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Summary
Over the past decade, user research has matured significantly. It’s increasingly more common for large organizations to have dozens of people doing user research, whether as part of a dedicated team of researchers or other design roles. Growing team sizes and increasing organizational demand has meant that the pressures placed on people doing research have grown too. To meet demand and be efficient, impactful, compliant (and happy, lest we forget), researchers need more rigorous operational support. In 2018, through the work of the ResearchOps Community and its #WhatisResearchOps initiative, the nascent practice of ResearchOps was given shape: via a series of global workshops by researchers and for researchers, the Community explored what ResearchOps should look like and produced a framework to map its various parts. But what’s behind the theory? What does ResearchOps actually look like in the world today? And who are the people leading the way? In this talk, Kate shared insight into the state of ResearchOps today, talked about current and potential ResearchOps opportunities and challenges, and shared what she thinks the future holds for this emerging practice.
Key Insights
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Research operations teams have grown from lone practitioners to multi-person, multi-skilled teams typically scaling around one ops person to five researchers.
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It is crucial to design processes into research ops rather than simply shifting researcher inefficiency onto ops teams.
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Research ops supports the research function but is distinct from research leadership, which defines strategy and prioritization.
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Scaling research ops teams early, as soon as you have five researchers, helps demonstrate value and manage workload effectively.
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Effective research ops include managing participant recruitment, vendor relationships, tooling, knowledge management, and researcher experience.
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Research ops roles often suit people with service industry backgrounds due to the service-oriented nature of the work.
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Engagement and impact roles within research ops bring creative opportunities, such as branding, event production, and making research tangible in physical spaces.
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Close collaboration across functions—legal, privacy, procurement, estates—is vital for a successful research ops practice.
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Supporting not just researchers but also the broader group of people conducting research (e.g., product managers, designers) increases workload and requires clear prioritization.
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Community building and sharing frameworks globally have helped research ops mature from theoretical concepts into practical and scalable practices.
Notable Quotes
"Research ops provides the roles, tools, and processes needed to support researchers — that’s as concise as it gets."
"It’s challenging scaling a team with limited resources to provide comprehensive coverage to a fast-growing research function — Tim Toy, Airbnb."
"Research ops allows me to indulge my geeky planning spreadsheety side as well as my people-loving supportive side — Saskia, Delivery."
"The longer you take to recognize research ops and scale your team, the harder it becomes to amplify the value of your research investment — Carrie, Booking.com."
"You cannot provide end-to-end service for every researcher, but you can deliver highly supported self-service — Kate Towsey."
"The issue is not research ops being more organized researchers — the problems and scale are very different."
"Managing vendors is a full-time job, and research ops teams often coordinate numerous vendors for tools and recruitment."
"Research ops is heavily reliant on clear and consistent research leadership to define strategy and priorities."
"Designing the service so the team can be efficient and impactful is essential — otherwise you just move the inefficiency around."
"Engagement and impact roles bring creativity and help maintain team morale in otherwise dry operations work."
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