Being an internal user researcher : sharing results /1 from pres to workshops : ethnographic research as a collaboration and innovation tool

These last eight months, I was engaged as an internal researcher at Swisscom User Observatory in a big ethnographic research on social media, called professional social networking, on which I'll tell you more soon. We designed and coordinated a research conducted with some brilliant students of Dundee's Master on Design and Ethnography. Together we observed and interviewed 45 Lead Users in 3 places : London, Berlin and Switzerland. We did some fieldwork in Switzerland ourselves and delegated the fieldwork in London and Berlin to our associated students-researchers. Analysis and interpretations were partly shared, and partly done independently by the students and by our team. Eventually we wrote three reports at different times of the project. The story of their evolution will be the topic of a future blog entry.

Discussing the design, surprises and outcomes of the research will take me more than one entry. Today I would like to share with you just one point, which is related to the way we convey our results.

As internal researchers, we are expected to deliver results. Software developers say : "Shipment is a feature. You must have it". Corporate anthropologists must have it, too. In our case, the expected deliverable is a Powerpoint presentation. You can hate it, play with it, whatever, but it is something you can not avoid here at Swisscom if you want to share your results with your internal colleagues, engineers, consultants as well as managers. However, presenting your results in a Powerpoint format can be quite frustrating. The problem is not only the Powerpoint format itself - it is the very concept of presenting. Presentations to busy people - as decision-makers are supposed to be in a company - are short (from 10 to 30 minutes max). You present highlights of your research and answer to a few questions but you do not get a chance to engage with your audience into a real discussion on the issues tackled (or not) by the research and on the ideas it may trigger.

Your situation as an internal researcher is generally slightly better than your situation as an external researcher, because you (are supposed to) know better the challenges of the company and the potential impact of your results. But still, there is few difference between a traditional face-to-face presentation and broadcasting : you give your data, interpretations, hypotheses and conclusions but you rarely know how these results are understood, appreciated and appropriated, or (if and for) what they will be used. Of course you know who is listening to you (you more or less control your audience) but you do not know if your research is relevant to them. Feedback remains superficial. Even if your presentation is successful, the questions you get are predictable : what is the impact for the company ? What does it mean for us ? How does it impact blablabla (fill in this space with a name of product, service or process) ?

That's why we decided in this project not to do presentations any more but to do workshops. The format we chose is a two-hours workshop : 20-30 minutes max were dedicated to the framing and presentation of our research. This short presentation is possible because participants were sent the report one week in advance (a highly readable report, I'll comment this in a future entry) and were expected to have read it before the workshop. Interestingly, most of them did read it. The other 90 minutes are dedicated to (1) a discussion / validation of the results, (2) a reflection exercise in smaller on the impact of the research for the company. We piloted the discussions and prospective exercises with framing questions.  We took risks, too, since we offered our hypothesis, even if uncertain, for discussion in this second part of the workshop.

Three months of fieldwork preparation, interviews and analysis, then three months of "reporting" of the results

With these workshops, we overcame the frustrating feeling of "broadcasting research results" instead of sharing them and collaborating. Please notice that the status of our presentation changes : it is not conceived as a final product of the research, presenting your analysis and conclusions, but as "a tool for thought". The status of the report changes, too : it is not a final report, but a draft report, which will be improved thanks to the feedbacks collected. Globally the status of the research changes : the research does not bring answers, it brings in a first step, structured inspiration based on observed use cases and behavioural patterns, and in a second step, consolidated understanding of the impact for the company based on the reactions of the participants to the propositions of the researchers and on the thoughts the research triggered among the participants. In that sense ethnographic research can serve as a humble collaboration and innovation tool.

Advantages :
With the same effort (time invested in the research and in the production of a Powerpoint presentation), you gain :
- greater trust in your own data and interpretations and a better final report ;
- better impact ;
- better engagement of your internal partners ;
- slightly more control on the use of the results of your research ;
- a better understanding of what your colleagues are interested in and of the opportunities for the company ;
- some support and arguments for further research ;
- potential collaborations.
- You also increase the visibility of user research,
- and the size and quality of your internal network.
Drawbacks :
- you have to identify the right potential partners (i.e all people in the company potentially interested by your topic, to invite to your workshop, and at the right hierarchical level), which can take a lot of time.
- you have to provide them with "food for thought" before the workshop
- you have to invite them cleverly (we organized two different workshops for example with CBU and SME managers to reflect on the impact for big and small companies)
- you have too write two reports, one draft report before the workshop and  one final report after the workshop.
- it is more difficult to get two hours of free time than 20 minutes, so it will take more time to organize a workshop than a presentation, you have to plan it in advance.