Product Thinking Podcast

Episode 208: Scaling Research Ops to Drive Organizational Change
Host: Melissa Perri
Guest: Kate Towsey, Independent Research Ops Advisor and Educator
Date: January 29, 2025

Overview

This episode centers on the transformative impact of Research Operations (Research Ops) in product organizations, focusing on how effective systems for knowledge management and participant recruitment can elevate both product research and decision-making at scale. Melissa Perri converses with Kate Towsey, renowned for her pioneering work in research operations at Atlassian and the BBC, on the evolving landscape of Research Ops, its interplay with product management and product ops, and actionable strategies for scaling research to drive deep organizational change.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Kate’s Journey into Research Ops and the Origins of the Field

• Background: Kate describes falling into research operations after a career in content strategy. Her work at the UK Government Digital Service (GDS) led her to focus on the infrastructural needs for user research, such as building labs, managing content, and participant recruitment.
• Formation of the Community: Realizing there was global interest but no framework, she founded the Research Ops Community to formalize the field.

  “People from across the world were reaching out... By the end of about three years...I realized there are a ton of people who are interested in this work... So that was kind of how I wended my way into this profession.” – Kate Towsey [09:06]

2. What is Research Ops?

• Definition:

  “I look at it as the systems design that sets up all of the infrastructure, services, everything that is the culture needed to enable not just a research team to shine, but to enable an entire organization to benefit from the knowledge that engaging with customers... generates.” – Kate Towsey [10:52]

• Purpose: To consolidate and operationalize organizational learning about customers, making knowledge accessible, timely, and actionable.

3. The Core Problems Research Ops Solves

• Knowledge Loss & Access: Research too often disappears “into the ether” rather than fueling decisions.
• Making Knowledge Accessible: It’s not just about generating research, but ensuring insights are embedded in decision-makers’ thinking.
• Key Analogy:

  “It's like saying that water is your most valuable asset ... but then not building a dam for it... It's just leaking and you don't even know where it's going, and then you're all sitting there thirsty all the time.” – Kate Towsey [15:50]

4. Pain Points That Spur Research Ops Implementation

• Most Start with Participant Recruitment:
  • Recruiting customers for interviews is typically the “most painful” and first area tackled. Everyone—product managers, designers, researchers—needs access to users, but getting the right participants at the right time is arduous.
• Emerging Focus on Knowledge Management:
  • Increasingly, organizations recognize the need to manage, catalog, and make use of research findings.

5. Impact for Product Managers and Teams

• Accessibility of Research:
  • Without research ops, PMs often skip interviews due to time/resource barriers, defaulting to guesswork or insufficient surveys.
  • Well-implemented research ops short-circuits this, making prior research shareable and repeatable:

    “It just makes it so much easier to like be able to read interviews that have already been done... They may have learned something that I need to learn too.” – Melissa Perri [15:23]

• Enabling Quick Customer Connections:
  • Kate suggests PMs need a “dating app for customers”—rapid, targeted access to relevant users, instead of heavyweight research protocols.

    “Product managers, they like need like a dating app for customers... to quickly find that one person, instantly hit a button, set up a date, done... not a full research cohort... but just bump into a relevant customer next week.” – Kate Towsey [18:22]

6. The Shift from Tactical to Strategic Research

• Trend: Layoffs have led to researchers focusing on higher-level, strategic initiatives, while “daily” research moves to PMs and designers.
• Opportunity for Researchers: Researchers often lament being stuck on repetitive feature testing. The move toward strategic involvement opens greater organizational influence:

  “Instead of bringing research operations as assistants... It should be a strategic design role... And now you're looking at how do we leverage research across the organization... That's like, wow, what an opportunity.” – Kate Towsey [25:13]

7. Democratization vs. Specialization in Customer Research

• Collaborative Model: Instead of infighting over who “owns” user research, all disciplines should engage with customers, but with appropriate methods and cross-functional support.

  “Nobody's in charge of being the person who talks to users... if we all collaborate better, we could work better together on it. And I think research ops is really like a great way to start thinking about democratizing that research too.” – Melissa Perri [32:06]

8. Scaling Research: Systems, Not Just Practices

• Research Doesn’t Scale, Systems Do:

  • Kate challenges the idea that “research scales”:

    “You can only scale something that is a system... Research is not a thing, you can’t point at research, it’s knowledge... Once you’ve got the system, you can build scaling into that.” – Kate Towsey [36:26]

• Strategic Approach is Crucial:

  • Many attempt to “scale” by hiring, but without a strategy or robust system, efforts collapse or become unsustainable.

• Start with Self-Service & MVPs:

  • MVP versions of recruitment/knowledge systems, such as simple spreadsheets or basic participant tools, can deliver rapid value before evolving to fully-featured solutions.

  “Start slowly with self service and then look for the opportunity to offer a hybrid or a full service later on.” – Kate Towsey [39:59]

9. Research Ops, Product Ops, and Beyond: Breaking Silos

• Interdisciplinary Synergy:
  • Research ops, product ops, and design ops are natural “trios" for operations, each bringing strengths—business acumen, data & privacy muscle, and tooling/systems expertise.

  “I foresee... more and more teams are created that have product operations, research operations, and then design operations working like absolutely, like dovetailed. There’s just no distinction between them as one team.” – Kate Towsey [43:47]

• Anti-silo Mindset:
  • Success depends on mutual support and shared goals, dissolving “us vs them” divides between research, product, and related marketing/sales ops.

10. The Long Game of Operations: Patience and Strategic Vision

• Quick Wins vs. Enduring Change:
  • Quick “hors d’oeuvres” solutions are needed for buy-in, but the deepest benefits—cultural shifts, robust decision-making, knowledge-driven strategy—take years.

    “The big changes and the big value come sometimes a year or two down the line... [Ops] needs that strategic long term vision, it needs an enormous amount of patience to get to the point where the processes and the systems are delivering things...” – Kate Towsey [50:13]

Memorable Quotes

• On the Value of Knowledge Management:
  “It is a madness to me... the entire point of research is to be able to gather knowledge and provide knowledge, and yet we don't manage it at all. Very few people have knowledge managers in their team.” – Kate Towsey [13:36]

• Kate’s Water Analogy:
  “It's like saying that water is your most valuable asset... It's just leaking and you don't even know where it's going, and then you're all sitting there thirsty all the time.” – Kate Towsey [15:50]

• On Democratizing Research:
  “You cannot monopolize knowledge. You cannot say, well, I am the only person that should be spending time with customers... What we need to do is operationalize it.” – Kate Towsey [30:11]

• On Systems over Research Scaling:
  “Research does not scale, systems do. And it’s true. Research is not a thing... you have to build a system and a system has to be specific, and then you can scale it.” – Kate Towsey [36:26]

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Kate’s Origin Story / Defining Research Ops – [07:24]–[10:52]
• Why Organizations Need Research Ops – [11:17]–[13:36]
• Pain Points: Participant Recruitment and Knowledge Management – [13:15]–[16:11]
• The 'Dating App' Analogy for PMs Needing Rapid Customer Access – [18:10]–[21:32]
• Shifting from Tactical to Strategic Research – [21:32]–[26:25]
• Democratization of Research and Collaboration Between Roles – [32:06]–[33:27]
• Scaling Research: Systemic Approach & Self-Service – [36:10]–[40:47]
• How Research Ops and Product Ops Can Partner – [42:38]–[44:56]
• Long-term View: Achieving Enduring Cultural and Strategic Outcomes – [49:50]–[51:44]

Final Thoughts & Resources

Kate urges organizations not to overlook research ops as mere administration, but as a strategic discipline critical to scaling product knowledge and driving outcomes. Both she and Melissa advocate for dismantling functional borders and embracing joint systems for research, product, and design operations—one robust enough to support the demands of modern, knowledge-driven organizations.

Learn more about Kate Towsey and her book:

• Website: katetowsey.com
• “Research that Scales” available on Rosenfeld Media and Amazon

This summary captures the episode’s actionable insights, candid moments, and practical advice for anyone striving to build—or benefit from—world-class research operations in product organizations.