We hear a lot about ResOps, ResearchOps, or Research Operations in this day and age but what exactly is it? Essentially it is about UX Research practices and Frameworks. It’s about reducing admin tasks and streamlining the research processes for researchers to get on with what they need to do. Having a dedicated employee to run ResOps is a great luxury and it is justifiable with a big enough research team, but what if the team is too small to justify it? Well, it’s all part of the job of being a researcher in that case.
Making research scalable, sustainable and impactful
Great research doesn’t happen by accident. Behind every effective research programme is an operating system – the processes, people, tools, governance and ways of working that allow researchers to spend less time navigating complexity and more time understanding people – That’s where ResearchOps comes in.
Throughout my career, I’ve worked at the intersection of research, design and digital transformation, helping organisations move from research being a series of individual projects to becoming a repeatable, scalable and strategically valuable capability.
As research teams grow, so does the operational complexity around them. Recruiting the right participants. Managing suppliers. Protecting research data. Scheduling sessions. Maintaining repositories. Creating consistent ways of working. Managing stakeholders. Sharing insights. Demonstrating impact.
Without the right framework in place, researchers can spend a huge amount of their time organising research rather than doing research. ResearchOps changes that by creating the infrastructure that makes research:
– Faster | Reducing operational effort so that teams can focus on what really matters.
– Consistent | Shared standard, templates, and processes provide consistency whilst maintaining flexibility.
– Scalable | Increased research activity without increasing the operational costs and resources.
– Trusted | Governance, quality control, and ethical considerations around how research is planned and executed.
– Valuable | Creating connectivity between research studies and wider business decisions.
My experience spans UX Research, digital transformation and complex financial services environments, giving me a perspective that combines the art of research with the realities of operating within large organisations. I’ve worked across the full research lifecycle—from defining the questions and selecting methodologies through to vendor management, recruiting participants, conducting research, synthesis and analaysis and translating findings into evidence-based strategic recommendations. Below is a list of what I built in my latest role at VML, Dubai.
- Building a ResearchOps function. I led the development and delivery of a ResearchOps function establishing:
- Scalable research processes
- Tools and templates
- Governance
- Recruitment practices
- Repeatable ways of working
- Research planning & prioritisation. I prioritised, scoped and delivered 13+ mixed-method research projects within time and budget constraints.
- Research demand management
- Prioritisation
- Project scoping
- Capacity management
- Balancing multiple research initiatives Delivering consistently at scale
- Participant recruitment & management.
- Defining recruitment requirements
- Recruiting appropriate participants
- Creating repeatable recruitment processes
- Working with recruitment vendors/panels
- Ensuring researchers can access the right participants efficiently
- Research governance. With a strong history in financial services and banking products I’ve operated in environments where research needs to account for:
- Data sensitivity
- Regulatory requirements
- Legal considerations
- Ethical research practices
- Stakeholder approvals
- Consistency and quality
- Creating standardised research infrastructure. I developing tools, templates and processes resulting in infrastructure that allows for research to be repeated and scaled.
- Research templates
- Research protocols
- Standardised workflows
- Documentation Governance frameworks
For more information and details regarding ResOps, the ResearchOps Community is a great place to go. Alternatively, download the 2024 ReOps Playbook from Rally.
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