Summary
Growing organizational research capacity requires both bottom-up and top-down changes that can be daunting to tackle. Hana Nagel will examine the challenge of scaling research ops through the lens of social change theory, showing how service design and systems thinking can be used to create a strategy to increase research’s impact on product. By building collaboration, connection and community, you can bring enough people together to turn research ripples into waves.
Key Insights
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Social change often starts at the fringes with new patterns of interaction before rippling into mainstream systems.
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Scaling UX research requires transforming not just outputs but behaviors and norms across diverse teams.
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Systems change involves wicked problems with no single right solution and requires iterative, small-scale experiments.
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Theory of change helps align multiple stakeholders by working backward from desired outcomes through intermediate events.
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Service design can create environments and rituals that embed desired behaviors in organizational culture.
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First-hand involvement of product owners in UX research shifts perceptions and accelerates adoption.
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Empathizing with user values without trying to change them enables more effective grassroots behavior change.
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Creating safe spaces for low-impact failures encourages more people to practice and learn UX research skills.
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Building communities and coalitions sustains momentum and scales social proof across large enterprises.
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Persistent adaptation and focusing on leverage points enable progress despite inevitable organizational setbacks.
Notable Quotes
"Waves are happening on the fringes of society where cultural codes can be suspended and new social patterns develop."
"Scaling UX research is a social and system change that requires creating new patterns of interaction over time."
"Systems change is a wicked problem with many intertwined elements and no immediate way to know if your solution is right."
"The theory of change is a tool that helps you plan social impact by working backwards from the outcome you want."
"First-hand engagement with UX research is what convinces product owners it doesn’t slow down development but actually speeds it up."
"All feelings are valid when introducing new behaviors; you’re not trying to change the underlying values."
"We have to create safe spaces where people can make mistakes with low impact and learn from them."
"Act local but think global: optimize solutions for specific contexts then scale in small chunks."
"Our goal is to facilitate change by giving others ownership of the problem and solution so they take responsibility."
"It’s not incumbent upon you to finish making this world a better place, but neither are you free to desist from it."
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