One Research Team for All - Influence Without Authority
Summary
Research teams are at the frontier of uncovering valuable insights that can inform products, services, and strategy choices. Few researchers in large organizations have the visibility and buy-in to exert influence across all of product, engineering, customer success, marketing, and overall organizational direction. How do you break down silos and maximize the impact of your research? Join us in conversation with Joanna Vodopivec, Principal Design Researcher at Intuit, to learn how she makes her team’s research relevant to colleagues in product, marketing, and services, and the latest initiatives she has led to enable the research team to be truly seen in a large organization. You will also hear the creative approaches Joanna and her team take to engage and influence, even when working remotely.
Key Insights
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Cross-team collaboration is easier when researchers share methods and goals, allowing complementary study roles and co-creation of outputs.
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Partnering with market research unlocks access to broader data like long-running surveys and helps interpret gaps in customer insights.
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Inviting non-research teams into studies, such as customer success and business process teams, deepens findings through triangulation of multiple perspectives.
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Early involvement of stakeholders including product managers, content creators, and tax experts leads to better buy-in and reduces handoff friction.
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Proactively proposing new research initiatives can uncover insights stakeholders hadn’t requested but that drive innovation.
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Using video presentations and video parties makes research findings more accessible and engaging across organizational silos than traditional slide decks.
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Slack threads and tagging enable lightweight, asynchronous sharing of research insights to busy development teams.
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Building trust across departments requires consistent relationship-building, respect for others’ expertise, and time investment.
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Researchers must carefully balance uncovering pain points and acknowledging strengths to align sensitivities with teams that hide weaknesses.
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Service design thinking gains traction when service delivery teams are involved from the research inception stage, avoiding silos.
Notable Quotes
"Customer obsession is actually one of our key values, which makes my job as a researcher a little bit easier."
"Collaboration with another researcher was seamless because we speak the same methodology language and aligned on goals."
"Partnering with market researchers allowed us to ask specific product questions within their long-running exit survey."
"Inviting other teams into research sessions lets us triangulate findings by combining interviews, observations, and focus groups."
"Bringing stakeholders into the kitchen early helped us learn even before sessions started and adjust designs accordingly."
"We should feel empowered to propose research initiatives that stakeholders aren’t explicitly asking for."
"Video parties allow many teams to engage and observe learnings in a more compelling and digestible way than slides."
"Slack channels with live feeds and tagging let busy developers catch key observations asynchronously."
"Building strong relationships with marketing requires mutual respect and regularly following up on their insights."
"Starting with positives and acknowledging good work helps break down resistance when sharing findings that reveal weak points."
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