Market and User Research Operations - by Stephanie Marsh

About the Book

Increase the capability of your research teams by operationalizing your customer research to reduce waste and produce consistent, high-quality insights in a lean and responsive way.

Book Synopsis

Research Operations is a reasonably new field but one that offers businesses huge opportunities to produce more high-quality customer insights by reducing the administrative toll on research departments, freeing up resource to deliver more value.

With customers demanding more personalization of experiences, fully understanding the consumer and their experience of your brand or product has never been more important. This, in turn, is increasing the demand for more, higher quality customer insights, and as a result, research teams are under more pressure than ever. However, many companies don't yet fully understand how they can operationalize their research in order to scale consistent and robust research practices, enabling their teams to create more impactful research outcomes that deliver the much needed value to key stakeholders.

This is a practical guide on what exactly research operations is and how it can benefit your research by streamlining your administration so the research team can focus on delivering more impactful insights with more frequency on time and to budget. This guide takes mid-career professionals through how you can reduce waste by increasing the capability of reusing past research and minimizing the potential for doing unnecessary research, how to plan your research to ensure the best outcome and how to choose the best tools for your research and business needs. It covers the incredibly practical, from considerations of GDPR, how to recruit participants and how to set up research projects so they run smoothly, as well as providing insight into how AI can be used as part of the research process, how to democratize research and how to adapt to changing needs and requirements.

Review Quotes

"Are you a Research Leader or a Research Ops professional? This book is essential reading for you! Steph has created a hugely valuable resource for all levels of organisational maturity and scale. Whether you are new to Research Operations or an experienced professional, working in a small immature research team or a more advanced function, you will find plenty of practical takeaways, tips and templates you can put into practice straight away."-- "Emma Boulton, Research Leader"

"Having worked closely with Stephanie Marsh, I know firsthand how deeply they understand the real-world challenges of Research Ops. This book captures that knowledge and turns it into an indispensable guide for teams at every stage. This book is a must-read for anyone building or scaling Research Ops"-- "Noémie Lozé, Research Operations Lead, Bumble"

"I wish I had access to this when starting out in research ops! Stephanie's book efficiently outlines the different approaches that can be taken for every aspect of research ops, stipulating clearly what needs to be considered for each approach, and offering handy examples and templates along the way."-- "Saskia Liebenberg, Research Operations Lead, Monzo"

"Market and Research Ops strikes the right tone between theory and practice - heavy on the practice, which means there are things that you'll be able to do the moment you close it! It's accessible, with easy-to-understand language (that won't put you to sleep) and practical tips that you can lift wholesale to present to your manager/key stakeholders. Marsh providers detailed guidance to give anyone interested in ResearchOps a thorough grounding in necessary processes and procedures. It's required reading for anyone, whether if you're doing the generic ops busywork (templates, recruitment) all the way through to building a scalable ReOps practice within your organization."-- "Natasha den Dekker, Lead UX Researcher"

"Marsh has written the Swiss Army Knife of ResearchOps books. Market and User Research Operations is packed with ready-to-use templates and guides that turn ResearchOps theory into practice. Essential reading whether you're taking your first steps or you've been in ResearchOps for years."-- "Kate Towsey, Author of Research That Scales: The Research Operations Handbook (Rosenfeld, 2024)"

"Stephanie Marsh has written an excellent, practical, no-nonsense field manual for setting up and running research operations from scratch, no matter the size of your team. This book is sure to be a go-to reference for anyone involved in the operations of a research team."-- "Katie Taylor, UX Research Manager"

"Whether you're setting up ResearchOps for the first time, or the fifth time, this practical guide will feel like the friend you can turn to - for reminders that yes, it is a lot, and for the best practice templates, tools, and guides - up to date, and trustworthy. Get yourself the best ReOps friend you never knew you could have, and get started!"-- "Brigette Metzler, Research Operations Lead, Bupa APAC and Former Co-Chair of the global ResearchOps Community"

About the Author

Stephanie Marsh (she/they) is a leading UX research professional, currently UX Research Operations Lead at Springer Nature based in London, UK. They are the former Head of User Research and Analysis for the UK Government Digital Service and former Head of Digital Strategy for the UK Ministry of Defence. She was previously a consultant at Bunnyfoot, a leading UX consultancy in the UK. They have contributed chapters to a range of peer-reviewed texts in related fields and has delivered talks on UX Research, Research Operations and UX strategies at a range of conferences and industry events.