Rosenverse
Using Evidence and Collaboration for Setting and Defending Priorities

This video is only accessible to Gold members. Log in or register for a free Gold Trial Account to watch.

Log in Register

Most conference talks are accessible to Gold members, while community videos are generally available to all logged-in members.

Using Evidence and Collaboration for Setting and Defending Priorities

Gold
Wednesday, November 29, 2023 • Design in Product 2023
Share the love for this talk
Using Evidence and Collaboration for Setting and Defending Priorities
Speakers: Dr Chloe Sharp
Link:

Summary

Setting the right priorities and roadmaps can be challenging. Having a data-driven and evidence-based approach provides a robust way to prioritise value propositions and features that inform the roadmap to align stakeholders. UX research and product discovery methods that work in a complementary way are key. UX leaders can take the project-based, strategic approach to UX research to get key business and product insights. Product discovery lends itself to lean experimentation for refining products and the UX. Both are needed simultaneously for broad and focused research efforts. This session will explain how UX Research and Product Teams can collaborate to identify innovation opportunities and develop products and services customer and users need.

Key Insights

  • Only 33% of businesses conduct research throughout the entire product lifecycle to guide decisions, indicating widespread underutilization of research.

  • Chloe's move from UX researcher to product manager required unlearning detailed documentation habits and adopting more concise, stakeholder-appropriate communication.

  • Involving stakeholders directly in user interviews, with careful preparation, helps change assumptions and align business and product strategies.

  • A flexible, high-level product roadmap like the now-next-later framework is effective for managing stakeholder expectations around timelines.

  • Democratizing research by upskilling non-research team members expands research capacity and embeds a culture of user-centered thinking.

  • Collaborative synthesis methods like affinity mapping allow stakeholders to empathize with users and advocate for their needs.

  • In small teams with external developers, clear delineation of roles and frequent communication are vital to managing priorities and responsibilities.

  • Continuous discovery accelerates over time, shifting from slow, project-based research to rapid prototyping and iterative feedback.

  • Balancing product priorities involves weighing stakeholder expectations, resource constraints, and clear documentation of decisions for transparency.

  • Product trios ideally include more than one engineer to represent engineering perspectives adequately, but resource constraints often limit this.

Notable Quotes

"Only 33% of businesses conduct research throughout the whole product lifecycle to inform product and business decisions."

"When I first came into the role, I almost took the consultant approach of writing a big report with recommendations, but that overwhelmed the team."

"Taking stakeholders on the journey by involving them in interviews really changed how they saw the product and business strategy."

"A high-level roadmap with now, next, later helped us show we had a plan but kept flexibility for changing priorities."

"Upskilling customer success managers and others to help with testing meant we could do far more research than I alone could manage."

"We used affinity mapping with stakeholders to get them really into the mindset of the users and advocate for them."

"There was a lot of communication needed around roles, especially since our software developer was external and not always involved in day-to-day decisions."

"As the product journey progressed, research cadence got faster with prototypes and quicker feedback loops."

"For bigger decisions, having documented meetings was critical for transparency and defending choices later on."

"Researchers can overcome reluctance to include others by training them closely and collaborating on synthesis to maintain data quality."

Ask the Rosenbot
Megan Blocker
Positioning insight: Structuring teams, roles and careers for a changing research landscape
2025 • Advancing Research 2025
Gold
Dan Willis
Theme 3: Intro
2024 • Enterprise Experience 2020
Gold
Bria Alexander
Opening Remarks
2022 • DesignOps Summit 2022
Gold
Peter Merholz
The Mysterious Case of the Missing UX Career Path
2022 • DesignOps Community
Marc Majers
Interrupted UX - Add A Dose of Reality To Usability Testing
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold
Dave Hora
A Research Skills Evolution
2021 • Advancing Research 2021
Gold
Sarah Rink
Remote User Research: Dos and Don'ts from the Virtual Field
2020 • Advancing Research Community
Max Gadney
Assessing UX jobs for impact in climate
2024 • Climate UX Interest Group
Cennydd Bowles
Day 1 Panel
2024 • Designing with AI 2024
Gold
Sofia Quintero
Beyond Tools: The Messy Business of Implementing Research Repositories
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold
Xenia Adjoubei
Empowering Communities Through the Researcher in Residence Program
2023 • Advancing Research 2023
Gold
Mackenzie Guinon
M.C. Escher’s UX Research Career Ladder
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold
Farid Sabitov
Automatization for Large Enterprise Teams
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2020
Gold
Christopher Taylor Edwards
Design as a Team Practice, A Practical Guide to Cross-functional Collaboration
2021 • DesignOps Summit 2021
Gold
Jacqui Frey
Scale is Social Work
2020 • DesignOps Community
Dagmara Kukawka
Tiny team, moonshot impact: Democratizing research across continents
2026 • Advancing Research 2026
Gold

More Videos

Anna Avrekh

"One of the amazing things about becoming very successful leaders is eventually becoming obsolete."

Anna Avrekh Dr. John Pagonis Klara Pelcl Sina Schreiber

Expert Panel: Leading in and with Research

March 10, 2022

Taylor Klassman

"We have these four pillars—purpose, people, process, and progress—that ground our thinking about UX research's future."

Taylor Klassman

Shaping the Next Era of UX Research: Collaborative Forum

March 11, 2025

Dr. Jamika D. Burge

"There’s this inflection point about how research work is done and what the system wants from knowledge workers."

Dr. Jamika D. Burge Steve Portigal Alba Villamil Sam Ladner

The Future of Research: Bridging the Gaps

July 29, 2021

Marisa Bernstein

"Build your pool, build your practice. If you provide a great testing experience, you’ve got another person to add to your group."

Marisa Bernstein

It Takes GRIT: Lessons from the Small, but Mighty World of Civic Usability Testing

December 9, 2021

Dan Mall

"A key metric for a successful design system is how early the design system team is invited into project conversations."

Dan Mall

“Ask Me Anything” with Dan Mall, Author of Upcoming Rosenfeld Title, Design that Scales

October 2, 2023

Chris Geison

"What am I personally doing to contribute to the dynamics that stand in the way of better futures?"

Chris Geison

Theme 1 Intro

March 9, 2022

Bruce Gillespie

"If someone only reads the first few paragraphs or attends the first 10 minutes, they should still get the key takeaways."

Bruce Gillespie

Learning from journalism: Balancing impactful communication with compassionate storytelling

March 13, 2025

Nancy Douyon

"Soap dispensers and water sensors often fail on darker skin because they rely on light reflection."

Nancy Douyon

We'll Figure That Out in the Next Launch: Enterprise Tech's Nobility Complex

June 15, 2018

Liz Ebengo

"Will you become an advocate for the world’s most vulnerable voices muffled and unheard in complex systems?"

Liz Ebengo

The Burden on Children: The Cost of Insufficient Post-Conflict Services and Pathways Forward

December 4, 2024