Video: What Research Ops Professionals Have Learned from COVID-19 (Videoconference)

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What Research Ops Professionals Have Learned from COVID-19 (Videoconference)

Thursday, July 16, 2020 • Advancing Research Community

Marjorie Stainback

Senior User Researcher, Fidelity Investments

Molly Fargotstein

Associate Research Operations Manager, Mailchimp

Stephanie Marsh

UX Research Operations Lead, Springer Nature

Summary

Marjorie Stainback I’m planning to talk about how COVID-19 shifted how we conduct research as well as our onboarding experience. We were used to using our in-house lab to speak to in-person participants and while we had the capabilities to go fully remote, we hadn’t built a process around it prior to the pandemic. Once we had that settled, we started hiring which led to an update of our onboarding process. Molly Fargotstein-Sanders Taking a step back at the start of the COVID-19 outbreak, research leadership came together and decided to halt recruitment until we understood the landscape a bit better. Ops took that time to rethink the way we structure our recruitment communications (language, compensation, flexibility) & we worked with researchers to be more flexible with cancellations, no shows, and unwillingness to participate due to the climate (how to navigate deadlines and roadmap expectations). Because of the types of users and customers we have, we took this opportunity to really listen to them & meet them where they are. It really allowed for Ops to take a step back and understand that we can function as the "bleeding heart" of research when the opportunity arises. Stephanie Marsh The quickest decision to be made and supported by the whole organization was not to invite or to do research with scientists and health care professionals that we knew would be working directly on COVID-19. Which meant supporting the pivoting of research to understand new needs both temporary and potentially permanent to our users - Scientists and students. The Research Operations team then worked on recruitment messaging to reassure potential participants that we can be flexible. We have supported and enabled researchers to share lessons learned more widely, such as avoiding afternoon sessions in India because of heavy internet traffic and poor connections. The pandemic prompted us to do emergency planning and identify critical tasks - if all ReOps people weren’t available what would still need to happen, what to do if all research tools were broken etc. We’ve included metrics to track participants' cancellation to quantify impact if any, to understand if perception and reality are the same or different. Longer term we are enabling the wider team to proactively shape the new normal of remote and office working.

Key Insights

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COVID-19 forced immediate 'sink or swim' shifts from in-person to fully remote research operations.
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Updating moderator scripts to acknowledge participant challenges during the pandemic fostered empathy and connection.
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Introducing electronic NDAs accelerated processes that were previously backlogged and overdue for modernization.
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Remote testing expanded participant diversity beyond local geographic limits.
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Building virtual social channels and committees helped sustain team morale and connectedness remotely.
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Prioritizing a few research operations pillars each quarter prevented burnout and maximized impact.
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Self-service recruitment ecosystems empower researchers while easing operational overhead.
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Tracking metrics like participant cancellations offered data-driven validation to continue research despite challenges.
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Remote work leveled international team engagement, making collaboration more equitable.
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Proactively planning for emergencies and adopting flexible, iterative approaches ensured research continuity.