7 Steps to Building a Scalable Agile Research Program

“Agile” is a term that gets thrown around in our industry a lot. Most people probably think “agile market research” means doing research faster, which isn’t wrong, but it also doesn’t fully embrace all of the nuances of Agile methodology (with a capital “A”).

At its core, agile market research allows an organization to adapt and pivot quickly by running frequent research “sprints” that get timely, relevant data to decision-makers exactly when they need it.

Agile has its roots in software development when in 2001, a group of developers got together to create the Agile Manifesto. It completely transformed the way software products get out to market–from an antiquated waterfall method to iterative sprint cycles of rapid problem-solving. But what does that have to do with market research? Well, a lot of the agile principles can be applied to our own research processes.

Agile market research is tech-enabled, requires continuous feedback loops with key stakeholders, and, yes, means delivering faster and more frequently.

Sound like something your company could benefit from? You’re not alone. In the most recent Greenbook Research Industry Trends (GRIT) report, 72% of researchers already use or plan to use Agile research/methods/approaches in their organizations.

If you’re like many who have bought into the idea of becoming more agile but don’t know where to start, I’ve got you covered. From living it myself at SurveyMonkey to watching and learning from countless clients who have implemented agile approaches, here are my 7 steps to building a scalable agile research program.

1. Conduct a research audit.

For most insights teams, about ⅔ of research projects are planned ahead of time, which means that you likely have a line of sight into what’s coming up for the year. The first step to developing an agile market research program is to understand which research projects would be a good fit for agile methods.

Start by asking yourself a few questions: What research do I conduct every year like clockwork? What research do I know is coming based on the product or marketing roadmap? What types of research tend to creep up on me with little to no notice?

Then, once you have a good list of projects, evaluate which would be a good fit for an agile approach. Typically, this would be research-based on methodologies that are repeatable and can be templatized, like concept testing, ad testing, or pricing sensitivity studies. Projects, where you have the expertise to run them in-house, would also be a good fit, along with projects that tend to be feasible with online tools (like gen pop targeting) or projects with tight turnarounds.

Once you have your list of agile-worthy projects, you can start evaluating the toolset to accomplish your goals.

2. Build your agile market research tech stack.

Market research technology has progressed over the last several years where there is practically a tool for every tedious, time-consuming research process out there. When I think of the fundamentals that make up an agile market research tech stack, it spans technology for both quant and qual, panels and communities, automated research solutions (like SurveyMonkey’s solutions for concept and creative testing), syndicated and behavioral data sources, and data analytics & visualization.

It turns out that the adoption of research technology has been accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, with 47% of organizations planning to increase their use of DIY research tools. The opposite is true for full-service, with 34% of organizations plan to decrease their use of full-service vendors.

If you’re wondering where to begin, my advice would be to start with a single project or research need and find the right solution for the job. Once you get comfortable, you can expand to more research needs over time.

3. Run calibration studies.

Calibration studies are great when you’re migrating an existing research project, especially a longitudinal study or tracker, over to an agile solution. Switching vendors for a tracker can be a headache but ultimately may save you time and money while allowing you to conduct your research more frequently than before.

Calibration studies can remove that headache by creating a baseline with which to compare your new research vendor to your old vendor. They assess the variation in results between the sources while ruling out any other confounding factors. Practically, what this means is running the exact same research study with both vendors at the exact same time. The only difference is the tool/source being used to conduct the two studies.

Here’s why it matters. Let’s say you switch vendors without running a calibration study, and your results dip significantly. It’d be really hard to know if the dip represented an actual change in market conditions or consumer perception, or if it was just due to a change in method or respondent source. The figure below illustrates this example well.

4. Establish internal processes.

At this point, you’ve brought in new technology, and you’re ready to start operationalizing your agile research program. The best thing you can do at the beginning is to carve out some time to align on and document your research processes.

The documentation isn’t meant to block, but rather enable teams to be more self-sufficient.

Include the following in your process documentation:

• Typical research timelines and milestones
• Methodologies (e.g. standard survey questions used at your organization)
• Templates
• Example projects and deliverables
• Research checklist or how-to guide
• Key people to turn to for help
• Where to publish your findings

5. Train your organization.

Once you have all of your documentation complete, it’s finally time to start scaling your agile research program throughout your organization. What you’re aiming for is a system that removes bottlenecks and empowers different departments to do their own research. So, if you’re on the insights team, you may want to train your marketing team on how to conduct their own message testing or the product team on how to do their own online user research.

Training can take a variety of formats. You can host workshops, make your documentation easy to find in internal hubs, get your training included in new hire onboarding, and reinforce the process with refresher courses and shadowing opportunities. A piece of advice would be to designate research “champions” in each of the departments you’re training that get a bit more involved and can consolidate feedback and questions back to your team. You can also lean on your research vendors. Usually, they can help you with onboarding sessions and product training.

6. Enable transparency and knowledge sharing.

Now that you’ve got several departments at your company running their own research, the challenge will be figuring out how to share knowledge and learnings so things don’t get lost, under-used, or worse: unknowingly replicated.

There are lots of ways to accomplish this, as pictured below, but the most important thing is that people know where to find the information they need, and that the research repository remains up to date.

7. Transform into a center of excellence.

The last step involves re-thinking how the insights team spends their time. I keep hearing: “We’re budget/resource-constrained, but our stakeholders are asking for more, more, more!” So how do you go from being overwhelmed to overachieving? The answer lies in transforming into a center of excellence.

For insights teams, this means you still own the insights vision and direction. You still evaluate tools and vendors, establish best practices, and you still run the largest, most strategic projects. But by enabling other organizations to serve themselves, research throughput can grow exponentially.

In order to make a transformation like this really stick, especially in a large organization, it requires significant executive buy-in. Here’s how I recommend getting it:

• Craft a proposal
• Pitch key executives to get their sponsorship
• Have your executive sponsors communicate the change to their teams, and lead by example
• Reinforce consistently until a habit is formed

Ultimately, this will free up more of your time to get involved in strategic initiatives and elevate insights’ role in the organization.

And there you have it! 7 steps you can get started with today to build a scalable agile research program–7 steps to get to a place where you’re innovating smarter and growing faster. Reach out if you implement any of these tips – I’d love to start a conversation.

Photo by Jo Szczepanska on Unsplash