the 8 pillars served as their guiding map:

Where to start? What needs doing? What am I missing??? The pillars immediately gave me a head start on all of these questions.

— Cyril Rebetez, Games Industry User Researcher

I used it with our team to help establish the ReOps function at UKHSA. It was invaluable as a foundation to start building upon.

— Dr Salma Patel, Lead User Research Consultant

As a researcher of one joining a company which previously had no researchers, I’ve used the 8 pillars of researcher as a tool to conceptualise research practice.

Megan St Andrew, UX Researcher at Sourcegraph

It was my number one resource in my learning folder.

Clara Parada, User Researcher and Learning Designer

The 8 pillars as a way to talk about user research and ResearchOps

I have used and heavily quoted the Eight pillars of User Research while I talk about the work and Impact of Research Ops in our organisation. It is a tangible map for “behind the curtain” contributors like us to see where we fit and how are we making things move.

— Shivanjali Mishra, User Researcher

The 8 pillars as a way to drive change

I’ve used the 8 pillars as a lens for research and change management within the company I work for. It helps me decide where I need to prioritise my efforts.

— Clara Kuo, UX Research Manager

In 2019/2020, we used this on my team at Red Hat to push for the formalisation of a ReOps position on the team. Having such a formal and complete artefact certainly helped us to land the dedicated role on the team for a ReOps person.

— Carl Pearsonm, Quantitative UX Researcher, Reddit

I used it to define priorities of what needed to be done for my team. One pivotal resource that guided my approach was the “8 Pillars of User Research”.

— Anja Maerz, Head of User Research and Customer Support, StudySmarter

Videos and podcasts on the Eight Pillars

We also have a video and a podcast of the article being discussed:

• Kate Townsey at UX Brighton 2018 on YouTube.
• Emma Boulton Keynote podcast

The Eight Pillars in other languages

Volunteers have translated the Eight Pillars of User Research into other languages:

• French
• German
• Portuguese
• Spanish
• Japanese
• Turkish
• Norwegian

If you’d like to translate the Eight Pillars (or any other article) into your language then submit your proposal on this form.

Likewise if you feel that this article has inspired you to want to write about any of the 8 pillars then please read our submissions guidance and get in touch.

Revisiting the 8 Pillars of User Research as a foundation for ResearchOps was originally published in ResearchOps Community on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

All the articles we publish are to help the community members to help ResearchOps grow as a field and are written by members of the ResearchOps community.

If you’re looking to submit your own article, make an article, or if you’ve found a good ResearchOps article, this page will take you through how to get it posted and shared through the community.

We have an article idea submission link at the bottom of this guide but first ask you read this guidance before submitting.

The ResearchOps Community

ResearchOps is a growing field focused on managing user research operations and knowledge work within an organization and how they integrate with other teams and organizational goals. It is an emerging field with new discoveries and practices emerging each day.

The ResearchOps Community is a community of ResearchOps professionals created and maintained by ResearchOps professionals.

Our goal is to provide a supportive community — and knowledge base — for anyone working in, interested in, or working with ResearchOps, so that we can provide the best resources and spaces for the community.

For the content side of the ResearchOps community, we publish articles here on Medium and make podcasts. We make sure that all our content is as accessible as possible so that anyone in the community can get to them. The focus of our content is on practical articles about research operations topics, updates from our work streams, and other community contributions.

Why submit to the ResearchOps Community

The best and biggest reason to submit an article to the ResearchOps Community is to share ideas, strategies, and information to help the ResearchOps Community grow, but there are a few other reasons to submit articles to us as well:

• Reach a wide audience: Not only do we post your article on Medium, we also share the article on our large and growing communities Slack and LinkedIn.
  NOTE: To reach the widest audience possible, we ask that submitted articles are not behind a paywall.
• Become recognized in the community: We make sure to credit all authors who contribute to the Medium Publication, giving you recognition for your work and your contribution to the community.
• Improve your article writing skills: We make sure to review all articles and will arrange for volunteers to help read through and improve the article before it’s published. If you’ve got lots of good ideas, but struggle expressing them in an article, we’ll help you out.

Types of articles the ResearchOps Community publishes

While we welcome submissions from all sorts of people to help grow our knowledge base, we are still selective about what we choose. After all, the articles that we pick must be targeted specifically towards ResearchOps instead of just research or another discipline.

To help show what kinds of articles we’re looking for, we’ve created a few guidelines.

We favour ‘operational’ topics over ‘general research’ topics

The web is full of articles on research in product development. While publications like UX Collective have a larger audience for general research topics, we seek out articles that fall on the ‘operational’ side of research organizations and practice. Our goal is to make it easier for organizations and individuals to carry out research.

For example, we might pick an article on managing user research operations in mature organizations that may not be used to user research or an article that talks about working a knowledge base that has years of individual user research projects.

All articles must fit one of the 8 Pillars of ResearchOps

The 8 pillars define the scope of our Medium publication:

1. Environment — Why does research happen? Who is engaged?
   For example, People silos, Education, Value of research, Buy in, Push back, Internally focused, Stakeholders, Executives, Colleagues, all of these things make-up the environment.
2. Scope — How and when does research happen? What methods?
   For example, Cadence, Sharing insights, Prioritization, Integrating insights, Processes, Methods, Protocols, Research as team support, all of these things make up the scope.
3. Recruitment and admin — How do I manage all the project and participant admin?
   For example, Incentives, Scheduling, Logistics, Panel management, Paperwork, Timesheets, Participant coordination.
4. Data and Knowledge Management — What happens to the findings, data and insights? For example, Research library, Data silos, Data gardening, Document templates, Knowledge management
5. People — Who is responsible for carrying out research?
   For example, Community of practice, Professional development, Staffing, Mature career paths, Leadership, Org design
6. Organizational context — What are the internal and external constraints?
   For example, Space, Time, Resources, Budget, R.O.I, Business constraints, Market forces, Org Maturity
7. Governance — What are the legal and ethical considerations?
   For example, Risk assessments, GDPR, Legal, Infosec, Consent, Ethics
8. Tools and infrastructure — What systems and tools do I need for my projects?
   For example, Procurement, Software, hardware, Labs, Systems, Technology, Networks

No AI generated content

In line with both Medium’s guidance on AI created content and our own policies, please note that we do not accept articles that have been entirely or mostly generated by AI tools/LLMs.

We are looking for genuine experiences and we find that AI tends towards general outputs.

AI is allowed:

• For images, as long as they are labelled as such as per Medium’s guidance
• Helping to edit your article (spot errors, suggest improvements), as long as a human is still in overall charge of any edits and this is used to support your editing, not be your editor

No advertisements/marketing

ResearchOps is not a place to market products and services. While it’s okay for authors to mention where they work and what tools they are using, we do not support the marketing of specific offerings in our articles.

Reposting appropriate articles

Assuming that an article meets our other requirements, above, and has not been posted in another Medium publication, we are open to connecting with authors about publishing their already-completed articles.

If you have an article that meets our requirements and has not been published elsewhere on Medium we will consider publishing your article.

Submitting an article

We welcome all articles that fit the goals outlined earlier. If you have an article and you think it fits, please do submit it.

The ResearchOps board reviews submissions monthly. After making sure your article fits our publication, we will invite you to our monthly writing meeting where we will discuss your idea and assign volunteers to support your process.

Here’s the suggested process for anyone looking to contribute:

1. Start by looking at past articles — Review the current publication site to see if the topic you are interested in has already been covered. If there is a related article already, consider how your article might have a different point of view or add on what’s already been shared.
2. Connect in our ResearchOps Slack — Consider sharing your ideas in the ResearchOps Slack to gather others’s experiences and guidance.
3. Submit an idea — Use this form to submit your proposed title, a brief description of your idea, the ResearchOps pillar that it most closely matches, and some other details. Remember to shape your idea to the aims of our publication, with our ResearchOps community in mind.
4. Receive feedback — ResearchOps board members will review your article idea and contact you. Your idea will either be accepted, returned with some suggested modifications, or we may suggest a more suitable publication location.
5. Attend an introductory working session — If your article is accepted, we will invite you to attend the next monthly content volunteer meeting. If you can’t attend the meeting, other arrangements can be made, but we encourage our contributors to join one session.
6. Connect with assigned volunteers — After the meeting, we will allocate up to 2 volunteers to help shape and support the writing process for your article, with additional support provided by ResearchOps board members. We’ll also start a Slack conversation thread with this small group.
7. Write your article — We’ll share a google doc in our workspace and some basic style guidelines. Keep in mind that your article may be translated for an international audience at some point, which could affect the clarity of parts of your writing.
8. Volunteers provide input — You can expect feedback on your work in progress, with a light, supportive approach. Keep in mind, it may take a few days for the volunteers to review your article content and get back to you, and a second meeting may be needed to talk through feedback ideas.
9. Move your article to Medium — Once you are done with the article, we’ll invite you to submit to our Medium.com publication so that you can be attributed as the author of the article. If you would prefer not to create a Medium account, a board member can publish for you and attribute to you.
10. Editors schedule your article’s date — Keep in mind that while you can submit your article whenever it is complete, our ResearchOps-Community publishes one article every Tuesday, so your piece will go on our release schedule. We will notify you of the expected publication date.
11. Share your article — Once your article has been published, we ask that you share it on three different locations / social networks. The board will share your article on our ResearchOps Slack, Twitter, and LinkedIn feeds.

Link to submit an article to ResearchOps

Ready to submit your article idea? Please use this form.

If you have any questions or suggestions, please contact writing@researchops.community.

Submitting articles to the ResearchOps Community was originally published in ResearchOps Community on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

By Mary Nolan | This article was reposted for the ResearchOps Community with the author’s permission.

Recruiting participants for B2B research is hard! Over the years I’ve developed these tips and tricks that help make B2B recruiting easier:

• Minimise your recruitment criteria
• Divide and conquer
• Make friends with your Customer Success Managers
• Use proxies
• Do internal research
• Use third-party recruitment tools
• Frame the benefits
• Bake research participation opt-ins into agreements

In any case, give yourself plenty of time to recruit your participants. It’s likely to take longer than you think.

The Challenges

Recruiting B2B research participants is hard because

• Specialist participants: Often they are quite specialist participants e.g. they are in a particular industry, job function or job level. There’ll be fewer of them, they are not primed to participate in research (like participants on a user research platform) and may simply be too busy to participate.
• Gatekeepers: If they are your customers, your sales and customer success departments may act as gatekeepers. They may be quite protective of your customers and limit your access to them. Furthermore, your company’s relationship with your customer organisation may be managed on your customer’s side by Admins or similar roles, so that there are several layers of gatekeepers between you as a researcher and your end-users.
• Small Recruitment Pool: If they are your customers, you may not have a large pool of potential participants to choose from. Given many (often the majority) of those you invite to participate in your research will not accept your invitation, this may leave you struggling to recruit enough participants. This is especially true as you run more research projects: there are only so many times you can ask the same customers to participate in research.

Tips and Tricks to Help with B2B Recruitment

Minimise your recruitment criteria: Ask yourself if you really (really!) need very specific participants for your research. For example, for a basic usability test participants from the general population may suffice, depending on the nature of your research. Be sure you can justify why you are applying each research recruitment criteria. Each additional recruitment criteria will make your search for matching participants more challenging.

Make friends with your Customer Success Managers and other people in your company who have existing relationships with the people you want to recruit for your research. When planning a research project, keep them in the loop about the project, especially about what you might want from their customers, so they feel comfortable about what you will be asking of your customers. Ask them to leverage their existing relationships with your customers to encourage customers to participate in your research. But remember that your Customer Success Managers are likely to be busy people and you’re asking a favour of them, so do as much of the leg-work for them as possible, for example prepare an invitation template for them to send to their customers. You may want to offer to share the findings of your research back to them, if it is likely to help them and their customers.

Use proxies: If you cannot recruit exactly the profile of the participant you want, consider recruiting a proxy. For example, if you are struggling to recruit managers in a particular industry, consider recruiting managers in related industries. Or if you are struggling to recruit participants who are customers of a particular product, consider recruiting customers of their competitor products. Try to ensure that any proxy you select is similar enough to your target participants in the areas that matter to your particular research. Another way of using proxies is to research with people in your organisation that have a deep understanding of your customers’ needs and challenges. For example, your Customer Success Managers may be able to help you again here, participating as proxies for the customers they represent.

Do internal research: If you are really struggling to recruit suitable participants, or don’t have the time or resources to do so, consider using people in your organisation. Try to choose people in your organization who are not familiar with the product or feature you are researching. Even then, beware of likely cultural biases: your organisation is likely to have attracted like-minded people that may not represent your typical user. After all, you are not your user!

Use third-party recruitment tools: Try tools like UserTesting, UserZoom and Respondent.io to recruit participants. With a well-designed screener you may be able to recruit good quality participants for your research. You may even find some of your customers in this way! Be careful though, this does rely on carefully-designed screeners and can be quite expensive. Even with a well-designed screener, not everyone will answer honestly. So try to verify that the respondents are indeed suitable before inviting them to participate in your research, for example by examining their LinkedIn profiles.

Frame the benefits: When inviting people to participate in your research try to frame it in a way that highlights the benefits to them of participating. For example, when recruiting customers emphasise that participation will give them an opportunity to influence the future of your product and to have their say about new features.

Bake research participation opt-ins into agreements: If possible, include in contracts a default opt-in to be invited to participate in research from time to time. Also consider offering early access to new features/beta tests in return for agreement to participate in research about those features.

Divide and conquer: Consider splitting your research into parts that could be tested with general population participants (or other, easy-to-recruit participants) and parts that must be tested with specialist participants. You can run these projects in parallel. While you may still have a long lead time to recruit your specialist participants, at least you will be making progress with your general population testing.

Also consider running multiple recruitment tactics in parallel so that you maximise your opportunity for recruiting enough of the right type of participant. If I need to recruit, for example, learning and development leaders in large organisations, I might recruit through some or all of the following channels simultaneously:

• Recruiting through my user testing tool
• Recruiting through my user testing tool’s manual recruitment service
• Recruiting through my Customer Success Managers
• Recruiting through a third-party recruitment application

Tips from other UX professionals

I’m not alone in facing challenges with and finding solutions for B2B research recruitment.

Nina Suter, in her article Differences in UX design between B2B and B2C (January 2021), recommends partnering with specialist recruitment agencies and expanding your recruitment beyond your customers to address the challenges of B2B recruitment.

Mike Chirokas, in his article How to recruit participants for b2b user interviews (October 2020), clearly outlines his experience with four approaches to recruiting non-customer B2B participants. He reports that the best return on investment came from recruiting from meetups and groups and concluded that the most effective approach would probably be to combine recruitment methods.

Peter Berrecloth, in his article, How to recruit business users for B2B user research (September 2018), suggests piggy-backing on connections people in your organisation already have with your customers. This could including participating in Sales or Support calls or customer training sessions. Alternatively, you may be able to persuade these co-workers to ask questions of customers on your behalf.

Marketade, in their article Recruiting Hard-to-Find Enterprise Professionals for User Research, advocates using LinkedIn sponsored InMail and and screener surveys to identify and connect with suitable participants for your research. In their article they share several examples of how they have used this method.

Recruiting for B2B UX research can be frustrating and time-consuming. I hope these tips help you. How do you tackle the challenges of B2B research recruitment?

Tips for recruiting B2B UX research participants was originally published in ResearchOps Community on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

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 Daniel:

1. How did you get started in ResearchOps? What background do you bring to your current role?

Hi! My name is Daniel. I am a Research Ops in Somia Customer Experience, a Research and Service Design Consultancy based in Indonesia and Singapore.

I started my career back in the early days of university. I worked as a surveyor–recruiting respondents for surveys at one of the biggest malls in Jakarta. During my final year of university, I worked as a freelance notetaker.

Later, I was promoted to manage quality checks, project management, and research at a market research agency for almost 5 years. As a project manager, I discovered the joy of managing research projects and interacting with all the stakeholders internally and externally in the project.

After that, I pursued my career as a Research Ops at one of the biggest e-commerce companies in Indonesia. It was how I met UX Research. Not long after, I left the company to join Somia CX. Now, it’s been 4 years since I joined Somia CX and managed the Research Operations as a team of one.

As a Research Ops, I primarily focused on planning, monitoring, managing, and collaborating with internal teams and third parties in all projects of Somia Customer Experience. One of the charms of my work is it transforms me to be a good facilitator for my internal team and external teams such as clients, partners, and vendors.

One of the hardest challenges as a Research Ops in an agency was to navigate around multiple projects as each project has its own challenges. We need to be strategic with the time management between projects and daily tasks. We also need to be able to jump around and catch up with a few different things.

2. Which aspects of ResearchOps have you focused on, and what advice do you have for people getting started on the same?

I focus on how I can make sure all the project work flows are efficient and effective since we collaborate with various stakeholders, eg: team members, clients, partners, third party vendors (interpreter, recruitment team, transcriber, local fixer), and research participants. I need to come up with a standardized way of work and quality of work that can be applicable to all the projects within our company.

One of the highlights of my work is how I learn to engage and develop a partnership with our vendors. I learned to treat them as team members rather than external parties so we got to collaborate better and establish project ownership together.

In Somia CX, we have 3 ways of conducting research, eg: in person, remote research, or hybrid. All of the methods have their own risks and benefits in our research and project. Here are some of the challenges I encountered:

1. How can we help our interpreter deliver a smooth interpretation during our interview sessions?
   We have a simultaneous interpreter who works behind the scenes to support overseas clients to understand and capture the local nuances during the research sessions. The interpreter translates Indonesian into English in real-time. To deliver a smooth interpretation, we always ensure the audio quality is checked before we run the session.
2. Since every project has different goals and objectives, we collaborate with various parties to ensure the smooth running of the research. That’s why we need to come up with a standard to make sure that all the vendors that collaborate with us are able to meet our standard.
3. Our clients lived in various countries. The time zone difference becomes one of the challenges as we are based in Indonesia and usually ahead of our clients’ timezone. Late-night briefing calls are usual for us. On top of that, we sometimes also need to arrange the research sessions to accommodate the time difference so the clients can observe the session.
4. And last but not least, how can we facilitate the clients who have travel limitations to take part in the research sessions more interactively?
   Last year, we came up with a creative way to ensure the clients can observe the shadowing that we did. Our consultants became the eye and the ears of the clients. Unlike regular remote interview setup with laptop or computer, this time, our consultants went on Vlogger mode.
   The setup was quite tricky but we managed to come up with the solution so our clients can observe and ‘tag along’ the research participants naturally.

My project highlight from last year would be managing home appliances research projects during the pandemic. Since the products were not digital, the methods we did were a little bit different. We did some participant shadowing, diary study, and in-depth interviews. Here came the challenge, our clients were not able to travel to tag along our consultants yet they wished to be immersed in the research sessions.

After trial and error, we came up with this solution. We would not be using a regular interview setup. Our consultants who got to visit the participants’ home would be the eye and the ears of the clients. And, at the same time, our clients would also get to tune in and see what happened on the field real time.

But how?

We went on Vlogger mode.

Please check this short explanation at our Instagram

• Self modification tripod
• Smartphone
• Clip on

Let me break it down:

• We prepared a smartphone to connect with the streaming platform as the main visual for our clients, this smartphone was attached to a tripod that we modified from an action-cam tripod.
• The moderator would handheld the smartphone. As for the audio, we prepared a headset with a mic to capture audio from the field.
• The notetaker took notes while joining the streaming.
• The interpreter also joined the streaming to translate the sessions from Indonesian to English to help our clients keep up with the sessions.

My advice for people who want to start a career in Research Ops

• Always try to come up with creative solutions and always experiments.
• Most people thought the pilot study was only valuable for the researchers, but for me, I find it valuable too as we also got to test out the setup. A research study won’t have smooth sailing if not supported by a proper setup.
• Network! Meet up with research peeps and get inspired from them.
• Communication. We are the expert, bringing more value to the clients by filling them in with local context and stories so they can capture the local nuances better.

3. What would you like to see as the next big thing for ResearchOps in your organization?

One of the challenges for me being a Research Ops is being tied to multiple projects at the same time. This makes me dwell a lot in day-to-day tasks and struggling to see the bigger picture. To some extent, these tasks can be overwhelming, resulting in us missing some crucial milestones.

Hence, based on the condition above, we are planning to implement some improvement of our work flow in the project from the beginning of project commission to project hand over to the consultants, recruitment and fieldwork preparation, fieldwork days, deliverables collection and project documentation. The aim is to streamline the Research Ops scope and consultants’.

Personally I want to learn more from the Research Ops Community. I know that the Research Operations folks in Indonesia are still quite rare, not all the companies have their own Research Ops. Most Research Ops are part of in-house department in start ups and are tied to UX or Design Department.

What ResearchOps outcomes have you not put a lot of work into yet — but get you fired up and dreaming?

Being a Research Ops requires us to have knowledge not only on a tactical level but also on a strategic level. Since we Research Ops ought to know research methods, recruitment profiling, timelines, communicating between the consultants and vendors, etc, which all of these are beneficial to make a project run smoothly or not. Thus, I imagined that Research Ops can be a good Project Manager, since we know about the nitty gritty details in running a project.

I’m actively exploring how I can better streamline my workflow and also with the help of supportive project management tools that can bring a good impact to my daily work. I would imagine that I as a project manager can have a “helicopter view” of multiple projects, backed with supportive tools where I can see all of the milestones and activities.

The UX Research & Service Design industries in Indonesia are still growing. As one of the practitioners and specialists in this field We are aiming to introduce UX Research and Service Design to wider industries so more and more companies can develop excellent products and services. I believe that ResearchOps can take up more roles and contribute greatly to these industries.

In Indonesia, Somia CX initiated the UX community (UXID) back in 2014 and in 2018 we initiated the Service Design community (SDID). With the help of members and volunteers, we held community events such as the UXID conference in 2014 & 2018, Jakarta Service Jam (2020–2023) and Service Design Conference (2019). Please check our website https://uxid.org & https://servicedesign.id

You can find Daniel in our ResearchOps slack community and on social:

• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielfandra/
• Meet the Somian IG post https://www.instagram.com/p/CUt3dGllKac/
• Medium: https://medium.com/@daniel.fandra
• Medium: https://medium.com/@somiacx
• Website: https://somiacx.com/

Curious about how other community members answered our three questions?
View ResearchOps member spotlight articles

3 ResearchOps Questions for Daniel Fandra, Somia Customer Experience was originally published in ResearchOps Community on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

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/

Curious about how other community members answered our three questions?
View ResearchOps member spotlight articles

3 ResearchOps Questions for Leon Mpaka, Spotify was originally published in ResearchOps Community on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.