Rosenverse

This video is only accessible to Gold members. Log in or register for a free Gold Trial Account to watch.

Log in Register

Most conference talks are accessible to Gold members, while community videos are generally available to all logged-in members.

Theme 3 Discussion
Gold
Tuesday, June 4, 2019 • Enterprise Experience 2019
Share the love for this talk
Theme 3 Discussion
Speakers: Smitha Papolu , Nova Wehman-Brown , Melissa Schmidt and Adam Menter
Link:

Summary

During the talk, panelists including Nova, Adam, Melissa, and others shared practical strategies for integrating customer success teams into product development early, as Nova recommended embedding them within scrum teams. Lauren McEwan raised challenges around documenting design decisions, which Melissa and Adam addressed by attaching rationale directly to screens and embedding customer profiles in JIRA stories for developer clarity. A key topic was the evolving role of research teams beyond conducting studies toward empowering others, a concept highlighted by the Autodesk team’s approach to enable research across the organization. Marco Ducostano’s question about managing feedback focus was tackled by using the RICE prioritization framework and maintaining frequent sprint discussions to balance effort and impact. Caroline Lamb’s query on improving product manager (PM) feedback highlighted the importance of relationship-building and co-leading research initiatives to coach PMs in asking better questions. Julie’s inquiry on data synthesis revealed best practices involving pre-planning, track leads organizing moderators, and using tools like MURAL to facilitate distributed collaboration. Michael Maternal raised concerns about managing customer expectations when vision exceeds delivery pace, and panelists stressed transparent, ongoing communication and real product delivery, using Intuit’s User Voice as an example of closed feedback loops. Malini Rao and Smitha described methods for translating research into product improvements, including dedicated engineering days to address prioritized customer requests. The session emphasized collaboration, synthesis, democratization of research, prioritization, and maintaining trust through responsive customer engagement.

Key Insights

  • Embedding customer success leaders early in scrum teams enhances alignment and product outcomes.

  • Documenting design decisions alongside screens with explanations aids clarity and future reference.

  • Research teams add value not only by doing studies but by enabling and coaching others to conduct research.

  • The RICE method (Reach, Impact, Confidence, Effort) effectively prioritizes customer feedback for sprint scope.

  • Effective feedback management requires frequent, ongoing team discussions to dynamically prioritize issues.

  • Building strong personal relationships with PMs is critical to improve the quality of research questions and product feedback.

  • Synthesizing vast research data requires structured planning before and after research with collaboration tools like MURAL.

  • Closing the loop with customers by sharing how feedback influences product releases builds trust and loyalty.

  • Dedicated engineering days focused on incremental improvements help act on smaller research insights outside big tracks.

  • Democratizing research amplifies impact, but researchers remain essential as coaches, mentors, and program managers.

Notable Quotes

"Find who the customer success leader is and get them embedded right in your scrum teams at the beginning, that's huge."

"We would put design decisions along with each screen to explain the rationale, so if people had questions they could refer back."

"The value of research is magnified when we democratize it and let others do research with us and on their own."

"We use the RICE method—reach, impact, confidence divided by effort—to prioritize customer requests in our sprints."

"At our sprint meetings three times a week, we discuss if a piece of feedback has already been prioritized or needs attention."

"You have to build a relationship first before you can advise PMs on asking better questions."

"Organize synthesis before the research happens by aligning on themes and goals with moderators and track leads."

"Real research by real teams that can build real products and show customers they're listening is massively helpful."

"Our engineering days let engineers pick up smaller ideas from research or bugs and improve the product incrementally."

"The researchers' role includes coaching, mentoring, and leading research efforts, not just doing research ops."

Ask the Rosenbot
Sam Proulx
To Boldly Go: The New Frontiers of Accessibility
2022 • Civic Design 2022
Gold
Allison Sanders
Operating with Purpose
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2020
Gold
Reginé Gilbert
Asking the Right Questions: Life, Hope and Moving Forward During the Pandemic
2022 • Design at Scale 2022
Gold
Adel Du Toit
Get Your CFO To Say: 'Our Strategic Goal is User Obsession'
2022 • Design at Scale 2022
Gold
JP Allen
Navigating the UX Tools Landscape
2021 • DesignOps Summit 2021
Gold
Dan Mall
“Ask Me Anything” with Dan Mall, Author of Upcoming Rosenfeld Title, Design that Scales
2023 • DesignOps Summit 2023
Gold
Jim Kalbach
Jazz Improvisation as a Model for Team Collaboration
2019 • Enterprise Experience 2019
Gold
Kat Vellos
Opener: The Other L Word
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2020
Gold
Kaaren Hanson
Stop Talking, Start Doing
2017 • Enterprise Experience 2017
Gold
Angelos Arnis
State of DesignOps: Learnings from the 2021 Global Report
2021 • DesignOps Summit 2021
Gold
Ivana Ng
Level Up Your Program with ProductOps
2024 • Enterprise Experience 2020
Gold
Gretchen Anderson
Scaling the Human Center
2017 • Enterprise Experience 2017
Gold
Peter Van Dijck
Building the Rosenbot
2024 • Designing with AI 2024
Gold
Dharani Perera
The mandala of service design: unlocking alignment and action through service design
2025 • Advancing Service Design 2025
Conference
Gina Mendolia
Therapists, Coaches, and Grandmas: Techniques for Service Design in Complex Systems
2024 • Advancing Service Design 2024
Gold
Matt Duignan
HITS, Microsoft's internal human insight system: From research library to living body of knowledge
2019 • Advancing Research Community

More Videos

Doug Powell

"Design thinking is for everybody. It’s collaborative, inclusive, and cross-disciplinary."

Doug Powell

Closing Keynote: Design at Scale

November 8, 2018

Mila Kuznetsova

"Matching researchers by language and culture makes children more comfortable and improves consent."

Mila Kuznetsova Lucy Denton

How Lessons Learned from Our Youngest Users Can Help Us Evolve our Practices

March 9, 2022

Sarah Gallimore

"Evan actually spent less than 15 minutes on the essay, and instead of working on homework, he was writing a letter to his significant other back home in Detroit."

Sarah Gallimore

Inspire Progress with Artifacts from the Future

November 18, 2022

Lada Gorlenko

"Operations tends to be something companies only think about when they are scaling rapidly, but investing early is essential."

Lada Gorlenko Sharbani Dhar Sébastien Malo Rob Mitzel Ivana Ng Michal Anne Rogondino

Theme 1: Discussion

January 8, 2024

Alnie Figueroa

"AI is here to stay, challenging our norms and shaping our future."

Alnie Figueroa

The Future of Design Operations: Transforming Our Craft

September 10, 2025

Landon Barnes

"Every board member can interpret an NPS score differently depending on their role and responsibilities."

Landon Barnes

Are My Research Findings Actually Meaningful?

March 10, 2022

Emily Eagle

"Every workaround is a mini story of somebody overcoming an obstacle."

Emily Eagle

Can't Rewind: Radio and Retail

June 3, 2019

Malini Rao

"We neglected our power users during the responsive, one-size-fits-all strategy, and it really hurt us."

Malini Rao

Lessons Learned from a 4-year Product Re-platforming Journey

June 9, 2021

Asia Hoe

"Project management was focused on outputs, assuming the correct feature was already defined."

Asia Hoe

Partnering with Product: A Journey from Junior to Senior Design

November 29, 2023