Rally The Team, ’Cause UX Is A Team Sport!

“What's the big deal? Why do we need stakeholders involved in our research?”

Well, here's the skinny: We can't be successful as researchers without our stakeholders. UX is a team sport, and our goal is to have an impact. Stakeholders provide absolutely critical information and perspectives in the planning process. We want to include them from the very, very onset to make sure we're asking the right questions, to the right people, in the right way.

Your stakeholders have "beautiful minds"

They think differently than you do. They have a different perspective. They have a different background and they have separate assumptions. We want to harness that collective brainpower, those collective beautiful minds, so we can learn from them. Our success is intrinsic to theirs. We want to be one. We want to be collaborative and aligned. We want to make sure that our research plans are setting them up for success so that we can be successful, too.​

The more included our stakeholders are in our research, the more likely they will understand the people we are designing for, the more likely they will find our research credible, and act on the research learnings.

So how do you find your stakeholders?

If you're an independent researcher working for a client, the client contact is your most obvious stakeholder. But, there are likely additional stakeholders inside the client organization — the same stakeholders an internal researcher might more easily identify because they are the ones most invested in the outcome of your study; the ones who will eventually champion and or act upon your learnings.

​Stakeholders can include your CEO, CMO, CPO, and or people in product management, marketing, content strategy, engineering, design, or any other functional area who will be significantly impacted by your research. Invite the people who are most invested in the outcome of your research into your process.

​Of course, you don’t want to pull in the entire organization! One to four stakeholders is typical and ideal. No more than four!! If you wind up with more people wanting to be involved, the best thing to do is to identify one stakeholder to represent each functional area.

​Meeting stakeholders this week

This week, All-In students in the Ask Like A Pro series will meet their stakeholders from UsabilityHub, our project sponsor for this cohort. They'll gather more context on the real user research business problems they will explore, the people these will impact, if any research exists on these topics, discuss assumptions and participants, and more, to inform their research questions and research plans. Over the next two months they will continue to partner with their stakeholders as they conduct their research, analyze and synthesize, and report on the learnings. Then, they'll leverage this experience to create a case study and promote their user research skills!

The #1 indicator of success

The #1 indicator of success in my user research studies is how involved my stakeholders are in the process. Here’s a post detailing how I include them.

One of my favorite things about this career is I’m always learning — always filling my curiosity tank! I’d love to learn about the most unusual/unexpected stakeholder you’ve engaged in a study. What was the outcome? Shoot me an e-mail at michele@curiositytank.com.

Speak up, get involved, share the love

• ​Follow me on LinkedIn for more UXR tips and UX discussions

• Read about Curiosity Tank workshops (the next live workshop is tomorrow, 5/16!)

• Participate as an On-Demand, or as an Observer, for less!​

• Register for Michele's General Assembly classes (the next classes are on 5/22 and 6/13. Use discount code ronsen-2021 for 25% off!)

• Forward this email to someone who you think might enjoy it. Better yet, sign them up here. It will be the gift that keeps on giving.​

• ​Ask us questions related to user research. Seriously, bad research keeps us up at night!

And that's a wrap!

We try to alternate between a theme and UX/UXR jobs, events, classes, articles, and other happenings every few weeks. Thank you for all of the feedback. Feedback is a gift and we continue to receive very actionable input on how to make Fuel Your Curiosity more meaningful to you.

What do you think? Lmk. We're constantly iterating and would still love to hear your input.​

​Stay curious,
- Michele and the Curiosity Tank team

PS: Don't delay — join us! Our first live Spring cohort workshop is later today. Please join us join us. If you can't make it today, or even this week, there's still plenty of time to jump in and catch up. Everything is recorded to provide the most flexibility. Check out the Spring cohort calendar here.