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Nico Lee, a ResearchOps specialist at DocuSign (now the Senior Research Operations Manager at Alteryx), shares how his team turned a significant reorganisation and setback into an opportunity to expand the scope, impact, and scalability of participant recruitment at DocuSign and what you can take from their journey.

What Nico Covers in This Talk

• Organisational Changes: In February 2024, a reorganisation led to the downsizing of the research operations team at DocuSign. This presented challenges in supporting UX researchers, particularly in participant management and recruiting.

• A Strategic Pivot: The team paused full-service participant recruitment operations to develop a new strategy that empowers UX researchers to manage their own recruitment. This plan also expanded research capabilities to product managers and designers, enabling them to conduct independent research sessions.

• Tackling Challenges Head-On: The team faced challenges such as setting new expectations for UX researchers, onboarding product managers and designers unfamiliar with user research, and managing platform costs.

• Implementing Self-Service Tools: Tools like Rally were introduced, supported by an increased budget, which enhanced research capabilities and fostered independent customer discovery sessions among PMs and designers.

• Alleviating Product Development Bottlenecks: This new approach reduced dependency on UX researchers, alleviating bottlenecks in product development timelines and improving interdepartmental relationships.

• Redefining Roles and Collaboration: The restructuring has been pivotal in redefining the research operations team’s role, promoting collaboration across departments, and contributing to more efficient research practices.

• The Importance of Continuous Improvement: Nico underscores the importance of ongoing improvements in research processes and tool utilisation, highlighting progress in research accessibility and the speed of insights.

• The Takeaway: Nico shares how adapting to change and embracing innovative strategies can enhance research quality and efficiency, turning difficult situations into opportunities for growth and collaboration.

Sponsor and Credits

Rally Around ResearchOps was made possible thanks to Rally UXR—scale research operations with Rally’s robust user research CRM, automated recruitment, and deep integrations into your existing research tech stack. Join the future of Research Operations. Your peers are already there.