Agile Research Done Right (and How to Keep It from Going Wrong)

One of the most versatile tools in a researcher’s toolkit, agile research has tremendous potential. But it can go wrong really fast if it’s not approached correctly. Agile research is the perfect tool for when you need insights quickly, but if the term “quick and dirty” starts being bandied about, you’ve gone awry. Research should never be dirty.

How do you avoid the dirty and ensure you’re using agile research methods correctly, maximizing the impact it can have within your company, and navigating around its pitfalls? Feedback Loop’s Vice President of Research Roddy Knowles and Manager of Research Kelsey Ward, explain it all in the recent webinar, “Agile Research Done Right (and How to Keep It from Going Wrong).”

COVID-19 accelerated the need for research to be faster, better, cheaper. It also fueled a notable shift away from hindsight research and toward foresight research. What happened in the past just isn’t as predictive or important anymore when it comes to figuring out the future. Additionally, the voice of the customer is more essential than ever for product managers to determine where they go from here. To stay relevant — and ensure everyday decisions are not being made without data — researchers need to embrace speed and enable others in the company to make data-driven decisions.

“The largest thing at stake is making sure we still have a voice,” Kelsey says. “We have to let go of our need to control in order to enable research to thrive and to ensure that everyone in our company has access to the data that they need to make decisions quickly.” 

Fully understanding what agile research is — and isn’t — is the first step in making it work for everyone. Agile research is quick, it is iterative, and it is focused on one key decision. All questions should point to that single decision. De-risk it with data, make it quickly, then move on to do more research and make more decisions.

Getting back to “quick and dirty” for a moment: It’s essential to make sure you, as a researcher, put in guardrails around using best practices and standards to keep out the dirt. The old adage, “some data is better than no data,” is true — except when that data is bad data. Quality counts.

Roddy and Kelsey talk in detail about how you can maximize and properly employ agile research practices — plus when to absolutely not use them — and share real-world examples of when agile shines.

Watch the webinar for expert insights from Roddy and Kelsey, including:

• How to let go of perfection while maintaining your standards.
• Where agile research works best with other tools.
• How to involve non-researchers in agile research processes.
• Identifying the best use cases for employing agile in your own company.
• How an industry-leading Feedback Loop customer was able to reduce their time from ideation to product launch by 70%.

Roddy and Kelsey share insider information and how-tos to empower researchers to thrive and drive in their own companies. Don’t miss this informative webinar recording!