Key Insights

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  Early UX research focused on evaluating decisions after they were made, but now researchers can influence product strategy and organizational alignment.

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  Assessing how the organization and research teams perceive themselves is crucial to identify gaps and opportunities for influence.

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  Researchers often excel in craft and domain expertise but may lack critical business acumen and advising skills, which limits their impact.

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  Setting an audacious, long-term goal energizes teams and elevates their mindset towards influencing leadership-level decisions.

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  All customer contact can be strategic if research questions are intentionally mapped to organizational goals; the tactical vs strategic distinction is often false.

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  Finding a high-level champion before defining problems is essential to accessing key information and aligning research efforts with business priorities.

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  Collaboration across user research, data science, and market research enables producing trusted, generalizable data for executives.

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  Mapping research findings to business metrics, like queries in search, makes the impact clear and drives organizational buy-in.

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  Delivering strategic insights becomes easier after careful preparation and alignment phases focused on relationships and timing.

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  Individual researchers can advance influence by leveraging established relationships and growing business and advising skills alongside their research craft.

Notable Quotes