Questions to assess if your research tactical or strategic
Questions to assess if your research tactical or strategicThe difference between the two and why it is importantEvery researcher has done their fair share of tactical work. At times it is not completely avoidable, especially if you are the only researcher. However the more experienced you get, the more you should be influencing beyond your product or feature area. Senior researchers and beyond need to aim for influence on an organisational-wide level. Photo by Kelly Sikkema on UnsplashWhy it is important to tell the differenceTactical work generally focuses on usability - ease of use and usefulness. It can be also used to validate a particular idea or part of a product. It will have a narrower focus on design or direction. By basing it on the design or direction it limits where those findings can be applied. Insights and results would be applied to that particular design. Tactical work tends to be higher in requests and volume. A researcher might be brought into the late stage of the design and development process. The focus would be on the develop and deliver phase instead of the discover and define phase. In the later stage of the development process, research is more likely to be more disposable and less influential. If you were to open a research report a year later that is technical in nature it would be hard to reuse those findings. There are exceptions of course. An example might be if it leads to design principle changes. Source: WikipediaWith solely tactical projects, there is a risk of limiting impact and growth. Some methods are not ideal for tactical research, so your breadth of skillset will be limited too. More longitudinal research is best applied for strategic work. Organisations will err towards work done quickly, rapidly and with little investment. Research can be used to validate an existing idea. It is a security blanket for those who are unable to make decisions. Some want a piece of data to point to if the decision goes wrong. At times it can be hard to sell research investment that takes longer. Outcomes are not seen much sooner and organisational incentives may support short-term thinking. Five factors to assess whether your work is actually strategic
Other factors to ensure work is strategicMake it accessible When wrapping your project and storing the findings, it should be accessible beyond the direct project team. Do other teams all use the same content management or filing system? Ask them in your stakeholder interviews and put your work there. Make it searchable Title your project so that it relates to the project name and people can understand what it means. For example if you have a project called “Mickey Mouse” naming your report just “Mickey Mouse Research Debrief” won’t make any sense a year or two out. What would be better is combining both the project name and what it was about - “Mickey Mouse: Mobile Usage and Behaviour”. Use words in the title that make sense to your team and organisation that are not time, feature or product-bound. Another example might be naming something based on Chat GPT (product) instead of Generative AI (functionality). By including both it will be easier for potential readers to find. The same goes for keywords. Pay attention to different ways people in the organisation are calling things. Use that to make things more searchable. Tip: If using Google Drive there are settings where you can ensure that files are searchable in the organisation. Make sure your file permissions reflect the same. Debrief as many people as possible Make a list of stakeholder groups you want to debrief and group them by common focus or interest. This is particularly important if you are having time set aside for questions (Q&As). Record those debriefs and make them available for those who are unable to make your live session. It should be stored and distributed the same as your report. The same principle applies to naming the report as your recording. You can turn tactical work strategic by:
There’s another article talking about approaches to make your research more strategic. It takes time to move away from tactical research work. You may need to establish buy-in from your stakeholders to do so and a change in process to support this. In the end, everyone wins. The researcher gets a chance to try out new methods and influence the direction of the organisation. Teams get support and insights to empower more forward-looking planning. Thank you for reading the article! You can help us:✉️ Subscribe using this button ⏩ Share this directly with your peers and others who will find this helpful. Apply what you have learned and teach it to someone else, it will make it easier to recall later. 💬 Share this article on your Social Media (Twitter (we’re @readaskwhy), LinkedIn) 📥 Email us your questions, comments, and ideas. Simply reply to this email to contact us. If your friends, peers or colleagues could benefit from this article or the Askwhy newsletter, share it with them today. They can learn and grow too. Follow us on Twitter @readaskwhy |
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