Unsticking Research for Better Information Flow
Summary
Creating and sharing knowledge to make better decisions and solve problems is the core of a research function. An “insight” helps organize disparate information – it makes things clear.
Key Insights
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Deliberate documentation with decision focus and tagging is key to making research insights retrievable and actionable across teams.
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Limiting key insights to five per report prevents dilution and conflicting stakeholder interpretations.
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AI tools like SharePoint Copilot and custom GPTs can effectively interrogate research repositories to detect duplication and support decision-making.
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Tagging documents with metadata such as decision informed, core problem, and expiry date helps both humans and AI find relevant insights quickly.
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Curated communication—using output-only channels for high-frequency updates and targeted in-depth emails—prevents stakeholders from becoming overwhelmed.
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Research insights have varying shelf lives; pricing studies may expire in 12-18 months while usability heuristics last longer.
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Keeping research reports focused on actionable decisions ties the insight work directly to business impact and ROI.
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An insight is a finding plus an opinion, emphasizing the so-what that ties data to business and user meaning.
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Scaling insight sharing requires evolving processes suited to company size, culture, and tools availability.
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Building relationships with customer-facing teams strengthens research influence and amplifies insights usage.
Notable Quotes
"What good are the insights if we can’t get them where they need to go, when they need to go there, and make sure they get used?"
"We end up with this junk drawer phenomenon with spaghetti-fication of different insights being passed around with no clarity."
"Deliberate documentation can be the decider between something being useful in the future or not."
"An insight is a finding plus an opinion — it’s the so what of it all."
"No more than five key insights — any more and teams start going off in different directions."
"We are not just doing research to find stuff out; we need to show a return on investment on everything."
"Don’t try to tag all historical work at once — tag as you go to avoid re-platforming nightmares."
"Curated communication means linking, not explaining — think of your messages as a doorway, not the destination."
"If you’re a team of one, focus on getting one stakeholder at a time to sponsor your work."
"If you’re in a big company, think smaller to work bigger — narrow your focus rather than get distracted by every shiny tool."
Or choose a question:
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