The Secrets behind Research that Scales / Kate Towsey / Ep. #216
There is no service design...
Without high-quality research.
Sure, we all know that.
But doing good research is hard.
Kate Towsey, often called the inventor of the ResearchOps field, can certainly attest to this.
If you're a dedicated listener of the show, you might remember Kate from our conversation about a year ago where she shared that she was writing a book.
Well, that book, titled "Research that Scales", has officially been published!
And with a 4.9/5 rating on Amazon, it seems to have struck a chord with readers.
Of course, we had to get Kate back on the show to discuss it.
In this conversation we delve into topics like:
- Do we need to scale research, and if so why?
- What does "scale" actually mean in the context of research?
- When should you start thinking about scaling?
- What are the key steps to scaling research?
- What role can AI play in all of this? Will it take over our jobs?
- Why did it take Kate 3.5 years to publish the book?
And as always, that's just the tip of the iceberg.
It's hard to imagine a service design professional who wouldn't be interested in the topics we cover in this episode.
Good research isn't just a nice-to-have; it's a must.
Without giving away too many spoilers, I found it fascinating that it's not actually research that you need to (or can) scale, but something else. Something that we as a community are pretty good at.
Can you guess what it is?
Enjoy and keep making a positive impact!
~ Marc
--- [ 1. GUIDE ] ---
00:00 Welcome to Episode 216
03:00 Quick overview about scaling research
04:00 Why she wrote the book
09:30 Pandemic's impact on the book
13:00 Research rabbit hole
15:00 Unscalable Research: What to Avoid
18:30 What is enough research?
22:00 The problem she saw
25:00 The main bottlenecks
27:45 Libriarian's role in making the change
31:00 How the process work
33:00 Knowledge as a network vs tree
35:30 Maximizing efficient use of library
39:00 Designing the system
41:00 Knowledge vs. Learning: Value Proposition
43:00 Cost center vs value center
47:00 AI and Research: A Synergistic Future
49:00 Cost of scaling: A Trade-off
51:00 Strategic approach to scaling
53:00 How to know when to scale
54:30 Her readers insights
56:00 Upcoming masterclasses
58:00 Resources
58:30 Food for thought
--- [ 2. LINKS ] ---
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katetowsey/
- Website: https://katetowsey.com/
- Substack: https://katetowsey.substack.com
--- [ 3. CIRCLE ] ---
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