What is Research Strategy?
Summary
Key Insights
-
•
Many organizations lack a formal research strategy, but having one is critical to being taken seriously and having strategic impact.
-
•
A research mission statement serves as a North Star, guiding what to say yes and no to and clarifying research’s value proposition.
-
•
Saying no to some research projects is essential because without saying no, you only have urgency, not strategy.
-
•
The questions workshop helps teams surface unknowns and assumptions, transforming them into aligned research opportunities.
-
•
Prioritization should be a structured team conversation using an assessment matrix considering factors like risk, value, buy-in, time, and effort.
-
•
Measuring research impact requires checking both whether the project achieved its aims and if the research was actually used.
-
•
Researchers rarely follow up post-study to see if insights were implemented or successful, which limits learning and recognition of impact.
-
•
Research strategy should ladder up to and align with broader corporate strategies, even if those are unclear or evolving.
-
•
Strategic research practice is not solely a leadership responsibility; individual contributors and small teams can and should adopt it.
-
•
Communities and shared vocabularies around research strategy are emerging, reminiscent of early days of research operations, encouraging collaboration.
Notable Quotes
"If we’re not able to talk about research as a basket of potential investments driving innovation or de-risking decisions, maybe we don’t deserve a seat at the table."
"Research strategy is how we stop wasting time on bullshit projects that don’t drive results."
"The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do."
"You have a strategy either by design or by default; most often, that default is doing whatever is most politically expedient or urgent."
"Saying no to a research request is actually saying yes to better focused, higher impact work elsewhere."
"The questions workshop is about surfacing unknowns, assumptions, and turning them into aligned research opportunities."
"Prioritization isn’t about scoring to pick projects, but about facilitating discussion and aligning the team’s understanding."
"It’s too infrequent researchers ask what metrics PMs are being held to or follow up months later on project outcomes."
"Where I work, we don’t have a centralized research function; we pilot tools locally and then share them more broadly, showing strategy can start anywhere."
"I want to see us running companies that prize curiosity over confidence, making decisions based on users’ unmet needs rather than business assumptions."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"UX research teams spend significant time manually analyzing interviews, limiting capacity to focus on higher-value tasks."
Andy Barraclough Betsy NelsonFrom Costly Complexity to Efficient Insights: Why UX Teams Are Switching To Voxpopme
September 23, 2024
"If something is culturally resonant, it can shortcut to usefulness in a way that doesn’t seem entirely rational."
Neil BarrieWidening the Aperture: The Case for Taking a Broader Lens to the Dialogue between Products and Culture
March 25, 2024
"Change is fundamentally a design problem and therefore change can be designed."
Maria GiudiceBecoming a Changemaker by Leading with Design
March 29, 2023
"They wouldn’t tell us what the requirements were; it was our job to figure it out."
Joshua GravesWe Need To Talk: Managing Ludicrous Requests at Work (Part 3 of 3)
May 12, 2025
"We used affinity mapping with stakeholders to get them really into the mindset of the users and advocate for them."
Dr Chloe SharpUsing Evidence and Collaboration for Setting and Defending Priorities
November 29, 2023
"The biggest problem was to solve the engagement problem first with the sponsor, then the team, then external stakeholders."
Carl TurnerYou Can Do This: Understand and Solve Organizational Problems to Jumpstart a Dead Project
March 28, 2023
"We have about 5,000 new IBMers arriving every month, with high expectations and low tolerance for poor experiences."
Kristin WisnewskiMeasuring What Matters
October 23, 2019
"The truth about stories is that is all that we are – Thomas King."
Bilan HashiThe Tension Between Story Collecting and Story Telling in Research
March 10, 2021
"I work in an organization where its leaders don’t understand design and don’t value it. It just doesn’t get resourced."
Brianna SylverLead With Purpose
March 31, 2020
