Log in or create a free Rosenverse account to watch this video.
Log in Create free account100s of community videos are available to free members. Conference talks are generally available to Gold members.
Summary
When everyone in an organization shares useful, insightful information, wonderful things happen: we align our company strategies and our teams toward common goals, and we make great user experiences. The job of the research leader is to unlock that information by advocating for users and soliciting insights far and wide. The research leader empowers colleagues to vocalize and share their valuable perspectives so everyone makes better decisions.
Key Insights
-
•
Opportunistic research leaders expand impact by collaborating beyond product teams with marketing and sales.
-
•
Including multiple organizational perspectives in research uncovers broader value and drives company-wide buy-in.
-
•
A single well-designed survey can serve diverse internal stakeholders and inform multiple business decisions.
-
•
There is a vast disparity between open design roles and user research roles, signaling a need for proactive advocacy.
-
•
Relentless and strategic sharing of research findings via communication platforms raises awareness and demand.
-
•
Centralizing research requests via intake forms helps prioritize studies that serve multiple teams and company goals.
-
•
Researchers must actively ‘go to the mountain’ as awareness of research rarely happens organically in large organizations.
-
•
Integrating market research data with user research can strengthen insights and foster cross-team collaboration.
-
•
Balancing top-down (executive) priorities with grassroots demands is key for research resource allocation.
-
•
Packaging research results with clear headlines and actionable insights increases organizational engagement.
Notable Quotes
"We know users are important, but there are very few user research roles compared to design or engineering."
"Research leaders have a superpower to connect dots between users and the entire organization."
"Relentless oversharing of research in Slack channels builds awareness and invites collaboration."
"We can’t say understanding users is someone else’s job; no white knight is coming to save us."
"Once people see the value of research, they want more of it; it becomes a habit."
"Research leadership is about adding value to the entire organization, not just your small corner."
"Every research project is a chance to serve the whole organization and bring in missing perspectives."
"You have to go to the mountain; the mountain won’t come to you."
"Packaging research with simple headlines brings people in, then we can layer on nuance and detail."
"Balancing top-down strategy and grassroots demand is essential to prioritizing research effectively."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"When something good happens, I want to name the person who did it and say yes, they passed through me. When something bad happens, I say let me and my team go look into it."
Christian Crumlish Wendy Johansson Rich Mironov Aditi Ruiz Adam ThomasAfternoon Insights Panel
December 6, 2022
"There are lots of little mushroom patches of design sprouting up, but they're disconnected and not sharing."
Michael LandEstablishing Design Operations in Government
February 18, 2021
"The theme is clarity. But really I’m gonna say the theme is you — the 613 people from all over the planet."
Bria Alexander Louis RosenfeldWelcome
September 8, 2022
"Design thinking has to be embedded at scale to capture and align creativity across a massive company."
Surya VankaUnleashing Swarm Creativity to Solve Enterprise Challenges
June 10, 2021
"The most important step we often forget is moving on to the next problem."
Cassandra PiesterDeveloping and Deploying Your Design Operations Strategy
September 24, 2024
"Whether you are a student, designer, or government worker, there is advice for getting started in Civic Design."
Ariel KennanTheme 2 Intro
December 9, 2021
"Our brains are wired for efficiency and use heuristics, so they prefer daydreaming over hard conversations."
Joshua GravesWe Need To Talk: Navigating Conversations with Your Boss (Part 1 of 3)
April 14, 2025
"Models are stateless; they have no memory and forget everything after each response."
Peter Van DijckBuilding impactful AI products for design and product leaders, Part 3: Understand AI architectures: RAG, Agents, Oh My!
July 30, 2025
"Our dedicated scribe Shivangi is making sure all the notes are captured so you don't have to worry about it."
Bria AlexanderOpening Remarks
November 17, 2022
