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Summary
Researchers achieve compelling impacts on product development—but many of their most crucial insights disappear from planning conversations. These insights are treated as momentary sparks when they could become durable business assets. Decision makers too often default to the latest, easiest-to-find data, rather than the most important research-based priorities. In this session, Jake Burghardt, author of Stop Wasting Research: Maximize the Product Impact of Your Organization's Customer Insights, will explore the problem of research waste and give some practical takeaways to fight it. Join us to learn five central ideas from Stop Wasting Research that can reframe how you think about research usage, research repositories, study planning, and activation of your insightful learning. Start plotting a course for your research community to become a more impactful stakeholder in product decision making.
Key Insights
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Research insights often have long-lasting value, but many become 'wasted' by not being activated or integrated into plans.
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The 'half-life' of research insights varies widely depending on context, with some usable for years and others becoming obsolete quickly.
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Research waste stems primarily from three root causes: poor preparation, lack of motivation among stakeholders, and weak integration into product processes.
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Research repositories and AI tools help but cannot solve systemic problems without cultural and operational initiatives.
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Building a cross-functional initiative focused on insight activation is more effective than relying on individual researchers or tools alone.
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Creating unique, shareable insight summaries with identifiers can enhance reusability and connection to planning goals.
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Researchers often work in silos, leading to duplicate efforts and missed opportunities for cross-team synthesis.
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Motivation to use research comes from demonstrating clear impact and crediting research contributions in launch successes.
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Integration means embedding research touchpoints throughout planning cycles, not just during initial study read-outs.
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Early wins through small experiments help build momentum for long-term culture change around research use.
Notable Quotes
"Stop Wasting Research isn’t about conducting new research; it’s about getting more juice from existing insights."
"Research waste means customer insights that were unseen, ignored, or unintentionally left out of planning."
"Insights can have impact years after the fact if properly activated."
"It takes more than tools — initiatives that build culture and shared responsibility are essential."
"Too often research lives in silos, making it hard to connect the dots across streams."
"Decision makers often see insights as optional inputs rather than long-term drivers of product strategy."
"Creating insight summaries with unique URLs and identifiers helps track and reactivate valuable learnings."
"You have to start with small experiments and passion projects before scaling to full initiatives."
"AI can support research operations but shouldn’t replace human judgment or integrated workflows."
"Building a research activation initiative is a marathon, not a sprint, requiring ongoing adaptation."
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