Every 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.

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Why it is important to tell the difference

Tactical 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: Wikipedia

With 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

• Longevity and evergreen - Can this research be read and referred to in a year’s time? And by different audiences? Is it based on a design or idea that is used right now but once changed no longer applies? Is it trend-based?

• Knowledge is scalable - Can another team consume this work? Does your work impact at least a few teams? Could it be applied to various areas of the business?

• Work stands on its own - Can this work be understood regardless of which design or idea it was based on? Can this be read without the researcher needing to be there to explain everything?

• Influence change - Can the findings influence organisational-wide rather than a feature level? Will the development team proceed regardless of your findings? 

• Timeliness - Is the work early enough to make any changes? Does it look to the long term and future? Or just short term?

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Other factors to ensure work is strategic

Make 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:

• Including questions to look at the long-term roadmap or to inform future features

• Look at behaviour and needs in general as well as feedback on a prototype or concept

• Try to do the project as early as possible in the development phases.

• Write your report in a way that reflects the themes, and beyond the usability findings.

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.

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