Are there levels at which insights can be brought to life across the organization, and what are best practices for ensuring non-researchers use data and information correctly?

Speed recommended helping non-researcher partners understand the basics of where data comes from and what methodology was used. She suggested providing simple tools for interpreting data, including guidance on statistical significance, and framing findings in digestible formats suited to the audience, ranging from raw data with guidance to synthesized topical summaries. She emphasized the importance of training, onboarding people to what exists in the knowledge base, and getting input from non-researchers since they often ask questions that specialists take for granted. Maintaining a shared vocabulary or glossary and checking in regularly to see how the process is working were also highlighted.

When partnering differently, how do you navigate resistance to change?

Speed said the greatest traction she had seen came from proactively providing concrete examples rather than waiting for someone to accept a partnership invitation. She recommended looking back at recent work, identifying where a complementary data set would have filled a gap, and bringing that back to potential partners as a tangible illustration of what collaboration could produce.

How does the supplier side apply these principles?

Speed said most of the five practices transfer directly. She pointed to the macro market assessments suppliers are already producing and suggested that suppliers can add value by connecting that landscape knowledge to a client's specific project, probing clients on whether new findings align with or contradict what was learned in previous studies, and challenging clients to think about how each piece of work builds toward their strategic goals.

When teaching teams to fish and expanding their role, how do you maintain accountability without micromanaging?

Speed anchored accountability in the project timeline. She recommended baking gap analysis, workshops, and consultation points directly into the schedule so they are planned deliverables rather than optional add-ons. She also stressed that the research team needs to apply this approach consistently: if some team members skip these steps, business partners will push back when others include them. Consistency makes the practice standard rather than optional.

How important is involving the supplier in bringing the research story to life?

Speed agreed strongly and said this expectation should be set upfront during discussion of the analysis plan and deliverables. She described her preference for integrated project teams where roles and responsibilities are clearly delineated from the start and collaboration is ongoing rather than limited to periodic check-ins.

Practically Scaling Research for Maximum Impact

Kendra Speed, Head of Customer Strategy and Insights at Dropbox, outlines five practices researchers can use to lead with impact during periods of uncertainty. Drawing on her background in process improvement and project management, she frames the researcher's role not just as a data provider but as an organizational leader who brings empathy, clarity, and decisive action to the business. The session covers partnering internally across data sources, conducting ongoing gap analyses, growing a shared body of knowledge, extending the reach of insights to new audiences, and mapping a clear path from research to action.

Key Takeaways

Researchers have a distinct leadership role in times of uncertainty: they bring empathy, clear communication, and evidence-based action to business decisions.
Partnering with behavioral analytics, customer service, and cross-functional teams adds texture and capacity to insight delivery without requiring new primary research.
Gap analysis should be a repeatable, team-wide practice embedded in project timelines, not a one-time exercise done in isolation.
Building a centralized, self-serve knowledge base tied to core business questions democratizes insights and creates a single source of truth.
Extending insights to secondary internal audiences, through virtual coffee chats, stakeholder advocacy, and tailored share-outs, multiplies the business value of work already done.
Outlining a traceable path from business question to methodology to output, and running action-oriented workshops at delivery, turns static findings into insights that drive execution.

Questions & Answers

Are there levels at which insights can be brought to life across the organization, and what are best practices for ensuring non-researchers use data and information correctly?: Speed recommended helping non-researcher partners understand the basics of where data comes from and what methodology was used. She suggested providing simple tools for interpreting data, including guidance on statistical significance, and framing findings in digestible formats suited to the audience, ranging from raw data with guidance to synthesized topical summaries. She emphasized the importance of training, onboarding people to what exists in the knowledge base, and getting input from non-researchers since they often ask questions that specialists take for granted. Maintaining a shared vocabulary or glossary and checking in regularly to see how the process is working were also highlighted.
When partnering differently, how do you navigate resistance to change?: Speed said the greatest traction she had seen came from proactively providing concrete examples rather than waiting for someone to accept a partnership invitation. She recommended looking back at recent work, identifying where a complementary data set would have filled a gap, and bringing that back to potential partners as a tangible illustration of what collaboration could produce.
How does the supplier side apply these principles?: Speed said most of the five practices transfer directly. She pointed to the macro market assessments suppliers are already producing and suggested that suppliers can add value by connecting that landscape knowledge to a client's specific project, probing clients on whether new findings align with or contradict what was learned in previous studies, and challenging clients to think about how each piece of work builds toward their strategic goals.
When teaching teams to fish and expanding their role, how do you maintain accountability without micromanaging?: Speed anchored accountability in the project timeline. She recommended baking gap analysis, workshops, and consultation points directly into the schedule so they are planned deliverables rather than optional add-ons. She also stressed that the research team needs to apply this approach consistently: if some team members skip these steps, business partners will push back when others include them. Consistency makes the practice standard rather than optional.
How important is involving the supplier in bringing the research story to life?: Speed agreed strongly and said this expectation should be set upfront during discussion of the analysis plan and deliverables. She described her preference for integrated project teams where roles and responsibilities are clearly delineated from the start and collaboration is ongoing rather than limited to periodic check-ins.

Session Notes

Context: Leading Through Uncertainty

Kendra Speed opened by acknowledging the disorientation of 2020, personal constraints such as home schooling alongside professional ones such as unpredictable consumer behavior and shifting business strategy. Her framing: accept what cannot be controlled, then focus on what can be influenced.

"Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do." — John Wooden, as cited by the speaker

She grounded the talk in a Forbes article on leadership during COVID-19, arguing that researchers are uniquely positioned to embody its core traits: demonstrating empathy, communicating clearly with data, and enabling decisive action.

Five Practices for Maximum Research Impact

1. Partner Differently

Partnerships that combine complementary data sources are among the most accessible ways to add depth to insight delivery. Three areas of opportunity stand out:

Combining behavioral analytics with attitudinal research findings
Building a feedback loop between customer service and marketing or research
Integrating learning plans across upstream strategy work and downstream delivery

Making a partnership real requires demonstrating its value first. Look back at past projects and show concretely how a complementary data set would have strengthened the story. Once a partnership runs, document it: who was involved, what was produced, and what the business impact was. That record becomes a model others can replicate.

What it yields: richer stories, a capacity-building effect for executives who receive pre-connected narratives rather than raw data points to assemble themselves.

2. Continuously Conduct Gap Analyses

Gap analysis is not new, but treating it as an ongoing strategic tool rather than a project-launch formality changes its value. Key moves:

Develop a shared template that other functions can input into, not just the research team
Establish gap analysis as a formal step early in every project life cycle
Hold the research team accountable to doing it consistently across all projects
Build a team mindset around it so it becomes a cultural practice, not a checkbox

What it yields: discipline in resource allocation, a growth mindset oriented toward building cumulative knowledge, and clearer scope boundaries that reduce wasted effort.

3. Grow the Body of Knowledge

Rather than treating each study as a standalone deliverable, researchers should frame existing knowledge within the evolving market context and invest in making it accessible and actionable. Three steps:

Baseline: Document what is already known and map it to core business questions so navigation is intuitive for any team member.
Share: Establish a centralized, self-serve location. Syndicate broadly and early. Release working prototypes and iterate based on feedback rather than waiting for a polished final version.
Build: Create a process for ongoing validation and updates. Encourage ownership across the organization so that the knowledge base grows beyond what the research team alone can maintain.

What it yields: a single source of truth, democratized access to insights, and a clear demonstration of insights-to-action capability against the organization's key questions.

4. Extend the Internal Audience

Getting more mileage from existing research means deliberately identifying who else in the organization needs what has already been learned. This requires moving beyond a list of interested parties to an actual socialization plan.

Set up virtual coffee chats with adjacent functions to understand their current questions and surface gaps in their understanding
Share existing knowledge as a primer before pitching future research directions
Leverage senior stakeholders who have broad organizational reach to amplify findings and provide strategic endorsement
Tailor the format and depth of insights to the learning needs of each non-primary audience

Once probing surfaces new input, confirm alignment with the team's stated strategy before adding scope. Then look for ways to answer emerging questions within existing or planned work rather than spinning up separate projects.

What it yields: unexpected partnerships, surprising applications of existing insights, and direct business value from work that might otherwise have served only one team.

5. Outline the Path to Action

Research earns its seat at the table when it connects directly to execution. Four components make that connection explicit:

Delineate: Deconstruct research briefs to their most fundamental business questions. Identify what is in scope and what is not. Define both exit criteria and success criteria before fieldwork begins.
Map: Trace each business question to the right methodology, then to specific questions in the guide or survey, and finally to the analysis and output. This traceability keeps the work honest and focused.
Consult: Build consultation points into the project timeline, not as informal follow-ups but as planned workshops where teams work through the implications of findings and leave with tangible action items.
Frame possibilities, not limitations: Present what the research can answer now rather than leading with caveats about what it cannot do.

What it yields: stronger business application, team buy-in rooted in confidence that the plan addresses the right questions, and insights that continue to inform decisions rather than sitting in a slide deck.

Closing Thought

Speed returned to her opening image of blurred, overlapping colors, observing that even within apparent chaos there are clear shapes and defined colors to anchor on. The five practices are those anchor points: partner differently, run ongoing gap analyses, grow knowledge, extend the audience, and map the path to action.

Transcript

Read the full transcript

everyone welcome back for another talk during the May 2020 quarantine virtual insights conference hope everyone is enjoying the conference thus far and next we are very excited to hear from go to me from Kendra speed who is the head of customer strategy and insights at Dropbox and she&#39;s going to be telling us about practically scaled research for maximum impact so we&#39;re very fortunate to have her with us and my name is Maureen Valentine I am accelerant researches newest member of the team I recently completed my PhD at Cornell and very excited be back in Charlotte and working with accelerant so I&#39;m super excited to hear from Kendra today thank you again for joining us and once again just wanted to go over our ground rules real quick so please just keep in mind be patient be gracious with us because we are at the mercy of the technology that we&#39;re working with so please be respectful of that and respectful to our speaker as they are graciously giving us their time and then please use this opportunity to network and engage and interact with everyone else that&#39;s here contributing and also watching and take advantage of this time that we&#39;ve come together so thank you again Kendra are you there I am here hi how are you doing today we can&#39;t hear you yet I think you&#39;re muted still hear me still can&#39;t hear you I think the people everyone else can hear me so they can hear fine okay so it looks like everybody else can hear maybe it&#39;s just nothing okay very good well I will stop sharing my screen and then I&#39;ll let you share yours one second hi okay stop sharing there we go okay perfect and we&#39;ll leave the floor to you okay thanks so much so it is a pleasure to be here today as I&#39;m getting my screen up and running and in presentation mode so hopefully everyone can see the presentation and not the notes thank you so much for this opportunity to speak today so I join you from Austin Texas I am a recent transplant from Charlotte North Carolina so I wave to my friends bill and Maureen in Charlotte I&#39;m excited to be able to talk today a little bit from what I&#39;m calling practically scaling research for maximum impact but I think what we&#39;ll find as we go through the presentation and frame it up it&#39;s really about how can we lead during this period of uncertainty and the new normal with that said just a little bit about myself as Marie mentioned I am head of customer strategy and insights at Dropbox and really as you think about my background I have been across the client space as well is on the supplier side for the last 17 years starting my career at Procter &amp; Gamble working in several different industries inclusive of tires and real estate development at Crescent communities working in IT at data systems and technology and then on the client side working with research doing consultation moderation and then also kind of freelancing for a period of time so what I will say is as I think about research data insights I&#39;ve kind of done roles across the gamut by education I am a South Carolina State University Bulldog and I&#39;m also a Purdue Boilermaker and a certified PMP so I include the the PMP portion just to give you a little bit of context as we go throughout this I&#39;m very passionate about process improvement very passionate about project management and so that will ring true as we go throughout our discussion today as we move in I provided this image on the screen because for me I feel that it appropriately demonstrates what I&#39;m feeling at this time so as I look at this I see diversity of colors all these different colors on the screen blurring of lines everything is kind of jumbled up and over the course of the last several months this has been pretty much what I&#39;ve been feeling so really thinking through how I get anchored during a period of time where everything seems to have changed 20/20 has been a year from a personal standpoint from a professional standpoint and the way I think about things it has been you know just a lot of uncertainty it&#39;s been a lot of thinking through like what can I control what can&#39;t I control feeling like I can&#39;t control anything I can&#39;t control when I leave my own home so I just included this to tell you a little bit about what I&#39;ve been experiencing over the course of you know the last several months and from there one thing that I&#39;ve been able to ground myself in is taking on a bit of this acceptance of accepting here&#39;s where I am right now here are some of the limitations I have so I have personal limitations including when can I leave my home home schooling my daughter and figuring out how I do that in the context of the busy schedule and how do I do that well at a good quality where she doesn&#39;t fall behind and as I think about the limitations you know there&#39;s all of these limitations that we have as research professionals you know we can&#39;t control what&#39;s going to happen with our consumers and customers as it relates to their attitudes and behaviors and what they decide to do or not to do the financial pressures and the extent that it affects each of our different industries and our businesses and what does that mean in the future we know where we are now but how will things change moving forward and then also the strategies that will change along with that and so for me in order just for me to be remain sane during this time I&#39;ve just taken on an acceptance of saying okay these are some there are some things that I just can&#39;t control and I will just accept that these are limitations but what I will say is in accepting the limitations for me it&#39;s impossible it&#39;s important for me to think through and look forward to saying what are the possibilities what are all of the opportunities out there that I can explore so I include this quote here that says do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do from you know historic coach John Wooten and so as you think about that it really speaks to the acceptance of those things that I can&#39;t control but then also looking forward to what are those things that I have within my own realm that I can influence and what I will assert today from a researchers perspective is there are you know five different things that I&#39;m personally looking at with my team and I would assert that we can do as researchers in one partnering differently also secondly you know doing gap analyses and saying what do we know what do we yet have to learn and really being committed to growing a body of knowledge thinking about ways that we extend extend the internal audiences that we have so how do we get more mileage out of the work that we have done and that we will do and then also outlining that path to action so those are the five things that I will talk about throughout the discussion today and I must say like I&#39;m kind of missing not being able to see everyone&#39;s faces but I&#39;m happy that you all are here with me so okay so the as we go into that one thing that I would like for us to think about is rooted in this quote that I&#39;ve included from Tracy Bower and this was in a Forbes article where you know they&#39;re talking about five predictions about how coronavirus will change the future of work and so this really stuck out to me in its saying about in the toughest times the leaders who Excel are those who communicate clearly stay calm and strong demonstrate empathy think long term and take appropriate decisive action for me this was you know kind of a mind shift or something that I could focus on in thinking through what we uniquely as researchers bring to the table to our businesses as we&#39;re looking to navigate this new normal so one piece thinking about the demonstration of empathy who better than researchers to be able to really bring that empathy into the work that we do day in day out we are there representing the voices of our consumers and we have a unique ability to be able to bring that empathy into our boardrooms as we think about what to do next with our businesses the other piece is you know our ability to communicate clearly and bring the data and insights to bear to the duck to the toughest business challenges that we&#39;re facing and then also this piece about bringing decisive action what I will assert is that as researchers we play a unique role to come into our companies and be leaders in the roles of those who are bringing empathy to the table and so I want to keep that kind of at the foundation of what I present today it&#39;s more than talking about like here&#39;s how you can go into a survey and you maximize it for your business I&#39;m really talking about what are some tenants that we can align to to one you know study the course keep the course steady during this time but then to demonstrate leadership so with that said I would like to go into the five components the first being partner differently so on the right hand side of this image you will see a dog and a cat I think about oh this is an unlikely partnership but you know it&#39;s it seems to be you know enjoyable and it is surprising what I will say is in thinking about how to partner differently I&#39;ve provided a few examples here of how I think our you know low-hanging fruit for researchers as we think about how we might partner internally so the first year you know bringing together behavioral analytics with attitudinal insights and how do we do that consistently secondly leveraging the feedback loop from customer service to marketing Celso really thinking about counterparts in a customer experience and then how do we bring that pulse of what customers are saying today the types of issues that they&#39;re having the questions that they&#39;re having and bring it back into the organization so that we have that feedback loop and then thirdly being able to integrate learning plans across very upstream work all the way down into you know delivery and saying like how do we partner to be able to better maximize the resources that we do have with that said I would like to go into talking a little bit about what that could look like and we&#39;ll follow a similar type of cadence as we go through each of these what it looks like for partnering differently is lean in synthesize and model so when I speak of leaning in it&#39;s about you know exploring partnerships with teams who provide complementary data and insights so you know just sitting down and talking to people and saying like okay what do you have what are what are the challenges that you are the questions that you&#39;re asking right now and thinking about how there might be this compliment of bringing those together also demonstrating the value that a partnership might provide so sometimes we might end up in situations where we say yeah like I definitely want to partner with that group I think that there is a lot that we can maximize together but there might be a reluctance of either you know thinking about how much time it might take or the challenge of thinking about it differently what I will say is it it goes a long way for us to be able to demonstrate what a partnership might provide so picking you know low-hanging fruit or looking back to former projects and thinking about how they could have been enhanced by having a different data set to really round it out and being able to demonstrate that in order to gain that partnership also synthesize so you know seek existing and emerging information that add texture so you know as we&#39;re going through and delivering learning to the organization really seeking to uncover what else may exist that provides additional insight to what we&#39;re delivering and then also bringing together seemingly disparate data to frame the story if we talk about model that looks like documenting the partnership in the business impact so once the partnership has occurred being you know having the discipline to sit down and put together you know what was this partnership who partnered and what was the outcome of that so that the success can be shared and considered free applications so really being able to use it as a working model for other teams and then lastly as you think about what partnering different differently yields it yields vibrancy to the story so it you know it provides additional texture it also can be a capacity build so as we think about executives who are coming in contact with customer research feedback from what&#39;s happening in the field from sales it is a capacity builder in that we&#39;re able to really think about how things come together and crafting out the stories and how the data comes together just so that executives are already looking with a framing of the story versus having to put it together themselves and really being able to connect those dots so that&#39;s the first one partnering differently next going into continuously conducting gap analyses so this is a piece that I am extremely passionate about and what you will find the types of things I&#39;m talking about here are not things that are totally new to the world or that we have not done as researchers but in this time of what I would term is turbulence it is helpful to be able to think about how do you bring these together to be able to have maximum impact internally so continuous continuously conducting gap analyses so this involves one proactively sharing what we know and have yet to learn also operating with discipline in establishing repeatable processes for doing the gap analyses and then exploring easy ways to get to the knowledge capture and lastly here transforming the static analysis to a strategic enabler what I will say is you know oftentimes we&#39;re doing point in time gap analysis and not as often going back and leveraging that as a tool ongoing there&#39;s a lot to be gained in being able to think about that operation with discipline and bringing that to bear as we embark on new business questions so what it looks like is format process and Institute as it relates to format it&#39;s really developing a template that can be broadly implemented so in doing this broad implementation it&#39;s identifying who else might be able to input into the gap analysis and at what points do the does that integration occur so this is not to say that it should be solely the research team coming up with that gap analysis it should be something that is shared across the team secondly process so first establishing what role gap analysis plays in the overall multifunctional team process so establishing that gap analysis happens early in the project life cycle where we&#39;re able to say what do we already know and what is the additional learning and then aligning as a research team to the practice of gap analysis so really saying this is something that we view as a strategic enabler this is something that we&#39;re going to do consistently and holding hands to say that we&#39;re doing that across the spectrum of research projects and then Institute so continuously implementing the practice of gap analysis it&#39;s not a one and done it&#39;s this continuous process and also developing a mindset of gap analysis among the team so it goes beyond having a framework to work from but it also becomes a part of the discussion and a part of the way that the team approaches the work in thinking about what do we already know what might we need to reconfirm or validate but where are the gaps in our understanding so that we&#39;re really focusing in on what the learning plan looks like and what it yields so you know really doing this a gap analysis you know it yields a discipline so putting this into place and making a part of the team process and a part of the culture have discipline and then it also creates this growth mindset of where we are building a body of knowledge and so in saying a body of knowledge that takes us to the next component which is growing knowledge so knowledge growth is really about framing existing category understanding in the evolving market reality one thing that I&#39;ve noticed over the course of the last few months is that our industry has really stepped up as it relates to being able to provide an overall landscape assessment of what&#39;s going on right now so getting into you know ongoing studies to be able to understand consumer and customer sentiment being able to understand what are or being able to project out into the future what consumers might do as it relates to their spending and so I think it is important to look back at everything that we know about our consumers in the or is in which we play and being able to frame that understanding within the context of our current market reality secondly we must invest wisely in places that offer the greatest business impact and then thirdly champion opportunities for test and learn so in the environment of where we might not always have all of the resources to build new research it&#39;s also thinking about where can we what are the possibilities that exist as it relates to testing and learning how can we execute and learn along the way and be able to get into this continuous improvement mindset and be able to arm our business partners with tools metrics frameworks that help assist in this process of testing and learning what it looks like is one let&#39;s baseline secondly let&#39;s share and then let&#39;s build so in that baselining it&#39;s about you know documenting what we already know and mapping that to the core data set or insight beyond that it also comes into basing what we know in the organization&#39;s key business questions so one just from a practical standpoint it&#39;s easy for people to navigate and understand what&#39;s there based upon the questions that they have beyond that one we are tying in the value which we have as it relates to being able to arm the organization with data and insights that answer back to the key business questions secondly sharing so yes let&#39;s establish a centralized location that allows for you know the self-serve feature let&#39;s also broadly syndicate I can&#39;t you know to talk about all the different times in my career of where I&#39;ve created something which I thought was like kind of cool but I felt like it wasn&#39;t ready yet or maybe it&#39;s good enough or something exists over here already I don&#39;t I don&#39;t know whether I should do this what I will say is one is something is this somewhere else that&#39;s an opportunity to partner and think about how we bring that together secondly is there is enough there is great value to being able to come up with the concept put it out there as a prototype and continue to iterate and get the feedback to fine-tune what is there what I found is that you know there are critical needs for information today where people are kind of going out there and scrounging for it and hungry for it so it&#39;s like let&#39;s serve it up let&#39;s get the feedback and continue to improve it and then thirdly here is built so one you know establishing a process for ongoing validation synthesis and update of the knowledge base and also encouraging ownership in the growth and application of knowledge so I see that as being important so while research can play a leadership role in coordinating and making this happen is important that across the organization there&#39;s this mentality that we are all growing the body of knowledge and where people feel free to input to that now there must be some type of process where we&#39;re validating that these do indeed these are indeed the right data points and insights to answer to the business questions which we baseline but it&#39;s really about like how do we democratize this process the self-serve feature of data and insights so what this yields is one single source of truth that people can come to and then also yes this democratization of data and insights and really being able to demonstrate this insights to action action ability against the key questions our organizations have with that want to talk a little bit about in thinking about maximizing you know how do we get more mileage out of the work that we&#39;re doing from day to day and what this looks like is extending the internal audience so first identifying the primary and secondary audiences and the related plan for socialization so we have to go beyond saying like oh here are all the people that might be interested in what I&#39;m doing but then also sitting down and saying like what does that plan look like how am I gonna get this in front of them what&#39;s the best way is it by just sitting you know an email is it about having a specific share out with a specific objective for that specific audience secondly you know leveraging advocates and stakeholders at critical project points so I&#39;m sure that as you think about your organization&#39;s there are leaders there who have this ability over more than just what you might be responsible for and those are excellent partners as we think about really gaining more insight into what the organization is grappling with and being able to leverage that in thinking through one how can you get that insight from you know these executives but then also thinking about okay so how can i leverage that relationship to help in being able to further share throughout the organization and then tailoring data and insights to the learning needs of non primary stakeholders what this looks like is probe confirm and maximize so in probing you know some examples of that could be just setting up a virtual coffee chat with the related function to identify greatest areas of learning like what are they hearing what are some of the things that they&#39;re grappling with you know even coming up with hypotheses on here are some people that I would think would be interested in these types of insight and doing the touch points to understand again how this relates to work that&#39;s already been done and then where are the gaps in understanding also sharing existing knowledge toward priming the conversation for what&#39;s next so being able to come to the table with hey here&#39;s some interesting things that we&#39;ve learned over the course of the last quarter you know what do you think of this is this something that helps your team what other questions does this raise for you and then being able to bake that back in to primary learning plans as you think about other questions you might answer or other applications of what you&#39;re already learning confirm performing the strategy check gaining executive endorsement and envisioning the path to success so you know once we&#39;re doing all of this probing you know it often elicits a lot of input that may or may not fall within scope and it&#39;s really important to go back and 1 you know go back to the strategy for the team for the organization and say does this make sense in the context of what we&#39;ve stated as our focus again you know get the stakeholder engagement and endorsement for thinking about things a little differently and then envision what that path to success looks like so in planning that and then moving to maximization so exploring smart ways to leverage existing insights in a new way and then also like look for ways that you can enhance something that you&#39;re already going out there to learn about with minimal spend but will have incremental impact to the business and what this yields is it yields unlikely kinship so you know all of a sudden there are you know more partnerships being formed throughout the organization surprising insight so being able to apply insights that had one primary objective and then thinking about how it might apply to other teams might bubble up other questions you know other insights for the team and then business value so thinking about ways of which we might be able to take something that was going to be entirely different project and which had similar business questions that we were able to fill within the context of one project yeah so that&#39;s the immediate business value but then also thinking about the output of that and the impact that it has on the business okay so now going into the final one here outlining the path to action so the first point I have here is about beating down the research brief oh that&#39;s one way I think about it is saying like how do we take the business questions that we&#39;ve been offered in our research briefs and just take it a step further with really delineating it down to the core business questions although I&#39;ve been talking a lot of this from about this from the client side I will maintain that most of what&#39;s included here is transferable into the supplier side specifically as I think about this bullet point it you know sitting in the seat of a supplier it&#39;s sitting down and saying like okay so tell me a little bit more about that what will that help you do and really getting down to those business questions also aids in being able to say okay what does our exit criteria look like as we get to the end of this project in exit criteria is like what do we expect to see but then also what is our success criteria what looks like success here secondly is stepping into the insights and bringing them to light and so this is about how do we go beyond the intellectual insight of of data and insights of understanding what&#39;s going on with our consumers to really being able to apply it to our heart our emotions and then in our gut and being able to bring that to life across the organization thirdly presenting in the context of the business strategy so making sure that there is a linkage ability from the strategy business questions to the research to the output and making that very clear and then oh yes as we&#39;re talking about this plan of action being able to frame the plan in the context of what&#39;s possible versus all of the limitations so being able to let our teams know like what are we able to answer right now versus giving all the reasons for why something won&#39;t work and what that looks like is delay delineate map and consult so in looking at delineate it&#39;s about deconstructing business questions into their most most base form to get to the true questions also understanding what the related business questions are and understanding them to the degree that we know what&#39;s in scope and what might not be in scope secondly is mapping mapping the delineated business questions to the research instrument and as I talked about research instrument here it&#39;s like taking the business questions and saying like these are the appropriate methodologies to get to it beyond that beyond the methodologies being able to go into our guides going into our surveys and saying here is the direct mapping here&#39;s the traceability of how we get from that question to what we&#39;re asking in the survey to what we are then going in to do analyzing and presenting at the end of the day and then lastly consultation so you know as we&#39;re sitting down and coming up with our timeline I feel that it&#39;s important that we think about you know what does the consultation look like after everything is delivered so it&#39;s more of course we are not you know throwing things over the fence and just giving people data points or insights there is a degree of consultation we&#39;re doing already I think it&#39;s important to bake that in so there&#39;s visibility across the team that research is showing up as a partner in this not a doer and establishing like workshops that walk teams through the insights toward action so being able to serve up what we&#39;ve learned leveraging frameworks leveraging exercises that take the team through how this then can aid them in planning so that teams leave the workshop with tangible work products that they can then go off and execute upon and in this teaching teammates to fish what this yields is one an enhanced business application so the degree to which we are able to define traceability from the business questions from the strategy all the way through to the execution is important also you know it really helps with the team buy-in and ownership so that once we beat that brief that people are able to not their heads and say like I feel confident that what we&#39;re doing that this plan is going to enable us to answer the questions that we ask and then lastly I say insights that breathe as I talk about breathe that&#39;s about insights that live so it&#39;s not static data it&#39;s not something that just sits there and it&#39;s nice to know a good head nod something that reaffirms it&#39;s about something that lives on its own and it stands on its own and so it has light and vibrancy with that in conclusion I would like to you know bring back up that image that I spoke about at the beginning in saying like you know there&#39;s these running together of colors there&#39;s this sense of discord and just a bit of chaos what I will say is as we focus in on this image there are places of which we can take out like they&#39;re very clear color very defined shapes and that&#39;s written where we will be able to see those possibility so as you explore the possibilities I encourage you to one partner differently you know doing this ongoing gap analysis and really be thinking about how do we grow the body of knowledge extending our internal audience so that we&#39;re getting more mileage out of what we are learning and then outline the path to action let&#39;s walk our teams all the way through from definition of our problem or what we want to understand all the way to how we execute upon it and with that thank you so much for listening to what I had to share I welcome your questions Kendra all right so yeah we have had a couple of questions coming to do you want me to ask them or would you like to monitor yourselves let&#39;s see I&#39;ll look through it okay so I see a question about are there levels at which the insights can be brought to life what does that look like into the various levels and what do you feel are the best practices in making sure non researchers are using relevant data and information so I&#39;ll take that part of the question as we think about you know best practices one I think it&#39;s important that we help our non researcher business partners understand the basics like where is the data coming from where are the insights coming from what was the methodology used to be able to elicit all of this also being able to provide like quick tools for them to be able to say like how do I analyze this how do I think about you know statistical significance what does that mean what are the best practices in looking at that I think the other piece is framing what we have in a way that is digestible so I think it&#39;s important to think about your own organization and the type of data that you have I as I talked about democratization of data it may not be for for your organization to let people loose on raw data it might be you know presenting that in tabular form of where and having the aid for how to look at it it might be synthesizing all of that so that it&#39;s very topical and it provides like you know the answers to the questions so there are you know different ways of thinking about that yeah yeah having this consistent so Charles is saying that you know it would be you know having a consistent vocabulary within the core and extended key team I agree is you know what does this mean and being able to have that glossary for people to refer back to I think it also does come with training training is key and that goes back to my point about like we have to teach our teams to fish I wouldn&#39;t say that we let them loose at the pond and say hey see you later I think it&#39;s about sitting there with them having those upfront sessions onboarding people to what exists there and also getting the input from them because I think there is value in having non researchers look at the data and look at the insights and ask some of the questions that we might take for granted and don&#39;t ask ourselves on a daily basis I do think it&#39;s important that we make this simple and something that doesn&#39;t feel bogged down so there is a simplicity to it as we think about how to roll that out and I think it&#39;s checking in often and finding out how that process is working like as people are extracting is it something that they&#39;re saying success with is it are there any hiccups along the way like checking behind and then being willing to step in and provide steering and direction along the way okay so when you are partnering difficult I&#39;m sorry differently what about inevitably there&#39;s going to be you know we hate change and and you know the the resistance that may come up do you have any tips for sort of navigating in those world yeah I mean and I could only give the tips from my own experience I go back to the examples the place where I seen the greatest traction are the places where I was able to step back and provide the examples of saying like here&#39;s how it could work what if we did so it&#39;s taking that proactive approach and not just waiting for someone to accept the invitation to partner but it&#39;s leaning forward and providing you know some options and saying like hey this could be a cool way that we could have taken what you shared and what we shared and put it together hey this is I looked at something that we recently put out and communication here are some insights that we had I see the places that we were able to accept it here&#39;s some gaps that we might have that we might be able to think about how do we make this in in the future so I think there&#39;s a lot of ways to do that and also as we look forward being able to look back just a little bit do some work and bring that back to the forefront know and it&#39;s funny you and you mentioned it in your presentation but you know and I know that what you&#39;re speaking to is primarily within the you know the corporate realm but it it&#39;s also true of you know folks in my seat that are on the supplier side and what we can be doing better to partner with you know the folks that we support you know down the food chain as it were right oh I think about I think almost most of these points apply you know as I think about even like these macro market assessments that the suppliers are doing now it&#39;s saying like how do we take what you&#39;re doing you know off to the side and then a custom project that I&#39;m doing with you and how do we bring this insight together how do we how do you bring what you know are what you&#39;ve learned from working with me for the past two years together to bring it to bear on what I&#39;m doing now how do you probe me with the tough questions and really say like we understand this accepting it saying like this doesn&#39;t make sense like we want to challenge you here didn&#39;t we learn about that in the last study how is this building on where you need to go so I also think like there&#39;s this call to action on the supplier side that helps also keep me as a researcher you know focused on what I need to be doing beyond just the you know the individual statement of work yeah yeah any other questions so as you&#39;re teaching to fish and following up how do you deal with I guess accountability right if you&#39;re you&#39;re giving those the the the opportunity to you know take on a more expanded role without breathing down necks how might you go about making sure that it&#39;s that it has is actually being done for me I think you know I come all the way down to like the timeline I think it doesn&#39;t it&#39;s not super helpful for us as reaching researchers to tell our teams like hey like I would love to come back and talk to you about this or hey do you think about that I think we have we have just a little bit of leverage in this as we lay out like project timelines baking in those those points at which the work gets done like great I understand that you want this research in four weeks first we&#39;re going to spend a week doing gap analysis or two days okay two days doing gap analysis and figuring out what we know and what we don&#39;t know I personally feel like we have leverage in as it relates to timelines and making some of that in and I think we need to be agile in doing that so it might not be you know we can&#39;t give you a week for gap analysis great can we get together for 30 minutes and be able to talk as a team into what we already know and bring that out so I think it also deals with us being agile and I spoke to us a bit it also needs to be a buy-in from a research team standpoint like we all need to be bought in to this is the way that we want to approach and consistently do that because in the in the cases where we don&#39;t consistently do that then the business partners can always push back and be like wait why are you baking this into the timeline I didn&#39;t have to do this with that person like that they didn&#39;t mention anything about this why are we doing a workshop I don&#39;t feel like I need a workshop versus it being something like this is what we do this is this is standard this is a part of our capability set I do see the other question it came up over on my other screen oh but those are from the other sessions so I don&#39;t know whether there any more questions well feel free to again suppose yeah I think we&#39;re yeah oh I like that Charles said it&#39;s helpful to have a supplier involved in bringing the story to life I agree wholeheartedly I also think that that should be a part of the expectation upfront as we talk about the analysis plan as we talk about what&#39;s delivered that that&#39;s what we&#39;re baking in that we&#39;re also leveraging our supplier partners so that we receive we&#39;re not doing like a whole nother round or worse train it should be that&#39;s a whole nother presentation but I am very passionate about like integrated project teams um the vendors that I work with I talk about like how are we integrated project teams how do we work together and getting this done and I&#39;m not talking about like touch points every two weeks I&#39;m talking about how do we operate how do we delineate roles and responsibilities so that we&#39;re all in it together an overarching thing might keep hearing and what you&#39;re saying is just relationships both the internal and external and just making sure that you are partnering and that&#39;s the you know it&#39;s an overused word but it&#39;s true it and this is what you&#39;re kind of getting at well Kendra I think that&#39;s it for for Q&amp;A thank you this was great I definitely appreciate it if you can&#39;t stick around and catch a few more presentations please feel free hang out in the chat if you were able but no hard feelings if not I want to see you will be sharing I&#39;ll drop my link because I didn&#39;t get to do it I&#39;ll drop my link in here before I head out just in case people want to contact me only did I encourage it perfect alright so about 12 minutes guys will take a break grab a cup of coffee if you need it and we will circle back at the top of the hour