Internal Research and Defining Success Together

Creating a user research repository is less about implementing tools and more about designing better ways to share knowledge and improve decision making.

As part of improving your current processes, you will have to introduce changes; this is one of the most challenging aspects of any organizational project.

Implementing any kind of change within an organization requires a deep understanding of how to engage people with the project, especially those who will directly or indirectly benefit from the change. If your team is already committed to the idea of building a research repository, it’s time to talk to people outside your team.

Your goal is to understand your stakeholder's expectations and how they will use the data you are planning to centralize. To get started with those conversations, here are a couple of questions you may want to ask:

Do you talk to customers regularly or do any customer research?

If so, what is your process and where do you store your findings?

How do you use research findings to make decisions?

Do you share that information? If so, how?

If you don’t do research, do you use any research done by other teams? If so, what type of research and formats do you find most helpful?

Could you tell me the last time you did research or used research data from another team to make a decision?

Did you share the impact of that decision or your decision-making process with somebody else?

What are your thoughts on the way research is shared and used in the business? Anything you would like to see improved?

We are thinking of building a research repository, what do you think could be the pitfalls or reasons for failure for this project?

These conversations will help you identify the gaps in communication and processes that you need to consider when implementing your repository. This is a crucial step in your implementation process and one that can help you define success with your stakeholders in mind.

READ MORE:

Change management for UX teams