Maturing User Research

Last Summer I was asked to write a strategy for a second stage interview for a Head of Research role. I spent around a fortnight putting something together. I was unsuccessful (in fact, the company changed their hiring plan and didn't appoint anyone). This was at the end of a soul destroying 11 week process and I wrote the whole thing off as a lesson learnt! (Clearly not a good fit for me)!

Today, I shared my deck with someone who is trying to establish design research in a new team and had another look at it. It's actually not bad and I thought what a waste it was sitting there in my Google Drive! So, I decided to open source it for all wanna be Research Leaders everywhere. Call it a Valentines gift from me to you:

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1qr2OHY-z-w0mqmA6VR-9lJXKeCVidt-YMmGh7LNzpHg/edit?usp=sharing  

You will see that I have removed all specifics and references to the nameless company. It would help if you read it through the lens of a tech/software company who are already doing some user research and who are trying to move to the next level of maturity. The role I was interviewing for was in the Product team but I approached it in a holistic company wide way (as was my previous experience at my old job at Monotype).

With those caveats aside, I'd love for people to take this and iterate and improve on it. What works, what doesn't? How can we help our colleagues in design and product do better research and at the same time build an expert community of practice? How do we move into the place where we can bring in operations to support that community of practice? These are the big questions I repeatedly hear people discussing all the time.

If this is something you are grappling with at the moment and want some support, I can help! Please do, get in touch and ask me about my consulting, coaching or mentoring services.