Internal alignment workshops: how to make research findings actionable

The key to making the research findings actionable is tracing the design decisions back to the research opportunity that originated them. In this article, I share my experience using workshops to ensure that the research projects deliver insights that are actively used by the organizations to make informed decisions. (With an added bonus of having actual product impact to show the research contribution to the product development process)

This article is the second of the series called: “Enabling Product Success through Research.” You can find the first post here

How many times have you received the feedback of “your research is not actionable”? As a researcher, I’ve heard it many times, and it was common to hear it, especially in academic circles. After all, that’s the main complaint about academic research: no one knows how to use it.

Now fast forward to 2024 and the phrase is everywhere in UX Research: job descriptions, performance reviews, and it’s even used in non-research contexts (design). There is an expectation of the research being actionable enough to prove the value of it…but what does actionable mean?

What can we researchers do to ensure that:

- The insights or opportunities uncovered through our research are acted upon

- Our research doesn’t get shelved

- Companies know what to do the knowledge that we produce

And more on a tactical level, how can we ensure that the research is delivering the information that the team needs to make a decision?

Photo by Jason Goodman on Unsplash

What is an actionable insight? Or what makes research actionable?

Last year, I realized there was an opportunity to position the Research team better and set us all up for success. There was a lot of discussion regarding the meaning of “actionable insights”, and given my experience as a UX Research manager I knew this had to tackled right away. Therefore, I proposed we gather some stakeholder feedback to kick-start the discussion and the results were eye-opening.

The main topics were:

1. Recommendations about the feature:

• Instructions on what the team should do next, preferably with UX or UI proposals
• Clear next steps: more research or test it live

2. Quantify the impact of the opportunity, in other words: opportunity sizing

3. Prioritization

4. Recommendations about how to conduct research and methodologies

• Benchmarks
• Visual desirability of a design

The analysis showed how the role and the value of the researcher is still unclear, and how the expectations around our activities overlap with the product owner or product manager realm. The risk is to effectively strip away the team’s ownership and freedom to propose alternatives to solve the situation uncovered by research.

After a thorough analysis we can see a pattern emerging: all the feedback implies making an informed decision.

Okay and what is my take on an actionable feedback? (my concept as a researcher and former entrepreneur having succesfully launched two companies)

An actionable insight is a business opportunity for the company/PM/UX designer to explore. It means the research has uncovered a behavior from our clients/customers/users that we can leverage to achieve a specific business outcome.

However, my 14 years of experience in conducting product research has taught me that pointing out the opportunity is not enough, since most organizations struggle with knowing what to do with that information. They are not mature enough, and will most likely shelve the research unless the researcher take an active role.

And you might wonder, what happens if the result is there is no opportunity at all? Well, that is also an actionable insight! We have to normalize when the research does not produce a positive result, and the fact that this is often overlooked just shows how misunderstood is the role of the researcher.

How do we ensure our projects deliver actionable insights?

First, we need to consider that every project must end with a decision that can be any of the following:

• Opportunity sizing by the product manager
• Develop and test
• Iterate on the designs/solutions

We have more questions and we need to do more research. (Hint: we can create a research program for the product)

• Shelve the initiative because it’s an unwanted outcome.

When it comes to how we can actually achieve this, I like to use the ACME Approach:

1. Align stakeholders:

• What decision do they need to make?
• When do they need to make a decision?
• Who are the primary stakeholders?
• What are the overarching questions?
• How will they measure the success of the solution?

2. Confirm:

• The project timeline
• Risks
• Next steps (after the research)

3. Measure:

• The impact of the decision made based on the research insight (in product)
• The impact of the research on squad efficiency

The last step of the alignment stage “Measuring the success” of the solution is key for us researchers connecting a business outcome to our project. My experience is this is where most of the squads struggle, because they don’t know or haven’t considered how to measure the success of the solution.

Hint: the Key Result is not releasing the feature, therefore the researcher can help them consider options to measure if the solution was successful.

Now while I’m writing this article, I found other resources that the reader might find useful:

• The knowledge management strategies has been covered by International development research center.
• Key attributes of an actionable insight

Now it’s time for a short story:

Back when I was setting up the research process at a company, I was considering different alternatives to manage the project intake. The content and accessibility design managers were using a a simple form and asked the teams to fill it out…however, the product teams were not using it. At first, I thought it was some kind of a “form aversion” but it turned out the teams didn’t have a clear answer for the many questions in the form. This situation is rather common, and has been addressed by seasoned UX practitioners like Darren Wood, so I won’t go into detail here.

This realization led me to think outside the box to come up with another strategy, one that could position my team for success in handling research project requests. That is how the “internal alignment workshop” came to be. It was a low-key session that created the space for the team to discuss the scope of the project, surface hypothesis, and questions, but most importantly how they were going to measure the success of the project. This last piece of information is key for when the researchers hear the dreaded feedback of “your research was not actionable”.

The internal alignment workshop runs for about 45 minutes and covers the following topics:

- User problem

- Overarching questions

- Business goals and metrics

- Hypothesis

- Timeline

I use this input to create a research proposal and timeline, that I share with the team again to align expectations or add last-minute requests to the development teams. This is exactly what happened back in 2021, when I was the lead researcher of a joint project between Blackboard and Microsoft. During the workshop the PM realized that we didn’t have the built-in capacity to measure the traffic of a specific feature. It was at an early stage of the project and there was still time to add it to the wish list. (Crisis averted)

These workshops are also useful in helping researchers make sense of the stakeholders requests. In my case, I once received a request from a director to assess whether the users found the design visually appealing. I didn’t understand at first where this request was coming from, and after the workshop I realized that there was an opportunity to evangelize about the value and scope of research.

The next step after the research is having an internal knowledge-building session, to ensure the team uses research insights to make an informed decision. I already covered this topic in a previous post.

But what should a researcher answer when a stakeholder says: your research was not actionable?

Go back to the internal alignment workshop and review:

- The decision they needed to make: (Did it happen or not?)

- The impact of the success metrics: what was the behavioral change?

Then you will have facts to show that your research helped the team move forward and the discussion will be around facts and not perceptions.

Key takeaways:

• An actionable insight is an opportunity to impact a business metric.
• By surfacing the decision, they need to make, we are reducing the risk to deliver “something” they can’t use and reducing the scope of the project.
• The internal alignment workshop positions the researcher to measure the impact of the project. Either because it was positive or if the team decided to move forward despite the evidence of the research…the impact on the product will show your assessment was on the right path.

Appreciation

This proposal would never have been possible without the support from Diana, Camila, and Maria Teresa, my team at Blackboard. They always proposed new activities that would keep the research participants or stakeholders engaged. I would also like to thank my colleagues Mara and Nay, for taking the risk to test the templates with their teams. Their feedback has been incredibly valuable to keep iterating on the knowledge-building session.

Happy to grab coffee or tea for chat! Let’s connect on Linkedin

Disclaimer: Opinions expressed are solely my own and do not express the views or opinions of my employer.

Last but not least, a huge thank you to my RLs Jessica Glaue-Rahn and Lydia Penkert for sponsoring these proactive initiatives that sets the research team up for success.

Sources:

• Campbell S, Schryer-Roy A, Jessani N. The Research Matters
  Knowledge Translation Toolkit: A Resource for Researchers. Ottawa,
  Canada: International Development Research Centre and Swiss
  Agency for Development and Cooperation, 2008. Available at
  www.research-matters.net
• Lizarazo, Maria A. Transforming shareouts into engaging experiences for your stakeholders and fellow UX researchers
• Woods, Darren. Toxic positivity
• Dykes, Brent. Actionable insights: the missing link between data and business.