Most product teams don’t suffer from a lack of data; they suffer from an over-simplification of reality. In high-pressure environments, teams often target “simplifying complexity”. But in my experience, organizations are already operating from too convenient, too simplified views of their users; that’s exactly where missteps happen.

My approach to stakeholder alignment is rooted in my background as an educator. In a classroom, we don’t share lessons to make the world smaller or simpler; we share them to expand a student’s worldview and toolkit for thinking.

“Understanding the user” is passive and meaningless. Understanding isn’t the goal… action is.

I design learning experiences for cross-functional teams to create a collective, internalized mission around what we are building and why. My goal is not to hand you a flat, simplified summary. My mission is to give your team a highly clear, expanded perspective of the user’s reality so we can make higher-fidelity decisions that aren’t necessarily “simple” but are clear.

Are the decisions you have to make super simple? If so, why do you need a researcher? Your decisions are complex, the answers to those decisions are also complex and anyone claiming it’s “simple” is either selling you something or just not actually engaging with your decision/question.

Lessons for Stakeholders

Early in my career, a PM came to me with a transactional question, “How many push notifications can we send before users shut them off?”. A simplified worldview. Through both my process of engagement and the research itself, I recentered this stakeholder to focus on strategic value: “What communications do the users find valuable?” and "Which contexts demand an immediate push notification versus something else?”

I didn’t change my stakeholders worries or underlying needs, I changed their simplified approach. In truth, I made it more complex, more nuanced. But that’s what was needed to make the decisions, to build the product, and ensure that the lessons learned from it lasted beyond a single moment in time.

Research provides lessons which simply complicate.

Research is a learning experience for your team.

My approach to research is rooted in my history as an educator. I design learning experiences for stakeholders. Most teams have data, but its fragmented and teams are under-pressure. Insight is useless if it isn’t understood and internalized by those who have to take action from it.

I use research to create collective understanding amongst teams and organizations about what we are doing and why. I embed foundational frameworks which help turn insights into internalized missions for teams.

“Understanding your users”, is too simple and doesn’t actually do anything. “Understanding” isn’t actually the goal. The goal is action. Many reports claim to simplify complexity and to me, this is not the goal. In fact, I feel my role is not to create a simplified understanding of the users’ reality, in my experience, organizations are already working from that simplified view (even if it is multi-faceted).

My mission is much like that of the classroom… We don’t share lessons with students to make the world simpler. It’s the opposite. These lessons add more complexity. Even if the lesson itself is simple, the impact is greater complexity on the student’s worldview, more tools for thinking about the world.

I approach my work with stakeholders with a similar lens. My work will re-complicate your team’s understanding of their role in affecting their users, but it will do so with clarity.

Early in my career a stakeholder came to me asking, “How many push notifications can I send before they shut them off?”, a simple worldview. Through both my process of engagement and the research I complicated that perspective to focus on things like, “What communications do they find valuable?”, “What communications belong as a push-notification and what as something else?”.

The mission isn’t simplicity, its comprehension and action.