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Summary
Measuring the success of research efforts is a critical capability in maturing our discipline and increasing our influence. This Advancing Research call is an opportunity to hear about “learning velocity,” how it’s being applied at Fidelity Investments, and what that could mean for you. Fidelity’s Jen Cardello, head of UX Research & Insights, and Jen Otto, head of Research Operations, shares how learning velocity has become a significant outcome that drives both ResearchOps initiatives (e.g., democratization) and the way they conduct and measure the effectiveness of research at Fidelity. Jen and Jen outline what learning velocity is and how it fits into Fidelity’s outcomes-based approach to research strategy.
Key Insights
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Fidelity shifted from measuring research output to measuring learning velocity, emphasizing how quickly the organization learns rather than how many studies are done.
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Democratization trains designers and product partners to conduct basic usability research, freeing researchers to focus on strategic, upstream problems.
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Initially, democratization training was intensive and hard to scale, so Fidelity created self-paced materials and a buddy approval system to maintain quality at scale.
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Lighthouse centralizes research documents across a huge, distributed enterprise to reduce redundancy and empower product and design teams to find insights autonomously.
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Living learning agendas linked to specific product journeys enable continuous and predictable research cycles, improving transparency and prioritization.
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Rapid recruiting innovations, including app push notifications and online scheduling, cut participant recruitment times from 4-6 weeks to as little as an hour.
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Strict compliance and legitimacy concerns in financial services demanded compliance-approved templates and direct outreach, improving participant trust.
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Buddy systems in democratization not only ensure research quality but also cross-train researchers on various business areas and foster collaboration.
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Embedding qualitative insights in collaboration platforms like Microsoft Teams supports viral sharing and empathy building within the organization.
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Cultural readiness and curiosity at Fidelity facilitated designer uptake of democratized research despite initial fears, with scarcity and autonomy as motivators.
Notable Quotes
"It's not about doing more studies faster; that's poison. We want to help the organization learn faster."
"We spent 85% of our time doing usability testing before democratization, but now 75% is focused on right problem, right solution research."
"We went from 14 days to get research answers down to three days by enabling teams to run their own studies with buddy checks."
"Lighthouse makes everyone know where all the research lives, cutting down hours and days searching for insights."
"Rapid recruiting used to take 4 to 6 weeks; now we sometimes fill all interview slots within an hour and a half."
"Designers loved the autonomy of being able to get usability feedback in days instead of waiting weeks."
"Buddy systems ensure quality by requiring that studies cannot launch without approval from trained researchers."
"We are shifting from a mindset of output to outcomes — the value is the impact and accelerating enterprise learning."
"Our continuous discovery program sets a cadence of research every two or three weeks tied to a living learning agenda."
"Democratization is like a design system for research: it helps researchers focus more on strategic work instead of running repetitive tests."
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