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Optimizing research’s impact on the product roadmap and strategy
Doing research isn’t enough — you need to convince people to act on it
Unfortunately doing great user research isn’t enough. Your key stakeholders need to be aware of it, understand how to integrate it into the overall product strategy, and actually make concrete changes based on it. But product development takes time, so presenting your research once and calling it a day usually doesn’t cut it. Instead, to create optimal and sustained value, you need to continuously surface, reference, and highlight your research when appropriate. Enter the quarterly research recap.
Each quarter, about a month before Product begins quarterly roadmap planning, Research should develop a recap and hold a session to summarize the main research themes from the quarter and share core recommendations to integrate into quarterly planning.
Make it as easy as possible for Product to draw upon research
Creating effective deliverables is the first step —developing and sharing succinct and convincing summaries of the key insights and recommendations from the research study. Holding a group synthesis session and/or a research readout is a great way to drive awareness, understanding, and alignment around the research. However, going a step further and providing a synthesis of your research each quarter will make it significantly easier for Product to incorporate and act on your findings.
Make it timely
Each quarter, you likely complete a variety of research studies, surveys, and usage analyses. You analyze the data, identify key themes, and provide recommendations. Your stakeholders are likely appreciative and engaged, excited to act. Some recommendations may be incorporated right away, while others may require more discussion, deliberation, and decisioning.
Providing a quarterly research recap — a summary of the research that happened that quarter, emerging themes across them, and concrete recommendations — a few weeks before quarterly planning kicks off will ensure research is top of mind and maximally valuable. You put in the time and effort to do the research, don’t skimp on sharing and…
