Stream Teams Don't Need to Communicate their Research

The biggest risk with research is that it sits on a shelf gathering dust. So naturally researchers are keen to communicate and evangelise their research insights.

But you don't need to do this in decentralised stream teams. The research that stream teams do is for the team itself. And if the team is working in a cross-functional way then the team will have been involved in the research and already be aware of the insights.

There are, however, other teams around the organisation that might be interested. The Product Team managing the Stream Team are trusting them to make good production decisions which means the Product Team needs to know what insights came out of the research that are guiding product development. In addition, some research insights may apply to other Stream Teams working on the same product.

To accommodate the needs of other teams research can shift from a "push" model, where the team publish and advocate for their insights, to a "pull" model, where the insights are stored in a repository that everyone in the company has access to.

Discoverability becomes the next challenge. How do I know I need to look for insights? I dive deeper into this and other sharing approaches in this week's article below.

This Week’s Updates

Enabling the Team

Leaders Shouldn't Try To Do It All by A.G. Lafley and Roger L. Martin
The drawbacks of leaders trying to manage every aspect of their organization, stressing that effective delegation and empowering team members leads to a more efficient and engaged workforce.

The Design Leader Dilemma by Paul Boag
Unrealistic expectations are placed on design leaders; who are often expected to deliver exceptional results with limited resources. It’s time for a shift from being implementers to enablers by focusing on empowering others across the organization to improve UX.

Product Direction

Data-Informed, Not Data-Driven by Ant Murphy
Biases can affect data interpretation and decision-making, Ant recommends using data to inform decisions, not dictate them.

Uncommon Sense Playbook by John Cutler
A playbook of unconventional thinking in product development, encouraging teams to break away from traditional methods and create more innovative solutions.

Continuous Research

Stream Teams Don't Need To Communicate Their Research by Rory Madden
Stream Teams shouldn't be expected to actively broadcast their research findings. Their responsibility should end at making their work accessible and transparent through well-organised documentation of research and decisions.

Never Skip Research Day by Trip Carroll
Regular user research is crucial for informed design decisions. Skipping research day can undermine the quality of design, so it's important to prioritize it consistently.

Continuous Design

How The Right UX Metrics Show Game-changing Value by Jared M. Spool
By choosing the right UX metrics you can see the substantial impact of design on business outcomes, highlighting the need for metrics that reflect user experience improvements.

AI + Hermes (Speed) Worship by Chris R Becker
Designer need to continue focusing on using their tools, thinking, and time to improve not only the outputs of AI, but how the tools themselves can help improve people's lives.

Continuous Development

What Engineering Intelligence Says About Development by HTEC
Engineering intelligence can identify inefficiencies, assess technical debt, and evaluate development practices to improve software development processes. Even though it provides valuable insights, it should be complemented with human analysis to address issues effectively. [Sponsored Content]

8 Must-Know Strategies To Build Scalable Systems by Saurabh Dashora
Essential strategies to build scalable systems, such as using stateless services, horizontal scaling, and effective caching help businesses handle growth; while maintaining performance and reliability.

Speaker Announcement UXDX EMEA 2025
Marine Palamutyan & Morgan Davis, Docusign

Great products don’t just emerge from clever ideas, they evolve from a deep understanding of customers. Join Mariné Palamutyan and Morgan Davis from Docusign as they share how to build customer intuition and foundational knowledge across the product development lifecycle.

In their session, Mariné and Morgan will guide you through the process of building customer intuition and foundational knowledge at every stage of product development. Drawing from their experiences at Docusign, they’ll share how a deep understanding of your customers helps you save time and resources while creating products that genuinely solve customer problems.

Don’t miss out on this opportunity to learn from two experts who have shaped product strategies in some of the world’s leading companies. Don’t miss out on UXDX EMEA 2025 and explore how to transform your customer insights into impactful product solutions!

THE UXDX MAJOR EVENTS

FREE COMMUNITY EVENTS 

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Video of the Week
AI and ML in Drone Navigation:
Insights for Product Development

Alan Hicks, CTO of Manna, explores how AI and machine learning are revolutionizing drone delivery. From optimizing maintenance to improving routing with 4D models, he shares how data is helping scale operations, enhance safety, and ensure efficiency.

Watch the full video to see how AI is transforming drone delivery and product development. Check out Alan’s full talk here 👇

The Results of Last Week’s Poll

The question: What method do you most often use to prioritize product opportunities?

While RICE (Reach, Impact, Confidence, Effort) came out on top in this poll with 51.9% of the vote, the interesting thing for me was the range of other options being used, including some that were added in the comments like Weighted Shortest Job First (WSJF), Impact/Effort matrices and Opportunity Solution Trees.

The fact that we have so many different ways of prioritising ideas is a bit of a warning flag for me. It is clear that there is no one-right-answer. In the past I’ve been in sessions where we’re putting weights on different ideas but we were making so many assumptions. The key thing for me is that the team need to have the right context to be able to decide what is more important. There will always be ambiguity and disagreements but at least they will be argued with real data instead of opinions.

If you find yourself struggling to prioritize or maintain clarity, consider refining your approach or exploring our Continuous Research course for more strategies.