A stakeholder’s point of view on engaging in research Lucy Denton, Product Design Lead, Dovetail @lucinda_denton @hidovetail 

Researchers struggle to engage stakeholders 

Researcher “I find it really frustrating when people aren’t engaged in the research. Either they just don’t care that it’s happening or they don’t want to observe or they don’t care about the findings.” Researcher “As a researcher, you’re doing research for other people, you’re not just doing it for yourself. I spend so much time thinking about how to make research engaging… it’s always on my mind, so it’s frustrating when people don’t seem to care.” 

Story time… 

Management Researchers Stakeholders 

Pulling apart the problem 

•Boring and time consuming •Don’t encourage action •Overwhelming •Research becomes lost in reports Reports suck for everyone 

A stakeholder’s POV of engaging in research 

Understand the perspectives & priorities of stakeholders 

Decision makers Informed Designers Product management Engineers Head of Product CEO, CTO Head of Design Sales 

Build partnerships 

Involve decision makers in your process 

planning ❌ " # $ % recruiting execution analysis reporting follow up Sharon, Tomer. It's Our Research, 2012 (p.103) 

Involve stakeholders in your process Planning •Collaborate with decision makers •Identify knowledge gaps •Researcher drives the study 

Involve stakeholders in your process Recruitment •Define participant criteria together •Select participants together 

Involve stakeholders in your process Execution •Decisions makers must have significant and engaged face time with participants •Decision makers should attend more than one session 

•Observe all sessions in person •Observe all sessions remotely •Ask some follow up questions •Slack questions •Note taking •Ran some interviews •Debrief with researcher and other observers Involving stakeholders in the execution phase 

Involve stakeholders in your process Analysis •Affinity mapping, tagging, spreadsheets •Post-session debrief 

Involve stakeholders in your process Reporting •Atomic research •Invest in your research repository •Research is pull rather than push •Decision makers help create or review •Decision makers can back you up 

Involving difficult stakeholders 

Help close the loop 

Educate stakeholders 

•Understand the perspectives & priorities of stakeholders •Build strong partnerships •Involve decision makers in every part of the research process •Bring skeptical stakeholders along to get their buy-in •Get involved in next steps and help close the loop •Educate decision makers on how to run their own research Engaging stakeholders in research 

Thank you! Lucy Denton, Product Design Lead, Dovetail @lucinda_denton @hidovetail 

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