Good stuff! I do wonder where recommendations fit into this? My take is that insights aren’t sufficient that we need to be working with recommendations and tracking those and showing what I call the “chain of evidence” back to insights to results and to data. But I love this article!
Hi, Brian! Thanks for checking out the article and for this thoughtful question.
I was really interested to see your shares on recommendations-focused approaches. I'm taking a different tack here based on what I've seen work in client companies -- but obviously every org is different and warrants thoughtful tailoring of approaches in the toolkit.
Here's a related sidebar from Stop Wasting Research book:
"YOU MIGHT BE ASKING
SHOULDN’T WE BE PUSHING RECOMMENDATIONS RATHER THAN INSIGHTS?
Conditions change and ideas incubate, so leading with insights makes more sense than leading with recommendations. Even if owning teams were involved in a study’s process and helped to come up with documented recommendations, they may dream up something entirely different when they revisit an insight. It’s typically better to organize your atomized research by customer insights first and then include any “possible next steps” as a secondary element. Some repository tools provide a view of “research recommendations” compiled from across studies—but these views can sell insights short.
Insights about highly granular problems can seem like an exception. In these situations, the needed solution—such as a tweak in a current user experience—can seem obvious. And that’s exactly why it’s not worth taking a different approach: by clearly stating the insight, colleagues are likely to think of the obvious solution anyway."
Good stuff! I do wonder where recommendations fit into this? My take is that insights aren’t sufficient that we need to be working with recommendations and tracking those and showing what I call the “chain of evidence” back to insights to results and to data. But I love this article!
Hi, Brian! Thanks for checking out the article and for this thoughtful question.
I was really interested to see your shares on recommendations-focused approaches. I'm taking a different tack here based on what I've seen work in client companies -- but obviously every org is different and warrants thoughtful tailoring of approaches in the toolkit.
Here's a related sidebar from Stop Wasting Research book:
"YOU MIGHT BE ASKING
SHOULDN’T WE BE PUSHING RECOMMENDATIONS RATHER THAN INSIGHTS?
Conditions change and ideas incubate, so leading with insights makes more sense than leading with recommendations. Even if owning teams were involved in a study’s process and helped to come up with documented recommendations, they may dream up something entirely different when they revisit an insight. It’s typically better to organize your atomized research by customer insights first and then include any “possible next steps” as a secondary element. Some repository tools provide a view of “research recommendations” compiled from across studies—but these views can sell insights short.
Insights about highly granular problems can seem like an exception. In these situations, the needed solution—such as a tweak in a current user experience—can seem obvious. And that’s exactly why it’s not worth taking a different approach: by clearly stating the insight, colleagues are likely to think of the obvious solution anyway."
Obviously up for debate! Thanks again
Thanks for reading, Brian. I'll leave Jake to respond to your comment.