Rapid Research Testing at AnswerLab

Context

For eight months, I was part of a rapid research team at AnswerLab. I worked with one of the largest tech companies in the world, delivering rapid research reports every week. The work stream was fast-paced and tested my consulting and research skills to deliver polished reports quickly. 

Role

I was the sole researcher on many of these projects working for the client teams. I designed research plans, ran sessions with participants while taking notes, analyzed the data, and delivered the report. 

Research Methodology

Many of these studies were remote 1:1 usability tests or interviews. I would occasionally conduct literature reviews or other desk research. Studies usually had two days of nine 45-minute sessions.

I then had to deliver a Google Slides presentation report in 72 hours. As I finished one report, I was preparing to run another. 

Analysis Strategy

These projects were fast-paced and tested my ability to deliver rapid insights. As such, I had to adjust my analysis strategy. I did this in the following ways:

Always keep client goals in mind

In this fast-paced timeline, I had to make sure I kept the client’s research goals in mind throughout the process. I had to address their main questions and provide sufficient answers. I put lots of effort into kickoff meetings and client communication to understand their goals and what was most important learn from a study. I spent a lot of time scoping the study so we could address those goals in our short time frames. I used questions to get clients to prioritize such as “Rank the most important research questions” or “What questions should we cut if we are running low on time during a session?” These questions and the conversations that they started helped to prioritize studies. I used these conversations to help guide me in collecting data as well as in my analysis. 

Take extremely organized notes

I did not have the luxury of watching recordings or have someone else take notes for me. Therefore, I had to organize my notes to allow for efficient note-taking during sessions, as well as allow for rapid analysis. I took notes in Google sheets and made sure to have a row for each question I asked and a column for each participant. I also made an effort to color code and separate headers for sessions. I created summary rows for each participant to ensure I remembered key takeaways. 

Take a top-down approach to analysis

Because of the rapid timeline; I had to adjust my research process from a bottom-up approach to a top-down approach. In previous research, I relied on the data to bring themes to light. I still did that in these studies. However, I learned that it was much more efficient in this timeframe to focus on the main research questions and surface any themes later on. To that end, I took the main research questions first and searched for data that helped answer those questions. I rearranged data answering those questions to draw out themes and insights.

Additionally, at the end of each session. I quickly answered the research questions in my own words. This helped me to keep the focus on the main points of the study and helped to analyze the data.

What I learned 

I learned that I was capable of delivering fast impactful insights in a short time frame. However, I also learned the limitations of what I could and could not do. I learned to prioritize research questions, but I had to leave a lot of insights and data unused to do so. This time period was fast-paced, hectic, and stressful at times. However, I learned to be a better consultant and more efficient researcher. I learned several strategies to streamline analysis that I will continue to use in longer-term studies.