03 - The Wild, Wild, West of ResearchOps

Lenny Murphy: 00:00:08

Hello everybody It's Lenny Murphy here of Hello everybody it's

Lenny Murphy: 00:00:11

Lenny Murphy here with the GreenBook podcast Welcome glad that you're here

Lenny Murphy: 00:00:15

Glad that I'm here and particularly glad that our guest is here So Today

Lenny Murphy: 00:00:20

we are chatting with Noel Lamb.

Lenny Murphy: 00:00:22

Noel is a former head of research operations at Robinhood.

Lenny Murphy: 00:00:25

Noel.

Lenny Murphy: 00:00:26

Welcome.

Noel Lamb: 00:00:28

Thank you.

Noel Lamb: 00:00:28

Glad to be here.

Lenny Murphy: 00:00:30

Glad to have you.

Lenny Murphy: 00:00:31

Now Noel, your focus and experience is on research operations.

Lenny Murphy: 00:00:37

Why don't you define research operations for our audience?

Noel Lamb: 00:00:40

Sure thing.

Noel Lamb: 00:00:41

Yeah.

Noel Lamb: 00:00:41

So research ops in my experience is a function that really

Noel Lamb: 00:00:44

operationalizes activities of research.

Noel Lamb: 00:00:47

So it might exist as a defined team, or you might even find it in.

Noel Lamb: 00:00:53

Groups of smaller researchers, who are doing ops related activities

Noel Lamb: 00:00:56

as part of their research process.

Noel Lamb: 00:00:59

But however it manifests research ops is there to help teams streamline

Noel Lamb: 00:01:05

processes and provide infrastructure and program support so that research

Noel Lamb: 00:01:11

teams can complete their initiatives.

Noel Lamb: 00:01:13

I'll also add here too, that it's not just about delivering

Noel Lamb: 00:01:17

solutions or programs or products.

Noel Lamb: 00:01:19

Or infrastructure.

Noel Lamb: 00:01:21

I think research operations can really help to shape the culture

Noel Lamb: 00:01:24

of a research team so that it's a productive, but also fulfilling

Noel Lamb: 00:01:30

place for people to do research.

Lenny Murphy: 00:01:33

Okay.

Lenny Murphy: 00:01:33

And when we're talking about this, we're thinking primarily

Lenny Murphy: 00:01:35

around the client side, right?

Lenny Murphy: 00:01:37

There's a more operationally focused kind of voice of the customer internal order

Lenny Murphy: 00:01:42

takers, internal research organizations.

Lenny Murphy: 00:01:44

And then there's more of the consultative components, et cetera, et cetera.

Lenny Murphy: 00:01:48

And thinking about.

Lenny Murphy: 00:01:50

The optimal model where research operations fits within

Lenny Murphy: 00:01:55

a client side organization.

Noel Lamb: 00:01:57

Yeah.

Noel Lamb: 00:01:58

So I've worked in teams where ops existed in the research.

Noel Lamb: 00:02:03

In a research and design ops org, and even most recently in a product strategy, or

Noel Lamb: 00:02:10

that was really decoupled from research.

Noel Lamb: 00:02:12

And I think there are pros and cons to each scenario that are

Noel Lamb: 00:02:16

so specific to each organization.

Noel Lamb: 00:02:19

And I could probably spend all day talking about it, but I won't.

Noel Lamb: 00:02:22

But I think to answer your question specifically, like when research

Noel Lamb: 00:02:28

ops is closely tied to research and.

Noel Lamb: 00:02:32

They are wherever they exist in the organization.

Noel Lamb: 00:02:37

They're seen as a partner to research and they are part of research from

Noel Lamb: 00:02:42

an organizational perspective.

Noel Lamb: 00:02:45

I think that's where you start to see the most success because research

Noel Lamb: 00:02:49

ops, while they are a bit distinct from research, those groups still

Noel Lamb: 00:02:54

need to align to the research.

Noel Lamb: 00:02:56

And the best way that I've found for that to happen is to

Noel Lamb: 00:03:00

be really close to research.

Noel Lamb: 00:03:01

So whether that means reporting up into the same organizational

Noel Lamb: 00:03:05

structure or head of research, or even just adjacent, as long as that

Noel Lamb: 00:03:09

partnership and that alignment is there.

Noel Lamb: 00:03:11

That's where you really start to see positive impact and great value of recent.

Lenny Murphy: 00:03:16

Okay.

Lenny Murphy: 00:03:17

So it seems like over the last few years, we've seen a trend

Lenny Murphy: 00:03:22

of democratization of research.

Lenny Murphy: 00:03:26

more decentralization of the research function.

Lenny Murphy: 00:03:29

Where marketing has has a research capability the brand and product

Lenny Murphy: 00:03:33

guys to have our own research capability, the, obviously the CX

Lenny Murphy: 00:03:36

folks have their own research papers.

Lenny Murphy: 00:03:39

When we think about this idea of research ops as a centralized asset

Lenny Murphy: 00:03:44

or resource across them how does that work effectively when there's something

Lenny Murphy: 00:03:50

that looks a whole lot more like fragmentation occurring across what we

Lenny Murphy: 00:03:55

would always consider to be research functions within many brand organization.

Noel Lamb: 00:04:01

I think this is a really interesting question.

Noel Lamb: 00:04:03

And one that is, I think it's becoming more common for research leaders wherever

Noel Lamb: 00:04:09

they sit in the organization, because it's a really difficult thing to navigate.

Noel Lamb: 00:04:14

There are parts of research that research ops supports and if they're decentralized,

Noel Lamb: 00:04:23

then everybody's doing things differently.

Noel Lamb: 00:04:26

They're not in accordance, some teams maybe doing things that

Noel Lamb: 00:04:31

are not in accordance with like privacy and data governance laws.

Noel Lamb: 00:04:35

And I think there's risk if you don't have a centralized place.

Noel Lamb: 00:04:41

And maybe that is your research ops team where procedures and policies

Noel Lamb: 00:04:46

and best practices are generated and shared for me, it's a risk game and

Noel Lamb: 00:04:52

that's a question for leadership.

Noel Lamb: 00:04:54

How much risk are they?

Noel Lamb: 00:04:55

Are they willing to accept in the organization?

Noel Lamb: 00:04:57

We've heard recently in the news there's been some congressional

Noel Lamb: 00:05:02

hearings with Facebook.

Noel Lamb: 00:05:03

And I don't know all the inner workings.

Noel Lamb: 00:05:04

I've never worked at that company.

Noel Lamb: 00:05:06

And I think it's so full of people with good intentions.

Noel Lamb: 00:05:09

But unfortunately this is a scenario like how risky it can be for a company

Noel Lamb: 00:05:14

if you don't have the right levers and pulleys and procedures in place.

Noel Lamb: 00:05:19

And I think the power of a research operations team can be

Noel Lamb: 00:05:23

to help tie that thread, between all those fragmented group,

Lenny Murphy: 00:05:28

So that's interesting.

Lenny Murphy: 00:05:29

I would say that traditionally the market research industry is or

Lenny Murphy: 00:05:34

even market research is a function started as a as a liability shield.

Lenny Murphy: 00:05:41

It was to decrease risk inherently.

Lenny Murphy: 00:05:44

And I would say that is still, maybe not talked about as often,

Lenny Murphy: 00:05:47

but it is still one of the cool.

Lenny Murphy: 00:05:50

Drivers of performing research is to decrease risk.

Lenny Murphy: 00:05:54

So in this in this scenario where.

Lenny Murphy: 00:06:00

Yeah.

Lenny Murphy: 00:06:01

You've given a lot of cool tools to a lot of people who may not.

Lenny Murphy: 00:06:05

It's like putting a gun in hand with child.

Lenny Murphy: 00:06:07

They may not know that you're kind of dangerous being able

Lenny Murphy: 00:06:09

to do some of these things.

Lenny Murphy: 00:06:11

And the examples of, Facebook and others as well, but not practicing

Lenny Murphy: 00:06:16

standards, not being fully aware of what standards of legalities, et cetera,

Lenny Murphy: 00:06:21

et cetera, that they that they face.

Lenny Murphy: 00:06:23

Through this evolution of the function, we don't want to limit speed of insight.

Lenny Murphy: 00:06:31

Obviously, right.

Lenny Murphy: 00:06:32

I think COVID has proven that over the past few years, the research function

Lenny Murphy: 00:06:35

grew overall the research industry has grown particularly here in the U S

Lenny Murphy: 00:06:39

because of the need to get insights fast.

Lenny Murphy: 00:06:41

We, we needed to know what was going on so quickly.

Lenny Murphy: 00:06:44

And research is a function, proved its value in doing that.

Lenny Murphy: 00:06:48

We don't want to limit it, but yeah.

Lenny Murphy: 00:06:53

We also, we better put some parameters around this to make sure that we

Lenny Murphy: 00:06:56

don't get a little too crazy and start creating risk in creating liability

Lenny Murphy: 00:07:03

versus limiting it, which is one of the core elements of the function.

Lenny Murphy: 00:07:07

What do you think?

Noel Lamb: 00:07:09

Absolutely.

Noel Lamb: 00:07:10

Research operations is invested in the success of a research function,

Noel Lamb: 00:07:14

but not in the day to day insights that research team and research

Noel Lamb: 00:07:18

leaders should be focusing on.

Noel Lamb: 00:07:20

But it's almost this unbiased little pocket of people who are really

Noel Lamb: 00:07:27

invested in success of research, but the success of the customer.

Noel Lamb: 00:07:32

And not a customer is that people are testing with.

Noel Lamb: 00:07:34

End also the company.

Noel Lamb: 00:07:35

And so they play this really critical joint for lack of a better word

Noel Lamb: 00:07:41

where they're looking out for the best interests of the key players

Noel Lamb: 00:07:46

in research and the company.

Noel Lamb: 00:07:48

And I think that is a really important evolution.

Noel Lamb: 00:07:53

And one that I think when you have a successful research ops team with the

Noel Lamb: 00:07:56

right support and the right research leadership, or whoever's really

Noel Lamb: 00:08:00

advocating for research ops and in an organization, they recognize that

Noel Lamb: 00:08:05

and they see that the value can even extend well beyond a research team.

Noel Lamb: 00:08:11

And I think that when you're talking about where research ops is going, that's

Noel Lamb: 00:08:16

a really important part to recognize.

Lenny Murphy: 00:08:19

On the other side of our business, gen two consulting , we

Lenny Murphy: 00:08:22

have a lot of brands who come to us and say, look, we have been doing

Lenny Murphy: 00:08:26

things the same way for 20 years.

Lenny Murphy: 00:08:30

We know there's better ways to do this and we need help in figuring out.

Lenny Murphy: 00:08:34

What those better ways are and who we should partner with.

Lenny Murphy: 00:08:38

And then suppliers that we're supporting and helping to do better stuff.

Lenny Murphy: 00:08:42

But one of the issues we hear also from the brands is, procure.

Lenny Murphy: 00:08:48

Is a limiting factor in our ability to experiment and onboard.

Lenny Murphy: 00:08:55

And the researchers themselves are so busy that they don't have the time

Lenny Murphy: 00:09:03

to learn something new and therefore default to, their existing suppliers

Lenny Murphy: 00:09:09

simply because it's just easier to execute the project with them.

Lenny Murphy: 00:09:13

So in that type of dynamic, I imagine research operations can play a

Lenny Murphy: 00:09:17

critical role in bridging the gap or bridging the divide between

Lenny Murphy: 00:09:22

consistency and best practices, but also innovation and exploring the new

Lenny Murphy: 00:09:30

is that a good way to think about it?

Lenny Murphy: 00:09:32

That there's, that, that innovation role within research ops as well?

Noel Lamb: 00:09:35

I think so.

Noel Lamb: 00:09:36

We really, when you have a research ops team, it is not something that is likely

Noel Lamb: 00:09:43

to help you overnight, but it is something that will get you to where you want to

Noel Lamb: 00:09:48

be even a year down the road, three years down the road, this very conversation

Noel Lamb: 00:09:53

came up on my last day at my past company

Noel Lamb: 00:09:56

you're the research leader is looking three months ahead, Noel.

Noel Lamb: 00:09:59

You're looking two years ahead.

Noel Lamb: 00:10:01

It was a head scratcher for a moment like, huh?

Noel Lamb: 00:10:04

Maybe I was not aligned to the research leader in the way the

Noel Lamb: 00:10:07

research leader needed me to be, but I also, I took it as a great.

Noel Lamb: 00:10:14

Compliment, because that's what my role really was.

Noel Lamb: 00:10:17

I was looking and helping my team develop things that would advance the research

Noel Lamb: 00:10:25

team beyond their current capabilities.

Noel Lamb: 00:10:27

There are short wins and low-hanging fruit that a research ops team cannot

Noel Lamb: 00:10:31

ignore, but that's the goal really in and as a research ops leader and my son.

Noel Lamb: 00:10:38

It becomes particularly important for me to think about how to map for the future.

Noel Lamb: 00:10:46

And I think that's where we're starting to see an increase in research operations.

Noel Lamb: 00:10:51

Leadership roles is because they're starting to realize there's a lot more

Noel Lamb: 00:10:55

that we could be doing, but it takes time and it takes thought, and it takes

Noel Lamb: 00:10:59

diligence and all of those things.

Noel Lamb: 00:11:02

You can't have a research leader or even research practitioners do it all.

Noel Lamb: 00:11:06

It's physically impossible to create really insightful insights and deliver

Noel Lamb: 00:11:14

those back to the organization at the same time that you're implementing

Noel Lamb: 00:11:18

a tool that will sometimes take a year, between contract negotiations

Noel Lamb: 00:11:24

and your security checkpoints, and.

Noel Lamb: 00:11:27

Onboarding the tool and distributing licenses and all

Noel Lamb: 00:11:32

the things associated with that.

Noel Lamb: 00:11:35

It can happen a lot faster if you have a dedicated team.

Lenny Murphy: 00:11:38

I'm wondering when you hear the word operations, right?

Lenny Murphy: 00:11:41

You think tactical?

Lenny Murphy: 00:11:42

Yeah, that is, but what you're describing to me is far more strategic.

Lenny Murphy: 00:11:49

And.

Lenny Murphy: 00:11:49

I wonder if we actually even have a terminology issue here.

Lenny Murphy: 00:11:53

We've just been discussing that it is fundamentally important that there'll

Lenny Murphy: 00:11:57

be guard rails across the organization.

Lenny Murphy: 00:12:00

So we don't get in trouble while supporting innovation and in creativity

Lenny Murphy: 00:12:07

and being responsive to the needs of the business at the speed of

Lenny Murphy: 00:12:10

business, whatever that may be.

Lenny Murphy: 00:12:12

And part of the role of research operations is to fulfill that function.

Lenny Murphy: 00:12:18

But to your point, as you brought up thinking two years

Lenny Murphy: 00:12:20

out, that, that is a strategic.

Lenny Murphy: 00:12:24

Component that is not a tactical and an operational piece.

Lenny Murphy: 00:12:29

So have you ever thought about, is there a different way to think about this to

Lenny Murphy: 00:12:33

maybe get greater buy-in organizationally to say, look, we're not the, we're

Lenny Murphy: 00:12:37

not the people that are just trying to keep you from doing cool stuff.

Lenny Murphy: 00:12:40

We're the people trying to empower you to do cool stuff, but in a different way.

Noel Lamb: 00:12:46

Yeah.

Noel Lamb: 00:12:47

There's there are challenges with each part of this because what

Noel Lamb: 00:12:50

you're really talking about is an evolution and elevating research

Noel Lamb: 00:12:54

as a practice and how it gets done.

Noel Lamb: 00:12:57

And I think we're just now starting to see this and depending on where

Noel Lamb: 00:13:01

your organization is and their level of maturity, you may have

Noel Lamb: 00:13:05

one researcher who's doing it all.

Noel Lamb: 00:13:07

But in two years, you may have five to 10 researchers who are doing it all.

Noel Lamb: 00:13:11

And maybe that's a good time to start introducing research operations.

Noel Lamb: 00:13:16

And I, what I have seen is this very natural progression, which was

Noel Lamb: 00:13:19

probably not going to surprise anybody, listening to this, where you start

Noel Lamb: 00:13:23

small, you build, you prove your value.

Noel Lamb: 00:13:25

You keep building and keep proving your value.

Noel Lamb: 00:13:27

And you get to a point where you can start to think strategically, but you do.

Noel Lamb: 00:13:33

It is really critical to build a strong foundation first, which is these

Noel Lamb: 00:13:38

guard rails and these policies and procedures and programs that help amplify

Noel Lamb: 00:13:43

research and elevate research in your organization, but also do it compliantly.

Noel Lamb: 00:13:50

And it is, I think when we think about research ops and how it's growing this.

Noel Lamb: 00:13:57

How we're seeing it grow with introduction of leadership and people who are

Noel Lamb: 00:14:00

dedicated to thinking about that.

Noel Lamb: 00:14:03

It is difficult.

Noel Lamb: 00:14:04

It's not impossible, but it is difficult to be really tactical and

Noel Lamb: 00:14:09

do your due recruiting, participant recruiting and all of those tactical

Noel Lamb: 00:14:15

pieces and also be strategic.

Noel Lamb: 00:14:17

It is difficult.

Noel Lamb: 00:14:18

And I think that's why we're starting to see companies who are now starting

Noel Lamb: 00:14:23

to introduce more leadership.

Lenny Murphy: 00:14:26

I can certainly see this buyers would think this idea of compliance

Lenny Murphy: 00:14:30

and keep it in between the rails.

Lenny Murphy: 00:14:32

This is this, the suppliers.

Lenny Murphy: 00:14:35

Not us, that's where they depend on their suppliers to do for them,

Lenny Murphy: 00:14:39

that the buyer, this the client side comes as here's our business issue.

Lenny Murphy: 00:14:44

You go forth and answer it and just make sure that you don't get

Lenny Murphy: 00:14:47

us in trouble in how that happens.

Lenny Murphy: 00:14:49

So almost an outsource function of research operations.

Lenny Murphy: 00:14:54

Is that you, do you think that there's still a significant.

Lenny Murphy: 00:15:00

Trade or challenge that exists in client organizations to not pay attention to

Lenny Murphy: 00:15:04

this the way they should, because they just don't think of it as their problem.

Noel Lamb: 00:15:09

I think in client organizations, those problems exist

Noel Lamb: 00:15:14

in, it's similar ways and there are scenarios where it makes sense to

Noel Lamb: 00:15:19

outsource research that is happening because maybe it's a little too

Noel Lamb: 00:15:23

prickly or a little too sensitive.

Noel Lamb: 00:15:26

For a client organization to really dig into right.

Noel Lamb: 00:15:31

For various reasons, maybe the participants themselves, like you

Noel Lamb: 00:15:35

need to collect such incredible sensitive information on them and

Noel Lamb: 00:15:39

you really can't do it anonymously.

Noel Lamb: 00:15:42

And maybe that's a reason why they will need to outsource it to a company that

Noel Lamb: 00:15:46

can But the burden of knowledge is still really great within a client organization,

Noel Lamb: 00:15:53

whether they're outsourcing it or not.

Noel Lamb: 00:15:55

I think you can't get away from it fully.

Noel Lamb: 00:15:58

And I know we're speaking really broadly here.

Noel Lamb: 00:16:01

Sure.

Noel Lamb: 00:16:01

But it's, as a research function you're receiving data that has been processed

Noel Lamb: 00:16:06

and in even inferred about individuals, even if it's anonymous, even if you're

Noel Lamb: 00:16:12

collecting details at a large scale, you still have a responsibility to those

Noel Lamb: 00:16:19

people who have provided you that data.

Noel Lamb: 00:16:24

And I think it is a little irresponsible to think about it

Noel Lamb: 00:16:28

being someone else's problem.

Noel Lamb: 00:16:30

If you hold the key.

Lenny Murphy: 00:16:32

Well And certainly from a data privacy standpoint, for

Lenny Murphy: 00:16:35

like a GDPR, for instance, there's no, and everybody in the chain is

Lenny Murphy: 00:16:42

responsible equally responsible.

Lenny Murphy: 00:16:44

So yeah, there's no, no free passes in liability from that perspective.

Lenny Murphy: 00:16:50

And I think we'll see more and more of that evolve in in the U S and

Lenny Murphy: 00:16:54

other places just on that front.

Lenny Murphy: 00:16:56

We certainly saw in California.

Lenny Murphy: 00:16:57

And I think in New York similar similar legislation that says, Hey, if you touch

Lenny Murphy: 00:17:04

the data at all in any way, shape or form, you have equal responsibility in this.

Lenny Murphy: 00:17:09

So that makes good sense.

Lenny Murphy: 00:17:11

And it

Noel Lamb: 00:17:12

is really important to CCPA is coming up with an amendment here pretty

Noel Lamb: 00:17:17

soon in the next, I think it's dropping in 2023, but it has a look back for a year.

Noel Lamb: 00:17:23

And so if research teams aren't talking to their privacy or legal teams about

Noel Lamb: 00:17:28

what this means and what the impact is on research, even if it's received

Noel Lamb: 00:17:33

from a vendor because those amendments will still impact the agreements

Noel Lamb: 00:17:39

that you have with your suppliers.

Noel Lamb: 00:17:41

So I think it's important to be aware and to do your due

Noel Lamb: 00:17:44

diligence all across the board.

Noel Lamb: 00:17:47

And this is what.

Noel Lamb: 00:17:47

This gets pretty complicated and it is really helpful to have a team who has the

Noel Lamb: 00:17:53

history and the knowledge and the close partnerships with those internal partners.

Lenny Murphy: 00:18:01

All right.

Lenny Murphy: 00:18:01

So let's switch gears for a minute.

Lenny Murphy: 00:18:03

How did you get into this specific focus know, tell us a little more

Lenny Murphy: 00:18:08

about your background and your journey that made you get to this point of

Lenny Murphy: 00:18:11

going, Hey, it's really important to have this capability and this

Lenny Murphy: 00:18:15

structure and driving the awareness of why this function is important.

Noel Lamb: 00:18:20

Sure thing.

Noel Lamb: 00:18:20

So I've been in this space for a little over a decade now, right?

Noel Lamb: 00:18:25

I learned about research.

Noel Lamb: 00:18:27

When I was at T-Mobile, I worked in recruiting, so HR recruiting and I

Noel Lamb: 00:18:31

helped to hire a VP of innovation.

Noel Lamb: 00:18:34

And basically that meant research and design.

Noel Lamb: 00:18:36

He recruited me to become his executive assistant.

Noel Lamb: 00:18:40

I lasted about six months in that role before I realized, okay.

Noel Lamb: 00:18:45

I want a little bit of a different flavor for my work.

Noel Lamb: 00:18:49

And I moved into a project coordinator role and became really close to research

Noel Lamb: 00:18:54

and even conducted research myself.

Noel Lamb: 00:18:58

And I loved the space.

Noel Lamb: 00:19:00

I loved this space.

Noel Lamb: 00:19:01

I was really drawn to the customer stories and research itself, but

Noel Lamb: 00:19:09

it was very exhausting for me.

Noel Lamb: 00:19:11

And I realized that.

Noel Lamb: 00:19:14

Couldn't be a good researcher.

Noel Lamb: 00:19:15

Like I loved the proximity to research and working with customers and I

Noel Lamb: 00:19:21

fell in love with the process of research, but I also knew myself.

Noel Lamb: 00:19:26

I'm a very detailed list kind of person.

Noel Lamb: 00:19:29

And thankfully the role sort of emerged where I was able to help

Noel Lamb: 00:19:34

support research in a project coordinated coordinator capacity.

Noel Lamb: 00:19:39

From there, I hopped over to a project management role at a small

Noel Lamb: 00:19:44

e-learning company out of Seattle.

Noel Lamb: 00:19:46

And after that I was recruited to work at Salesforce where I spent nine years

Noel Lamb: 00:19:54

in research operations and really was it was an incredible experience.

Noel Lamb: 00:19:58

I love the company.

Noel Lamb: 00:19:59

I still love the company.

Noel Lamb: 00:20:01

But you know, nine years in one tech company is a really long time, but

Noel Lamb: 00:20:10

I stayed that long one because I have, and I still have great respect

Noel Lamb: 00:20:14

for the CEO, mark Benioff and the people who I worked with, I loved

Noel Lamb: 00:20:18

the level of the company was doing.

Noel Lamb: 00:20:20

And, enterprise software is not an extremely sexy place, but.

Noel Lamb: 00:20:25

I just I found myself there and I came in again as a coordinator and

Noel Lamb: 00:20:31

by the time I left, I was a senior manager leading the research ops team.

Noel Lamb: 00:20:35

There was something really special in that, that I was able to see the life

Noel Lamb: 00:20:39

of research and research ops really evolve over a long period of time.

Noel Lamb: 00:20:44

And.

Noel Lamb: 00:20:45

I wouldn't trade that experience for anything because I learned so much.

Noel Lamb: 00:20:49

I learned so so much.

Noel Lamb: 00:20:51

And so that's really how I found myself in it.

Noel Lamb: 00:20:54

It was aligned for many years to the design organization and by

Noel Lamb: 00:20:59

the time I left, the research had moved into a product strategy team.

Noel Lamb: 00:21:04

And I didn't last long after that.

Noel Lamb: 00:21:07

I think I was only there for about six months after that, but I knew

Noel Lamb: 00:21:12

enough about my time there that I wanted to go and replicate it

Noel Lamb: 00:21:15

somewhere else and help provide what I learned to another organization.

Noel Lamb: 00:21:20

And I still feel that same way.

Noel Lamb: 00:21:22

I think, the idea of moving on from research ops, especially now, like after

Noel Lamb: 00:21:27

it's gotten steam in the industry, I would not be fulfilled like this is that for me.

Noel Lamb: 00:21:32

I love research ops.

Noel Lamb: 00:21:33

I live in breathe.

Noel Lamb: 00:21:33

It I'm in it every day.

Noel Lamb: 00:21:36

And now for me my goal is really to help nurture it occurs

Noel Lamb: 00:21:40

of others in this industry

Lenny Murphy: 00:21:44

that is.

Lenny Murphy: 00:21:45

That's very cool.

Lenny Murphy: 00:21:46

And I, I suspected like many of us, you just fell into this.

Lenny Murphy: 00:21:50

I didn't do right.

Lenny Murphy: 00:21:52

Was very few people who go into research specifically.

Lenny Murphy: 00:21:56

So let's talk about this idea of supporting people in the future.

Lenny Murphy: 00:21:59

And being mentoring.

Lenny Murphy: 00:22:01

Because obviously there is an immense amount of experience and knowledge

Lenny Murphy: 00:22:05

and IP that that we need to pass on.

Lenny Murphy: 00:22:09

So if you think about either for yourself or organizationally in your next home.

Lenny Murphy: 00:22:17

How do you build that model to take what's in your head and in

Lenny Murphy: 00:22:21

what's in your background and and share that with others from a from

Lenny Murphy: 00:22:28

a knowledge sharing perspective, what does that mechanism look like?

Lenny Murphy: 00:22:32

What does that process look like to get this out there and raise the

Lenny Murphy: 00:22:36

profile and experience for everybody?

Noel Lamb: 00:22:40

There's no one way to go about it.

Noel Lamb: 00:22:42

I'd love to say I can write everything down into a playbook or a deck

Noel Lamb: 00:22:45

and share that, but that would be a memoir and a book, an artifact

Noel Lamb: 00:22:52

that someone could easily consume.

Noel Lamb: 00:22:54

The way that I've approached it really is through the company and what the

Noel Lamb: 00:22:57

company needs and helping to reflect that in my team and bring on people

Noel Lamb: 00:23:03

who can help support the company.

Noel Lamb: 00:23:06

And teaching them what I've learned along the way is really how I've approached it.

Noel Lamb: 00:23:12

And no two companies are the same.

Noel Lamb: 00:23:15

Every company looks a little different.

Noel Lamb: 00:23:18

There might there's different flavors of research ops, no matter where you go.

Noel Lamb: 00:23:21

When I first joined Robin hood participant recruitment, which is a cornerstone of

Noel Lamb: 00:23:26

a good research ops team didn't exist.

Noel Lamb: 00:23:28

It wasn't something we were doing.

Noel Lamb: 00:23:30

And by the time I left, we had just started to scratch the surface

Noel Lamb: 00:23:34

on what that would look like to support, research that way.

Noel Lamb: 00:23:38

And I think the way I've approached it, because I have a great experience

Noel Lamb: 00:23:44

coming from Salesforce and being able to build that out in a new

Noel Lamb: 00:23:47

owner organization, I approach.

Noel Lamb: 00:23:50

A little carefully, because it can be really complex in nature.

Noel Lamb: 00:23:54

And when it was time to hire for program management and this role actually hired

Noel Lamb: 00:23:59

somebody with a PhD in research and she was probably one of the best hires

Noel Lamb: 00:24:05

of my career because she came with the knowledge of research and what it means.

Noel Lamb: 00:24:10

To do research without having her to do a bunch of shadowing or partnering

Noel Lamb: 00:24:15

with researchers to figure it out.

Noel Lamb: 00:24:17

Like she already came to us with that.

Noel Lamb: 00:24:20

But it was able to help give her guidance on maybe the approach could be like this

Noel Lamb: 00:24:24

or maybe have you thought about this and was able to help guide her, but without

Noel Lamb: 00:24:29

being overly prescriptive about it.

Noel Lamb: 00:24:30

And that's something that I myself have learned in my own leadership journey.

Noel Lamb: 00:24:36

Is how to help people get there and grow, but without

Noel Lamb: 00:24:40

telling them exactly what to do.

Noel Lamb: 00:24:42

And I think that's a really important part of helping someone shape their career.

Lenny Murphy: 00:24:48

All right.

Lenny Murphy: 00:24:48

So that brings up an interesting question on what is the we won't say

Lenny Murphy: 00:24:54

ideal, but maybe the typical approach.

Lenny Murphy: 00:24:57

Personality traits, experience that is relevant and appropriate

Lenny Murphy: 00:25:02

for a focus on research ops.

Noel Lamb: 00:25:06

I think it really depends on the makeup of the team, the size

Noel Lamb: 00:25:12

of the team, what kind of priorities this person or these people are.

Noel Lamb: 00:25:19

To be working on I have worked in small teams that had generalists.

Noel Lamb: 00:25:24

Do you know, people who were doing a little bit of everything, recruitment,

Noel Lamb: 00:25:28

supplier relationships, training and development, team events, that sort

Noel Lamb: 00:25:34

of thing they were doing at all.

Noel Lamb: 00:25:36

And then I've also worked for teams.

Noel Lamb: 00:25:39

I've also developed teams that shifted from that model.

Noel Lamb: 00:25:43

To a more specialist role.

Noel Lamb: 00:25:46

And I think there is a time and a place where that makes sense.

Noel Lamb: 00:25:49

There's been this ratio that's been shared, one research ops

Noel Lamb: 00:25:54

practitioner to every five researchers.

Noel Lamb: 00:25:57

And that is one way you can approach, supporting a research team.

Noel Lamb: 00:26:02

It's a great starting point, but it doesn't take into account.

Noel Lamb: 00:26:06

The nuances of recruitment throughput, or even how difficult you are participants

Noel Lamb: 00:26:11

are to get, or if there are horizontal programs that are taking priority over

Noel Lamb: 00:26:16

recruitment, there's a lot of nuance.

Noel Lamb: 00:26:18

And so there's no real one size fits all.

Noel Lamb: 00:26:21

But at a certain point it can very well make sense to shift

Noel Lamb: 00:26:24

to a team of specialists.

Noel Lamb: 00:26:27

These are people who might be your dedicated participant recruiters

Noel Lamb: 00:26:31

were really embedded in the day to day of research facilitation.

Noel Lamb: 00:26:35

And then I mentioned horizontal program managers.

Noel Lamb: 00:26:38

Those are the people who might have very specific duties that support

Noel Lamb: 00:26:41

the entire research function, like research technology, or team care and

Noel Lamb: 00:26:47

development, or even research visibility.

Noel Lamb: 00:26:51

And so I really.

Noel Lamb: 00:26:53

There is no one ideal.

Noel Lamb: 00:26:55

But there is an ideal for each organization that

Noel Lamb: 00:26:57

they'll have to sort out.

Lenny Murphy: 00:26:59

Okay.

Lenny Murphy: 00:27:00

Are there any Critical resources that you think are helpful for

Lenny Murphy: 00:27:06

anybody that's focusing on this content websites Greenbook anything

Lenny Murphy: 00:27:11

that you would say, Hey, you've gotta, you've gotta check this out.

Lenny Murphy: 00:27:14

If you want to understand this would be successful in this role.

Noel Lamb: 00:27:17

There's a research ops community.

Noel Lamb: 00:27:18

I don't have a URL in front of me, but there is a.

Noel Lamb: 00:27:22

Community of research ops professionals have banded together and have created

Noel Lamb: 00:27:25

a really great resource it's available.

Noel Lamb: 00:27:27

If you just Google research ops community.

Lenny Murphy: 00:27:29

I'm a member of the slack channel.

Noel Lamb: 00:27:32

Great.

Noel Lamb: 00:27:32

So that's a good one.

Noel Lamb: 00:27:33

Yeah, there's this for anybody in it already.

Noel Lamb: 00:27:37

There's a subset of people who are doing research ops full time.

Noel Lamb: 00:27:41

There's about 150 people.

Noel Lamb: 00:27:43

Kate Tasy is the moderator of that group.

Noel Lamb: 00:27:46

It includes research ops practitioners all around the world.

Noel Lamb: 00:27:49

And we meet once a month to discuss learnings or challenges

Noel Lamb: 00:27:53

or really hot topics specific to ops They are my tribe of people.

Noel Lamb: 00:27:59

So they share jobs and ideas.

Noel Lamb: 00:28:01

They ask questions, how does this thing exist at your company?

Noel Lamb: 00:28:05

And so that's a really great resource.

Noel Lamb: 00:28:07

So if you are already in this and you are doing this a hundred percent

Noel Lamb: 00:28:11

of your time reach out to Kate tells you to get involved in that.

Lenny Murphy: 00:28:16

Okay.

Lenny Murphy: 00:28:16

What else?

Lenny Murphy: 00:28:17

Any publications is there any thought of forming some type of sub organization

Lenny Murphy: 00:28:23

maybe part of, one of the trade orgs or something of that nature?

Noel Lamb: 00:28:26

Yeah, there's a podcast that Royal Pata leads.

Noel Lamb: 00:28:32

He leads research at Zapier.

Noel Lamb: 00:28:34

His research ops podcast is on Spotify and perhaps other places,

Noel Lamb: 00:28:39

but that's how I listened to it.

Noel Lamb: 00:28:40

It's called scaling research.

Noel Lamb: 00:28:42

He has a really amazing perspective coming from life as a researcher, shifting

Noel Lamb: 00:28:49

into research ops and building that out.

Noel Lamb: 00:28:51

And now he's leading the entire research organization.

Noel Lamb: 00:28:55

So aside from that great perspective, he also has this

Noel Lamb: 00:28:57

really incredible radio voice.

Lenny Murphy: 00:29:03

Okay, better than mine.

Lenny Murphy: 00:29:06

I'll come on.

Lenny Murphy: 00:29:12

That's great.

Lenny Murphy: 00:29:13

I wasn't aware of that.

Lenny Murphy: 00:29:13

I am a member of that slack group and it is so incredibly active and prolific.

Lenny Murphy: 00:29:19

I can't.

Lenny Murphy: 00:29:21

All right.

Lenny Murphy: 00:29:21

I joined it.

Lenny Murphy: 00:29:22

I, pop in there every once in a while, but boy, there's just so

Lenny Murphy: 00:29:25

much happening, which is very cool.

Noel Lamb: 00:29:29

Yeah.

Noel Lamb: 00:29:29

And for those of you who like to read can you tell us, you use, literally,

Noel Lamb: 00:29:32

she's writing a book about research ops and I don't know what her publication

Noel Lamb: 00:29:36

date is, but it's coming soon.

Noel Lamb: 00:29:38

I know she's been heads down for quite a while many months.

Noel Lamb: 00:29:41

So look forward to that.

Lenny Murphy: 00:29:43

Okay.

Lenny Murphy: 00:29:44

All right.

Lenny Murphy: 00:29:46

So I want to be cautious of a of time, and there's a few more

Lenny Murphy: 00:29:50

topics that I wanted to touch on.

Lenny Murphy: 00:29:53

So now let's put on our prognosticators hats and think through all of the

Lenny Murphy: 00:30:00

changes that are happening to.

Lenny Murphy: 00:30:03

To the insights industry.

Lenny Murphy: 00:30:04

And I would categorize those primarily driven by technology that creates

Lenny Murphy: 00:30:11

efficiencies and that the collection and dissemination of insights as

Lenny Murphy: 00:30:16

well as the breadth, that the types of insights that are available.

Lenny Murphy: 00:30:19

And then.

Lenny Murphy: 00:30:22

A very long tail of dynamic changes to consumers, to culture, to buying

Lenny Murphy: 00:30:29

habits, to, behaviors across the board.

Lenny Murphy: 00:30:33

Where do you see the role of research operations helping to

Lenny Murphy: 00:30:40

shape and form how the insights function adapts to these changes?

Noel Lamb: 00:30:48

I think we'll see some really interesting roles

Noel Lamb: 00:30:51

emerge in the research ops space.

Noel Lamb: 00:30:53

I suspect that we'll continue to see the growth of leadership roles, but

Noel Lamb: 00:30:56

also the addition of new roles like digital librarians or insights experts.

Noel Lamb: 00:31:03

When I think about a high functioning research team, researchers are

Noel Lamb: 00:31:09

responsible to their set of stakeholders.

Noel Lamb: 00:31:12

But aside from a research leader, I'm not sure who else is really

Noel Lamb: 00:31:15

responsible for curating a collection of insights and telling an overall story.

Noel Lamb: 00:31:24

And I think either with a nod to the platforms that are evolving

Noel Lamb: 00:31:29

day by day to help do this, sometimes it can be too much.

Noel Lamb: 00:31:34

And so you might need someone to help cure.

Noel Lamb: 00:31:37

And whether that's a digital librarian or maybe even an editor or even

Noel Lamb: 00:31:43

could take the shape of an analyst.

Noel Lamb: 00:31:45

Like I think that is a really interesting thing that we might

Noel Lamb: 00:31:49

expect to see in the future.

Lenny Murphy: 00:31:51

So you think that means as part of that, then the utilization of

Lenny Murphy: 00:31:56

what we would currently call knowledge management platforms that are the central

Lenny Murphy: 00:32:00

repository Of research information and content, but also as a central

Lenny Murphy: 00:32:06

repository of organizational knowledge and best practices is that you think that

Noel Lamb: 00:32:13

I think that's fair.

Noel Lamb: 00:32:14

And I, I love repositories.

Noel Lamb: 00:32:16

I think they are great, but there is a duty that people have to make

Noel Lamb: 00:32:21

sure that it's not just a place.

Noel Lamb: 00:32:23

It's not a graveyard, where insights go to.

Noel Lamb: 00:32:26

And some of that is institutional knowledge, but it requires someone really

Noel Lamb: 00:32:31

thoughtful to pull together and breathe life into those insights over time and

Noel Lamb: 00:32:38

make sure that we're, you're not doing research on a theme that was researched

Noel Lamb: 00:32:40

two years ago and you're building upon the insights that you have that doesn't

Noel Lamb: 00:32:46

happen through a tool itself that takes at least at this point in time.

Noel Lamb: 00:32:51

On what's available in the market today.

Noel Lamb: 00:32:53

I think that takes a little bit more thought and I'm curious.

Lenny Murphy: 00:32:57

Yeah, it's definitely not a dump.

Lenny Murphy: 00:32:58

It's not like my hard drive.

Lenny Murphy: 00:33:02

So I know I got that file from 20 years ago, somewhere in here.

Noel Lamb: 00:33:08

Yes.

Noel Lamb: 00:33:08

Also my picture reel my albums on my Iphone, or like,

Noel Lamb: 00:33:10

where is that one picture?

Lenny Murphy: 00:33:17

Absolutely.

Lenny Murphy: 00:33:18

Yeah.

Lenny Murphy: 00:33:19

Yeah.

Lenny Murphy: 00:33:20

I think that almost library and function is critical because we waste so much

Lenny Murphy: 00:33:26

Time and energy and money from a research perspective, duplicating things that

Lenny Murphy: 00:33:31

we've already done over and over again.

Lenny Murphy: 00:33:34

That's a chronic challenge.

Lenny Murphy: 00:33:36

Yeah.

Noel Lamb: 00:33:37

Yeah.

Noel Lamb: 00:33:37

Either it will take the shape of somebody or the shape of somebodies,

Noel Lamb: 00:33:44

like really good researchers will have to start using the tools at

Noel Lamb: 00:33:48

their disposal to make sure that.

Noel Lamb: 00:33:51

The research they're doing is a bit more efficient.

Noel Lamb: 00:33:53

And, that's a hard thing to do when you're staring down stakeholder deadlines.

Noel Lamb: 00:33:57

And it's a hard thing to be mindful of, but I do think it's going to become a

Noel Lamb: 00:34:02

bit more critical in this revolution of digital that we're means deepen.

Lenny Murphy: 00:34:08

Absolutely.

Lenny Murphy: 00:34:10

And uncovering more.

Lenny Murphy: 00:34:11

More insights actually, right before we got on was chatting with a client

Lenny Murphy: 00:34:16

who a supplier and doing some work to understand what their strategy looks like.

Lenny Murphy: 00:34:22

And one of the piece of feedback from their customers was what we

Lenny Murphy: 00:34:26

want you to be more, do more meta analysis and be more consultative.

Lenny Murphy: 00:34:31

And the.

Lenny Murphy: 00:34:33

Yeah.

Lenny Murphy: 00:34:33

And that's a challenge, not just for a supplier, but also internally for the

Lenny Murphy: 00:34:36

organization, because it requires, well, we need access to the information, right?

Lenny Murphy: 00:34:41

We need these things in one place to be able to do that.

Lenny Murphy: 00:34:44

And it is a labor intensive process, but to your point of the technology is

Lenny Murphy: 00:34:48

certainly emerging where that'll make that easier and hopefully become table-stakes.

Lenny Murphy: 00:34:54

So got a last couple of questions.

Lenny Murphy: 00:34:56

What have you've been reading or engaged in lately?

Lenny Murphy: 00:35:00

Not even just about research operations, but anything, what's really, cranking

Lenny Murphy: 00:35:03

your gears lately , from a content or thought leadership perspective.

Noel Lamb: 00:35:09

So I have two littles and they demand a lot of my free time,

Noel Lamb: 00:35:13

so I'm not prioritizing reading.

Noel Lamb: 00:35:15

Like I wish I could.

Noel Lamb: 00:35:17

But in the cracks of my day, I'm reading a book called the impact survival guide.

Noel Lamb: 00:35:23

It is giving me some really helpful tactics for prioritizing my needs and

Noel Lamb: 00:35:29

whole person health so that when I do start to feel overwhelmed or exhausted,

Noel Lamb: 00:35:34

or, you know, just flat out drained, it doesn't progress to like a total.

Noel Lamb: 00:35:40

For an out episode.

Noel Lamb: 00:35:41

So I'm just into it now.

Noel Lamb: 00:35:43

So far, it's been good.

Noel Lamb: 00:35:44

It's been really helpful.

Noel Lamb: 00:35:45

And I think it's an easy thing to do, especially for anybody in this day and

Noel Lamb: 00:35:50

age is to make that time to be more reflective and sort out what you need

Noel Lamb: 00:35:55

to survive in, in this wild world.

Noel Lamb: 00:35:58

We live in.

Lenny Murphy: 00:36:00

Yeah, I used to do.

Lenny Murphy: 00:36:03

May time every day for meditation and, and some function of prayer, some

Lenny Murphy: 00:36:09

spiritual time got away from that for many, many, many, many, many, many years.

Lenny Murphy: 00:36:14

I'll tell you around fall of 2020, suddenly that, that became important

Lenny Murphy: 00:36:21

again, I need time to get centered and, Balanced out or else I'm

Lenny Murphy: 00:36:26

going to go nuts with all of the demands of, and chaos and et cetera.

Lenny Murphy: 00:36:30

I have five kids.

Lenny Murphy: 00:36:31

So I know what that is like across the board.

Lenny Murphy: 00:36:34

I applaud you for finding that, making that a priority now, because yeah.

Lenny Murphy: 00:36:40

It's important.

Noel Lamb: 00:36:41

It is important.

Noel Lamb: 00:36:42

Yeah.

Noel Lamb: 00:36:42

And I, I think the conversations have started opening up right.

Noel Lamb: 00:36:47

Remote work is starting to take a a front seat, whereas before it wasn't and maybe

Noel Lamb: 00:36:53

you had commute time, did you compress before heading into personal life after

Noel Lamb: 00:36:56

work, but now, whew, man, you step out of the office and you're immediately

Noel Lamb: 00:37:01

bombarded with what's for dinner.

Noel Lamb: 00:37:02

Did you go to the bathroom?

Noel Lamb: 00:37:03

Okay.

Noel Lamb: 00:37:03

What time is bedtime?

Noel Lamb: 00:37:04

Like the daily demands are still there, but I think being kind to

Noel Lamb: 00:37:10

yourself as the best thing you can do.

Lenny Murphy: 00:37:15

That, what have you found to be one of the most important

Lenny Murphy: 00:37:19

things to do to be kind to yourself?

Noel Lamb: 00:37:23

I am a person where if I'm coming out of a day of meetings, you

Noel Lamb: 00:37:27

know, 14 different meetings some days which is probably not too dissimilar from

Noel Lamb: 00:37:31

people who are listening on the phone.

Noel Lamb: 00:37:33

I have found that I really, really need the transit.

Noel Lamb: 00:37:37

And even if it's just sitting in the room, quiet room, maybe dark room

Noel Lamb: 00:37:43

for five minutes is really helpful.

Noel Lamb: 00:37:45

So that I'm in the right Headspace for people who I love, because if I don't

Noel Lamb: 00:37:50

allow myself that time and that space to come down, I am not a very nice

Noel Lamb: 00:37:55

person and I'm irritable and not a person who I would want to be around.

Noel Lamb: 00:38:00

So it's really, really important to get that separation from.

Noel Lamb: 00:38:05

And so it's something that I actively have pulled in to my life.

Noel Lamb: 00:38:10

And so far people seem appreciative.

Lenny Murphy: 00:38:13

Good advice.

Lenny Murphy: 00:38:14

Good advice.

Lenny Murphy: 00:38:15

The I have, similarly, I've worked from home for almost 20 years, so that this has

Lenny Murphy: 00:38:19

been something that was not new for me.

Lenny Murphy: 00:38:21

we decided to homeschool this year, which was a whole other level of craziness.

Lenny Murphy: 00:38:25

Yeah.

Lenny Murphy: 00:38:25

I our listeners are not seeing the look.

Lenny Murphy: 00:38:27

I know L's face she's.

Lenny Murphy: 00:38:28

She looks a gassed, so that's one word for it.

Lenny Murphy: 00:38:34

Insane is another, but.

Lenny Murphy: 00:38:36

No.

Lenny Murphy: 00:38:36

Well, this has been a delight and I hope that you'll come back and join us again.

Lenny Murphy: 00:38:42

You've also threw out some great suggestions for inadvertently

Lenny Murphy: 00:38:47

of other folks that we may reach out to to be guests.

Lenny Murphy: 00:38:50

Is there anyone else that you would say, wow, Lenny, you really need to

Lenny Murphy: 00:38:53

ask so-and-so to come on and chat with that you think would be a great.

Noel Lamb: 00:38:58

Roy Kate.

Noel Lamb: 00:39:00

And another point I might recommend is Lisa Meckler.

Noel Lamb: 00:39:03

So she leads up the research ops team at Airbnb.

Noel Lamb: 00:39:07

She's really fantastic.

Noel Lamb: 00:39:08

And I think she'd have a lot of great things to share.

Lenny Murphy: 00:39:12

Okay.

Lenny Murphy: 00:39:13

All right.

Lenny Murphy: 00:39:14

Duly noted.

Lenny Murphy: 00:39:15

So what's next for you?

Noel Lamb: 00:39:18

So, I'm going to go to acupuncture.

Noel Lamb: 00:39:20

I'm going to go pick up the kids from, from school, from preschool.

Noel Lamb: 00:39:24

But you're talking about work.

Noel Lamb: 00:39:25

So I have a couple of glorious weeks out before I start my next adventure.

Noel Lamb: 00:39:30

I'm heading over to zero.

Noel Lamb: 00:39:32

They are a New Zealand based company.

Noel Lamb: 00:39:35

They do small business accounting software and I'll be leading up

Noel Lamb: 00:39:40

the research ops team over there.

Lenny Murphy: 00:39:43

Very very cool.

Lenny Murphy: 00:39:45

And where can our listeners reach you if you want them to?

Noel Lamb: 00:39:50

Please.

Noel Lamb: 00:39:51

I love talking about research ops.

Noel Lamb: 00:39:53

You can find me on LinkedIn.

Noel Lamb: 00:39:54

LinkedIn is the best place Noel.

Lenny Murphy: 00:39:57

That's great.

Lenny Murphy: 00:39:57

Well, well, thank you.

Lenny Murphy: 00:39:59

This is great.

Lenny Murphy: 00:39:59

Go do your acupuncture and enjoy the weekend with your kids.

Lenny Murphy: 00:40:04

Thank you.

Lenny Murphy: 00:40:04

Thank you to our listeners.

Lenny Murphy: 00:40:05

Thank you to our producers.

Lenny Murphy: 00:40:06

Emily and Joseph and we'll be back again with another edition of the podcast.