Rosenverse

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.

Theme 3 Discussion

Gold
Tuesday, June 4, 2019 • Enterprise Experience 2019
Share the love for this talk
Theme 3 Discussion
Speakers: Smitha Papolu , Nova Wehman-Brown , Melissa Schmidt and Adam Menter
Link:

Summary

During the talk, panelists including Nova, Adam, Melissa, and others shared practical strategies for integrating customer success teams into product development early, as Nova recommended embedding them within scrum teams. Lauren McEwan raised challenges around documenting design decisions, which Melissa and Adam addressed by attaching rationale directly to screens and embedding customer profiles in JIRA stories for developer clarity. A key topic was the evolving role of research teams beyond conducting studies toward empowering others, a concept highlighted by the Autodesk team’s approach to enable research across the organization. Marco Ducostano’s question about managing feedback focus was tackled by using the RICE prioritization framework and maintaining frequent sprint discussions to balance effort and impact. Caroline Lamb’s query on improving product manager (PM) feedback highlighted the importance of relationship-building and co-leading research initiatives to coach PMs in asking better questions. Julie’s inquiry on data synthesis revealed best practices involving pre-planning, track leads organizing moderators, and using tools like MURAL to facilitate distributed collaboration. Michael Maternal raised concerns about managing customer expectations when vision exceeds delivery pace, and panelists stressed transparent, ongoing communication and real product delivery, using Intuit’s User Voice as an example of closed feedback loops. Malini Rao and Smitha described methods for translating research into product improvements, including dedicated engineering days to address prioritized customer requests. The session emphasized collaboration, synthesis, democratization of research, prioritization, and maintaining trust through responsive customer engagement.

Key Insights

  • Embedding customer success leaders early in scrum teams enhances alignment and product outcomes.

  • Documenting design decisions alongside screens with explanations aids clarity and future reference.

  • Research teams add value not only by doing studies but by enabling and coaching others to conduct research.

  • The RICE method (Reach, Impact, Confidence, Effort) effectively prioritizes customer feedback for sprint scope.

  • Effective feedback management requires frequent, ongoing team discussions to dynamically prioritize issues.

  • Building strong personal relationships with PMs is critical to improve the quality of research questions and product feedback.

  • Synthesizing vast research data requires structured planning before and after research with collaboration tools like MURAL.

  • Closing the loop with customers by sharing how feedback influences product releases builds trust and loyalty.

  • Dedicated engineering days focused on incremental improvements help act on smaller research insights outside big tracks.

  • Democratizing research amplifies impact, but researchers remain essential as coaches, mentors, and program managers.

Notable Quotes

"Find who the customer success leader is and get them embedded right in your scrum teams at the beginning, that's huge."

"We would put design decisions along with each screen to explain the rationale, so if people had questions they could refer back."

"The value of research is magnified when we democratize it and let others do research with us and on their own."

"We use the RICE method—reach, impact, confidence divided by effort—to prioritize customer requests in our sprints."

"At our sprint meetings three times a week, we discuss if a piece of feedback has already been prioritized or needs attention."

"You have to build a relationship first before you can advise PMs on asking better questions."

"Organize synthesis before the research happens by aligning on themes and goals with moderators and track leads."

"Real research by real teams that can build real products and show customers they're listening is massively helpful."

"Our engineering days let engineers pick up smaller ideas from research or bugs and improve the product incrementally."

"The researchers' role includes coaching, mentoring, and leading research efforts, not just doing research ops."

Ask the Rosenbot
Gina Mendolia
Coordinated collaboration: a Service Design & DesignOps love story
2025 • Advancing Service Design 2025
Gold
Sam Proulx
To Boldly Go: The New Frontiers of Accessibility
2022 • Design at Scale 2022
Gold
Jonathan Fairman
Integrating generative AI into enterprise products: A case study from dscout
2024 • Designing with AI 2024
Gold
Christian Bason
Innovating With People: Unleashing the Potential of Civic Design
2021 • Civic Design 2021
Gold
John Maeda
About Design Organizations
2019 • DesignOps Community
Adam Cutler
People + Places + Practices = Outcomes
2016 • Enterprise UX 2016
Gold
David Cronin
Discussion
2015 • Enterprise UX 2015
Gold
Kristin Skinner
Five Years of DesignOps
2021 • DesignOps Summit 2021
Gold
Dr. Jamika D. Burge
Bridge Building across Research Disciplines
2021 • Advancing Research Community
Victor Udoewa
Research in the Pluriverse
2023 • Advancing Research 2023
Gold
Rachael Dietkus, LCSW
Leading through the long tail of trauma
2022 • Advancing Research Community
Bob Baxley
Theme 4: Discussion
2024 • Enterprise Experience 2020
Gold
Jane Reid
Self-care in User Research
2020 • Advancing Research Community
Kevin M. Hoffman
Theme 2: Enterprise Team Journey
2019 • Enterprise Experience 2019
Gold
Product and Design at Bloomberg: A 15-year Evolution
2022 • Design in Product 2022
Gold
Christian Crumlish
AMA with Christian Crumlish, author of Product Management for UX People
2022 • Enterprise Community

More Videos

Sheri Byrne-Haber

"Either you need accessibility now or you will need accessibility in the future."

Sheri Byrne-Haber

Accessibility at Scale

June 9, 2021

Prayag Narula

"Most users don't know what they want until you show it to them."

Prayag Narula Hannah Hudson

Empowering Designers to do Good Research

March 11, 2022

Janelle Estes

"Centralized teams can become 'no machines' when overwhelmed with requests, needing to prioritize carefully."

Janelle Estes

UX Research Trends

January 28, 2021

Craig Brookes

"If you are spinning trying to make words work over and over, you likely have an interaction problem, not a word problem."

Craig Brookes Andreas Huebner Morgan Quinn

"Just Make it Look Good" and Other Ways We're Misunderstood

June 11, 2021

Marc Fonteijn

"We design a community that would be missed if it were gone for our service design leaders."

Marc Fonteijn Ru Butler

Increase your confidence, influence, and impact (through a Professional Community)

December 3, 2024

Kate Towsey

"It’s challenging scaling a team with limited resources to provide comprehensive coverage to a fast-growing research function — Tim Toy, Airbnb."

Kate Towsey

The State of ResearchOps: More Than Just Theory

June 20, 2019

Alla Weinberg

"Co-regulation means someone who is safe can help bring another out of a triggered state."

Alla Weinberg

Design Teams Need Psychological Safety: Here’s How to Create It

September 9, 2022

Shawna Hein

"The collaboration cycle requires following standards for accessibility, content, design system usage, and IA or you don’t launch your product."

Shawna Hein Kevin Hoffman

Create a Cohesive Civic Design Practice Across Agency, Vendors, and Contracts

November 17, 2022

Tricia Wang

"Positive mutual regard helps uncover root causes behind people’s behaviors to build collaboration rather than combat."

Tricia Wang

SCALE: Discussion

June 15, 2018