Tiny team, moonshot impact: Democratizing research across continents
Summary
How does a team of 2.5 researchers support an organisation of 500-1,000 people? And what happens if we give away the last bits of power we have by exposing our craft? Welcome to ResearchOps 2.0. We’ve stopped debating democratisation (that’s so 2022) and started enabling it: tooling, coaching, and confidence at scale. We moved democratisation from theory to practice and extended our reach. Continuous enablement for teams close to us, plus Innovation Hubs twice-a-year events where teams from across disciplines and continents run their first real studies. These hubs connect us with people we’d never normally meet and unlock research at a scale that once felt impossible. With support from our Digital Experience team and VP, we equipped colleagues from ~10 diverse teams to do research—ethically and effectively. The outcome? In one quarter: - 500 interviews - 250 unmoderated tests - 1,700 survey responses Many led by first-time moderators from product, design, and business. This isn’t about replacing researchers. It’s about building a research culture so strong that everyone wants in and says, “Research is cool.”
Key Insights
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A tiny research team can multiply their impact by enabling non-researchers to conduct customer research with proper coaching and guardrails.
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Embedding generative research within existing large B2B conferences leverages customer volume and interest difficult to achieve through traditional recruitment.
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In-person research builds stronger customer empathy and rapport than artifacts or remote methods alone.
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Co-creation with customers leads to more actionable insights and greater engagement, especially in technical, regulated industries like aerospace.
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Shifting research from execution to strategic advising requires moving from fulfilling requests to framing problems and guiding direction.
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Quality is protected through coaching not caretaking, commitment enforcement, thorough rehearsals, and centralizing legal and consent responsibilities.
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The Innovation Hub built a coalition of 30 research advocates across diverse disciplines within a year, increasing customer fluency organization-wide.
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Despite progress, the appetite for tactical research remains stronger than for strategic, long-term projects, highlighting ongoing cultural challenges.
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Providing opportunities for peer exchange among research participants increases ongoing engagement and capability retention.
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Democratization must be actively designed and owned by research teams, embracing a system designer mindset rather than a victim mindset.
Notable Quotes
"The debate about democratization is over. The question now is how do we make the most out of it."
"We could either become an internal service desk that's always at capacity or find a lever that multiplies our impact."
"Customer voice lives in minds, not in artifacts. We want people to truly hear how customers think and what they value."
"Co-creation is highly actionable for teams and genuinely engaging for customers."
"We do research not just to generate insights but to embed empathy across the organization."
"Scale without guardrails becomes chaos. Coaching not caretaking protects learning and accountability."
"The role of research is shifting from making to advising, from executing studies to shaping problem framing."
"Teams openly said they didn’t know how to ask questions before and discovered research is cool afterwards."
"We built a coalition of about 30 research advocates in a single year. That’s powerful."
"Democratization was never something that happened to research. It was something I chose to design to make work for my team."
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