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
-
•
Deliberate documentation with decision focus and tagging is key to making research insights retrievable and actionable across teams.
-
•
Limiting key insights to five per report prevents dilution and conflicting stakeholder interpretations.
-
•
AI tools like SharePoint Copilot and custom GPTs can effectively interrogate research repositories to detect duplication and support decision-making.
-
•
Tagging documents with metadata such as decision informed, core problem, and expiry date helps both humans and AI find relevant insights quickly.
-
•
Curated communication—using output-only channels for high-frequency updates and targeted in-depth emails—prevents stakeholders from becoming overwhelmed.
-
•
Research insights have varying shelf lives; pricing studies may expire in 12-18 months while usability heuristics last longer.
-
•
Keeping research reports focused on actionable decisions ties the insight work directly to business impact and ROI.
-
•
An insight is a finding plus an opinion, emphasizing the so-what that ties data to business and user meaning.
-
•
Scaling insight sharing requires evolving processes suited to company size, culture, and tools availability.
-
•
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:
More Videos
"Getting something accessible is a straight line; keeping something accessible requires process change."
Sheri Byrne-HaberAccessibility at Scale
June 9, 2021
"Feature bloat kills usability because it clouds the core value proposition."
Prayag Narula Hannah HudsonEmpowering Designers to do Good Research
March 11, 2022
"Centralized teams can become 'no machines' when overwhelmed with requests, needing to prioritize carefully."
Janelle EstesUX Research Trends
January 28, 2021
"Our customers actually live in Siberia and they don't want ice cream, they want hot cookies out of the oven."
Craig Brookes Andreas Huebner Morgan Quinn"Just Make it Look Good" and Other Ways We're Misunderstood
June 11, 2021
"Respondents who feel very connected are twice as likely to say they’re making a significant impact."
Marc Fonteijn Ru ButlerIncrease your confidence, influence, and impact (through a Professional Community)
December 3, 2024
"The issue is not research ops being more organized researchers — the problems and scale are very different."
Kate TowseyThe State of ResearchOps: More Than Just Theory
June 20, 2019
"If I make a mistake on our team, it’s not gonna be held against me; my team won’t disconnect from me."
Alla WeinbergDesign Teams Need Psychological Safety: Here’s How to Create It
September 9, 2022
"Slack channels and weekly meetings encourage cross-contract collaboration, avoiding duplication and sharing learnings across teams."
Shawna Hein Kevin HoffmanCreate a Cohesive Civic Design Practice Across Agency, Vendors, and Contracts
November 17, 2022
"When ideas don't make it into the product, I do a post-mortem to share opportunities missed and improve the process."
Tricia WangSCALE: Discussion
June 15, 2018
