“Great job” they all said after the presentation. Six months later nothing had changed. I’ve seen versions of this more times than I’d like. The research was solid. The insights were clear and the recommendations were thoughtful. But the work stopped at the report.
The most impactful research projects create alignment, ownership, and a clear path forward.
That starts well before the first survey is launched or interview is conducted.
One of the first questions we ask clients is “What decisions will this research help you make?”
While a deceptively simple question, it often changes the conversation.
When everyone agrees on the business decisions the research needs to inform, it becomes much easier to determine the right objectives, involve the right stakeholders, and design a study that delivers actionable answers. This sounds simple and sometimes it is. Sometimes it’s not.
Equally important is identifying who needs to be part of the journey. Research rarely succeeds in isolation. Marketing, operations, customer experience, product, and senior leadership often view the same findings through different lenses. Bringing those perspectives together early helps build alignment before the results arrive, rather than trying to create buy-in afterward. This can be all together on a virtual kick-off call, but it doesn’t have to. Increasingly we have proposed doing some focused interviews with key stakeholders to better understand the business, opportunities, and priorities.
I remember one study for a financial services client where the research initiative was led by marketing but the stakeholders in the final meeting included product, customer experience, and community partnerships. Because they were not involved or consulted earlier in the process (rightly or wrongly) the leaders outside marketing questioned the methodology, design, and results. Alas, I felt that we got thrown under the bus. Looking back, I could have helped our client with socializing it better or navigating who should be involved in the share out. But the importance of getting the right stakeholders involved from the beginning was clear in that moment.
For many organizations, the project ends with that walkthrough or presentation. Stakeholders ask a few questions, everyone (hopefully) agrees the findings are interesting, and then it’s back to business as usual. I sometimes cringe a bit when everyone leaves the debrief saying “great work”, and I’m not feeling confident that there will be actual change six months later.
Research doesn’t usually fail because of weak insights (but yeah sometimes it does). More often, it fails because no one has agreed who is going to own the next steps.
We’ve increasingly seen value in building activation into the research process itself. Rather than treating the report as the finish line, we create space for stakeholders to work together immediately after the findings are shared. These sessions often focus on questions like:
- Which insights matter most?
- Where can we have the biggest impact?
- What should we do first?
- Who owns the next steps?
By the end, teams leave with more than a shared understanding of the findings. They leave with decisions, priorities…and momentum.
We’ve come to think of successful research as 3 connected phases:
- Alignment: Get clear on the decisions and involve the right people.
- Discovery: Generate insights to answer those questions.
- Activation: Turn those insights into actions with ownership.
Because the goal was never to deliver a report. The goal was always to help people make better decisions. And that’s where insight becomes impact.