Stephen Cox - Teaching an Old Dog New Tricks: Moving from Experience Design Research to Product Design Research

This presentation follows my journey as I take on a new role in a new organisation that has a super strong product focus. Watch as I stumble through new ideas, challenges and techniques. As I grapple with what it means to move from being an Experience Design Researcher (of 20 odd years) to a shiny new role as Product Design Researcher.

This discussion might be already old hat for some of the young product design research folk, but there are bound to be some amusing stuff ups, missteps and anecdotes as I question my whole professional perspective on what good research is for and how it is conducted.

Will I be able to successfully navigate the new leaner world of research? Will I forsake my anthropological roots for the lure of data science?

Can an old dog really learn new tricks, and if so, what are the things that I have learned that have allowed me to stay in my new role. That is, if I manage to stay in the role! My probationary work period ends just before the conference?! Come along to find out how it all ends.

Transcript

1. Teaching Old Dogs New Tricks Moving from Design Research to Product Design Research
2. Heya! I’m Stephen AKA Coxy, the old dog in this tail.
3. How I work Experimentation Collaboration Cultures I do my best work with others Life is an experiment and so is work Ecosystems thinking and connections Qualitative Stories are wonderful windows
4. That moment “Um, So we will know it’s usable but…” - Someone important’s boss
5. Design Research vs Product Design Research Venus Mars Design Research focuses on What should we? Product Design Research focuses on Why should we?
6. How we work at Domain
7. Getting to work Better research this thing
8. Insert Joke About “Wag”ile (or not) Delivery is top dog
9. 01 Frequent Delivery & Simplicity
10. How do we make teams faster? Research Operations Research cadences Reduce the time to recruit, make sure research vendors are happy. And I get to help people with the annoying bits What happens if we try researching outside of the projects? Can we build a regular cadence to exploratory research
11. How do we make teams faster? Research Operations Research cadences Reduce the time to recruit, make sure research vendors are happy and help people with the annoying bits What happens if we try researching outside of the projects? Can we build a regular cadence to exploratory research 1 1 1 1 1 Explore / usability Explore / usability Explore / usability Explore / usability Explore / usability
12. 02 Business, Developers (& Designers) (& Customers) together
13. How we put people back in the convo? Getting to Discovery Opportunity Solution Tree Accelerating Discovery Finding an opportunity to do a quarter ahead research Mixed methods and focus to drive better future planning Helps splice / graft people’s needs into the product outcome process Can we take the regular exploratory research model and see if it works for ongoing discovery research?
14. How we put people back in the convo? Outcome Opportunity / Need Potential solutions Potential solutions Lean experiments Lean experiments
15. How we put people back in the convo? Getting to Discovery Opportunity Solutions Tree Accelerating Discovery Finding an opportunity to do a quarter ahead research Mixed methods and focus to drive better future planning Helps splice / graft people’s needs into the product outcome process Can we take the regular exploratory research model and see if it works for ongoing discovery research? 1 2 1 2 1 Explore / usability Discovery Explore / usability Explore / usability Discovery
16. 03 Face 2 Face conversations
17. How we put people back in the convo? PM’s & Teams involved Teams without design? Fitting people in? What happens when PM’s run interviews? What tools can we provide to get them thinking about customers? Education - How do we? HEART - What could we? Research backlogs - Can you? At what point do we bring people into the design process? Co-design in sprints
18. Self organising & reflective teams 04
19. How do we remain flexible? Frameworks & tools Education Respostories & org memory Human stories Build a map Research planners and templates, guides - not processes Teaching others how to do and interpret research Repositories but a simple one that responds to needs Indexable stories that talk about people Look at how your plans are rolling out
20. How do we remain flexible? Frameworks & tools Education Respostories & org memory Human stories Build a map Research planners and templates, guides - not processes Teaching others how to do and interpret research Repositories but a simple one that responds to needs Indexable stories that talk about people Look at how your plans are rolling out
21. How do we remain flexible? Frameworks & tools Education Respostories & org memory Human stories Build a map Research planners and templates, guides - not processes Teaching others how to do and interpret research Repositories but a simple one that responds to needs Indexable stories that talk about people Look at how your plans are rolling out
22. How do we remain flexible? Frameworks & tools Education Respostories & org memory Human stories Build a map Research planners and templates, guides - not processes Teaching others how to do and interpret research Repositories but a simple one that responds to needs Indexable stories that talk about people Look at how your plans are rolling out
23. How do we remain flexible? Frameworks & tools Education Respostories & org memory Human stories Build a map Research planners and templates, guides - not processes Teaching others how to do and interpret research Repositories but a simple one that responds to needs Indexable stories that talk about people Look at how your plans are rolling out
24. What changes did I have to make? Data Analysis Getting closer to the data, understanding through # Market Research Doing more quantitative market research Product Management Think like a local, find ways to integrate Moving parts Keeping track of everything visually
25. Things i’ve learnt or i’m learning Biz & Needs Flexibility Empathy Find Heroes How do outcomes map to needs Meet the org where it’s at Democratise Research Learn more fasterer
26. That moment (redux) “Great - let’s see how that goes!” - Someone important’s boss
27. Finally I’m still at Domain: • I made it through my 6 month probation. • I’m still an old dog. • But I have some new tricks.
28. CREDITS: This presentation template was created by Slidesgo, including icons by Flaticon, infographics & images by Freepik and illustrations by Stories Do you have any questions? @S_Cox Thank You Please keep this slide for attribution