Engaging the client or stakeholders with research outputs

Often we tend to focus on the planning and running of research activities, but we don't always pay as much attention to how we convey the findings. Engaging the client or stakeholders with research and involving them is key to ensuring that all of the hard work is understood and valued, to really give the research outputs momentum to make a difference.

At this Meetup we will hear a variety of talks including; how to get client teams engaged with research as well as new visual ways of presenting findings to engage team members. This event is hosted at Tesco and supported by UXPA UK. There will be nibbles, drinks and ample time for networking.

Event schedule:

• 6.30 pm: Doors open and networking time

• 7.00 pm: Introduction from the Research Thing Team

• 7.10 - 8.50 pm: 20-minute talks, each followed by Q&A

• 8.50 pm onwards: Networking time

Talk order below, followed by talk descriptions:

• Research as a team sport (Roman Schoeneboom from Tesco)

• Luddites Won't Let Me Skype In (Lior Smith from Rainmaker, @liorsmith)

• Illustration & Visual Thinking as an Engagement Tool (Felipe Caro from Future Cities Catapult, @FelipeCaroVT)

• Disclosing worlds and embodying knowledge (Simon Roberts from Stripe Partners, @ideasbazaar @stripepartners)

Programme:

Disclosing worlds and embodying knowledge (Simon Roberts from Stripe Partners, @ideasbazaar @stripepartners)
Better strategy and decision making happens when it is grounded in reality. Good researchers are great at understanding the world and translating that into knowledge that their audiences can use. But is that enough? You can debate insights conveyed through a PowerPoint deck but you can’t argue with experience. But too often research is a department down a corridor that ‘owns’ how an organisation understands the world. I will suggest that instead of relying on ever more sophisticated ways of communicating our research we need to find new ways to help disclose the world to our clients and help them embody knowledge that allows them to act quickly and successfully. I will talk about our ‘studio’ approach and the heads, hearts and hands methods we use to help ourselves, and our clients, understand the world.

Research as a team sport (Roman Schoeneboom from Tesco)
If a tree falls in a rainforest and no one sees it, did it really happen? The same goes for research – if your insights live in a shiny report in your execs drawer gathering dust , what good did that research do to the humans that use your services every day? The act of sharing your research insights and getting it into the collective design brain of your team is as important as the research it self. Service Designer for One Tesco, Roman Schoeneboom, shares the techniques we have been using to bring our design team and stakeholders to the coal face of customer research. One Tesco is a service design led transformation programme at Tesco, which places customer need firmly at the heart of the design process.

Illustration & Visual Thinking as an Engagement Tool (Felipe Caro from Future Cities Catapult, @FelipeCaroVT)
The essence of good research is being able to engage and communicate effectively with all players involved in a project. Visual thinking and the use of drawings are an innovative engagement and communication tool for bridging the gap between users, designers, researchers and the client.

In this talk, I will introduce the key principles of visual thinking and explain the benefits of using visualisation techniques to capture and document user needs, behaviours and other findings. I will also talk about how to create stimulus material to engage users, the process of recording ideas during workshops and how to translate insight and research into useful deliverables.

Luddites Won't Let Me Skype In (Lior Smith from Rainmaker, @liorsmith)
Complementing the other talks, Lior will speak about a 10-week design research project at HS2. From stickers to samosas, Lior will explain ways of engagement she's found works for her as a researcher. We'll see examples of how cultural probes revealed thoughtful insights that wouldn't be gleaned through interviews, and a story of how to get away without writing a report at all.

Speaker bios (https://www.meetup.com/researchthing/pages/20777389/Speakers_-_Getting_people_engaged_with_research/)

We look forward to seeing you at this event!