Summary
Research for product work is well established; but how do you lead your research team to shape organizational goals? We’ll use a case study from Google to demonstrate how many of the same techniques, methods, and skills you and your team have today can be used to guide an organization’s goals. We’ll also discuss key changes to make for organizational success - from integrating with other insight functions to shifting how your team defines themselves and their work. The results are research organizations that produce insights to impact how your organization defines their goals.
Key Insights
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Shifting UX research from feature-level tasks to organizational goal influence requires a deliberate three-stage process: preparing, aligning, and delivering.
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Preparation includes internal research on both the organization and the research team to identify gaps in business acumen and advisory skills.
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Setting ambitious, transparent goals that challenge the team to advise leadership energizes and motivates researchers beyond tactical work.
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Framing all customer research—whether usability or strategic—as touching organizational hypotheses breaks down the false dichotomy between tactical and strategic research.
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Identifying and partnering with a champion who holds a broad, high-level organizational view is critical before selecting problems to solve.
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Long-term planning for research input into organizational decisions requires anticipating timelines 6-12 months in advance.
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Collaborating with complementary disciplines like data science and market research builds trust in insights and increases organizational influence.
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Translating complex user journey research into business language and metrics (like queries in Search) helps align UX findings with executive priorities.
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Successful delivery is easier when groundwork is laid: relationship-building, mindset shifts, and strategic alignment matter more than methods alone.
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Organizational influence by UX researchers often grows organically and is easier for those with established relationships rather than newcomers.
Notable Quotes
"Leadership growth among UX research is still fairly organic. We need to learn from each other how to establish ourselves in leadership roles."
"If you can follow these simple steps, you can shift the focus and impact of your team from features to organizational goals."
"We had a great skill of constant customer contact, but didn’t know where to communicate it to or how to influence priorities."
"Customer contact any time is touching on strategic issues because it hits on the foundations of the business."
"It’s a false dichotomy to think research is either tactical or strategic. The impact depends on how questions map to organizational goals."
"Find your champion before identifying the problems. You need someone with the widest aperture and highest positioning."
"We needed the right information at the right time for the right person and the right need. That’s the balancing act of influence."
"Partnering with data science and market research helped us deliver trusted, generalizable data that executives could act on."
"We shifted the conversation from you should do this because it’s the right thing for users to this benefits both customers and the business."
"Organizational influence is easier once you have pre-existing relationships to help with alignment."
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