What about deep, market-level research?

Last week, we explored how to help more teams adopt research by making it quick, accessible, and lightweight. But not all research can, or should, fit into a two-hour-per-week window. While traditional organisational structures often centralise all research, from specific product insights to broad market analysis, this Center of Excellence approach has been shown to be an anti-pattern in the research by the DevOps Research and Assessment group.

In a product team structure, responsibilities can be divided more effectively. Stream teams focus on addressing their immediate product needs, conducting fast, localised research close to their customers. Meanwhile, centralised research teams take on the higher-level, strategic studies that require a broader perspective.

It’s like builders and urban planners. The builders (stream teams) focus on constructing and refining individual houses, tailoring them to meet specific, immediate needs. The urban planners (centralised researchers) conduct their own high-level studies, designing the broader infrastructure and long-term layout to ensure the city grows sustainably and cohesively. Together, they create success at both the micro and macro levels, balancing immediate functionality with strategic foresight.

This Week’s Updates

Enabling the Team

Research: The Long-term Costs Of Layoffs by Didier Elzinga and Amy Lavoie
Research finds that layoffs can lead to decreased employee morale, reduced productivity, and increased turnover. Highlighting the importance of considering long-term effects when making such decisions.

Overcoming The Top Challenges Of Self-Managing Teams by Lisa Gill
Overcome obstacles in self-managing teams by shared leadership, clear communication, role definition, and continuous team development.

Product Direction

Why Platform Product Management Is Hard! by Ant Murphy
Strategies for overcoming platform product management challenges, including clear user segmentation, iterative development, cross-functional collaboration, and setting measurable goals.

AI Integration and Modularization by Ben Thompson
Go over the trade-offs between integrated AI (better control and optimization but complex) and modular AI (more flexibility but less efficient).

Continuous Research

Balancing Quick Decentralised Research With Deeper Market Research by Rory Madden
Helping teams remove the blockers that hurt the effectiveness and efficiency of software development.

Collaborative User Testing: Less Bias, Better Research by Alla Kholmatova
Explore the importance of collaboration in user testing to minimize bias, suggesting that involving diverse team members in planning, conducting, and analyzing tests leads to more reliable research outcomes.

Continuous Design

Your Never-Fail Usability Testing Checklist by Nikki Anderson-Stanier
Great checklist to ensure thorough planning and execution of usability tests, covering pre-test preparation, in-test facilitation, and post-test analysis.

The Already Here Future Of Prototyping by Brad Frost
Brad explores advancements in prototyping, highlighting how modern tools and AI are bridging design and development, enabling rapid, functional prototypes.

Continuous Delivery

Where Web Components Shine by Dave Rupert
Dave goes over scenarios where web components excel, such as building design systems, enhancing HTML, and creating reusable components, while also addressing challenges like Shadow DOM complexities.

Exiting The Matrix — Build Products 10x Faster by Ravi Mehta
Ravi shares how his team launched GPTcsv.ai in 19 days by leveraging existing tools and adopting a streamlined mindset, demonstrating rapid product development.

Speaker Announcement EMEA 2025
Ryan Leffel
Head of Design, Priceline

We’re excited to announce that Ryan will be speaking at UXDX EMEA 2025. He will share his insights in a session titled "The Superpowers and Shadows of A/B Testing: Balancing Data-Driven Success with Bold Innovation."

Leveraging data is essential for driving informed decision-making, optimising processes, and delivering incremental improvements. However, a data-only approach often risks focusing solely on local maxima—solutions that provide short-term gains but limit transformative innovation. To truly unlock potential, organisations must balance data insights with a bold innovation mindset.

Don’t miss this opportunity to learn from a design leader shaping the future of UX and product design at one of the leading travel brands.

FREE COMMUNITY EVENTS 

Check out more upcoming community events 

Video of the Week
A Business-Centric Approach to Design System Strategy

This session delves into a business-centric approach to design systems, exploring how teams can achieve success by aligning design strategies with organizational goals and product-market fit. Discover how to tactfully introduce change, foster cross-functional collaboration, and rethink traditional strategies to ensure impactful outcomes. Packed with actionable insights, this talk is perfect for leaders and designers looking to modernize their design system strategy. Watch the full session here 👇

The Results of Last Week’s Poll

The question: Do you think you could carve out 2 hours a week for research?

If we exclude the 18.1% of people who are full time researchers, 49.2% of people responded saying that they can carve out enough time each week for continuous research or they already do. This highlights how making research quick and easy can increase adoption.

However, there is still a significant portion of the audience where time remains a challenge. 13.1% of respondents cited a lack of time as the main barrier, while 19.7% said they wouldn’t want to do research at all with one person commenting about the challenge that “context switching” would have on productivity.

There is never one-size-fits-all in product development so if you are looking to start building more empowered product teams start with the people who are already interested and willing to try. You’ll have the most success there.