If you have any tips on fantastic speakers from across the globe, feedback, or any questions, we’d love to hear from you too. Reach out to geekspodcast@uxtweak.com
Episode highlights
- 00:01:27 – Chloe Sharp’s diverse research background
- 00:05:00 – Explaining the value of research to skeptical stakeholders
- 00:12:14 – Finding opportunities for innovation through research
- 00:17:08 – Presenting insights in ways that drive action
- 00:21:12 – Advice for researchers exploring project management roles
About our guest Chloe Sharp
Dr Chloe Sharp has built her career around research and innovation. She began as a Research Fellow before transitioning to the commercial sector as a Social Researcher at a UK Catapult. She later joined an AI startup, focusing on user and market research, and co-founded a research and grant writing consultancy, helping charities, startups, and scale-ups develop products. After exiting the consultancy, Chloe worked in the finance sector as a Product Manager, gaining new perspectives on research. Her experiences inspired her book, Make Products That Matter, a practical guide to creating user-focused products. She now runs Sharp Insight, an innovation consultancy focusing on bringing ideas to reality and navigating change and uncertainty in the process.
Once stakeholders experience the value of research, they rarely go back to guesswork.
Podcast transcript
[00:00:00] Tina Ličková:
Welcome to UX Research Geeks, where we geek out with researchers from all around the world on topics they are passionate about. I’m your host Tina Ličková, a researcher and a strategist, and this podcast is brought to you by UXtweak, an all-in-one UX research tool.
This is the 49th episode of UXR Geeks. Today, we are diving into the fascinating intersection of business, research, and innovation with the founder of Sharp Insights, author of Make Products That Matter, and seasoned expert in research, Chloe. We explore how to make compelling business cases for research, navigate innovation processes, and speak the business language that gets stakeholders on board.
Plus Chloe shares actionable insights on turning research findings into impactful strategies. Tune in.
Chloe, we are going to talk about business language, business approach, and how research makes a business case and how innovation and the research is helping innovation. But before we. Go into that and repuzzle it. I would like to know who you are and what you do.
[00:01:27] Chloe Sharp: Thank you very much for inviting me to take part in the UXtweak podcast.
I’m really excited to be here. So I have a couple of hats that I wear. So I’m a founder of Sharp Insights. So. That’s my own company and there, I am an author of Make Products That Matter. So I’ve got, I’ve got the book here actually, I don’t know if that’s the right way around for you, but yes, that’s Make Products That Matter.
Also I’m a speaker and trainer as well.
[00:01:57] Tina Ličková: And spying on you a little bit on LinkedIn. You basically have a market research background if I understood it well, right?
[00:02:05] Chloe Sharp: Yeah. So my background in research is quite mixed. So I’ve got a background in market research. So I did have my own consultancy, I can’t remember how long ago, called Formalized Curiosity and that focused on, on market research.
I was really interested to learn about competitive research and just lots of stuff in the world of market research, really. And then after that, I went into social research and then I went into user research. So I’ve been involved in lots of different types of research, but I find that having been in lots of different types of research and also have done my PhD and learnt all the background, the philosophy of research, I can come at it from lots of different perspectives.
Perspectives. So down to the sort of almost individuals for users, but also actually quite broadly, uh, when you, when you’re looking at it from a, uh, sort of sociology, cultural kind of perspective.
[00:03:01] Tina Ličková: And how did that happen that now you are more. Or more hard to say if it’s the right wording, but more working in the product and innovation space, because I understand that you guide companies and clients, stakeholders, through this whole innovation process.
So how did that happen?
[00:03:24] Chloe Sharp: Um, I was just, when I worked at the transport systems catapult, that’s where I discovered human centered design, user research. I just really found it really fascinating. And that’s where I learned a lot about innovation as well. And then after that, I worked for an AI product studio and that’s where I got into grants and applying user research to, yeah, to creating the AI assistance and things, and then after that, then I co-founded a grant writing and research consultancy, so I was involved in lots of different points in the product development.
So sometimes right at the very beginning and figuring out who the users were through to working with marketing companies to understand much more around what companies were standing for and the value that they were providing that fed into their brand. So I’ve been involved in research with different brands.
So many different organizations that when I put all the pieces together, I was able to book, but also having worked within the AI company, I was also involved in developing products right from the very beginning as well as working on existing products. Yeah. So now I work with companies to help coach them. Really to help them through that journey and run also from a grant perspective to help them get as much out of grant funding really by explaining much more about what innovation is because there’s lots of different types of innovation and guiding them on how to create projects that they can They’ll get a lot from if they win the grant funding.
[00:05:00] Tina Ličková: And I would maybe start with diving into the topic with the question of how do you explain to the stakeholders why research is important?
[00:05:13] Chloe Sharp: I think once, once they’ve been through the process, they realize how important research is, but getting them to even begin research can be a bit challenging, particularly when I was working through that co founded consultancy that I mentioned, there are so many reasons why not to do research. It took a long time. It was expensive. It wasn’t a priority, et cetera. So. Thank you. The way that I explain it for businesses to get research into their organization and their product development process is by explaining what the benefits are. So by building a product and then putting it into market and then getting feedback is the most expensive way of, of building a product really, because you might have spent hundreds of thousands on developing the product and then, um, you’re waiting right to the end to then get user feedback and then you might not get a lot of feedback, you might just get complaints and requests for different features and things. So by taking more of a fail fast, learn quickly type of approach, it means that in the long run, you’re saving quite a lot of money, but you’re getting the benefit of having all of that customer feedback right at the very beginning of the process, rather than at the end.
So Maze did some research, I’m not sure when, but I think it was quite recently, and they said there has been research that has 2. 3 percent, sorry, 2. 3 percent. business outcomes, it reduced the time to market by about four times, it increased revenue about four times, and improved brand perception about three times.
And I just find that really fascinating because if you can go to market quickly and you can improve your brand perception. Much better and quickly because you want to sell your customers. So then you can talk to them much more directly and you can increase your revenue because you’re selling a product that people need, then it just seems like a bit of a no brainer really to use research.
[00:07:09] Tina Ličková: Very interesting because I find, or I love hearing these numbers because I think this is the first time where I actually hear it in numbers. And a lot of state or product managers or product owners, which are even more technical people, they suffer more under the quantification bias. And this is, even if you were talking about it, like amazed of, Oh, okay.
This is really speeding up things, and this is really the number. So I would like to thank you for finally hearing the ROI of research being summarized as well. Topic where researchers, we talk about it, we want to have this, and we want to speak the business language, but we struggle with it.
[00:07:58] Chloe Sharp: Yeah, definitely.
I think with researchers explaining what their ROI is, can be difficult to quantify, like you mentioned. This came up in a coaching session recently, and I think if you can compare what would happen if there wasn’t any research, then what could the trajectory have been and what difference did you make, if you can maybe make some assumptions as to maybe what might’ve happened and then compare that you might be able to see what impact that your research had. So it might’ve been much better able to determine who their user groups were. So that meant that they could target their marketing much more clearly, or if they’re building features that have had user feedback, then they’re more likely to succeed, compete compared to not having any user feedback at all.
So it can be difficult to quantify, but I think if something’s going to market quicker, it’s then that means that the revenues come in faster, so that there might be different ways of quantifying it from a business perspective, because. Particularly if they want to get things out there quickly and then sell things quickly, then the ROI that I’ve mentioned, those are the kind of things that they focused on.
[00:09:07] Tina Ličková: And is this quantifying something that you would say is summarizing a little bit the need for researchers speaking the business language or would you frame it and how would you frame it? Thanks. What is the business language that the research should be speaking?
[00:09:30] Chloe Sharp: Really thinking about the commercialization and having that business mindset, I think is important.
So language is part of that, but I think it’s the approach that you can take. So if you were to put a business case together because you wanted to do some research, then it’s understanding what your stakeholders are looking for from that. So it might be that they want to identify innovation opportunities to stay competitive.
It could be that they want to, maybe they’re not doing any research on the product at the minute. So it could be explaining why research would be good on that particular product. So it might be that they can go to market faster, then it’s more likely to meet customer needs. So then I’ll have fewer complaints and the churn rate will be much lower.
So they’re looking at it more from that perspective, rather than particularly what the users want, such as ease of use, et cetera, which is important, uh, but for business, sometimes they want to get things out relatively fast, but if it adds a lot of value, then you can iterate as you go.
[00:10:32] Tina Ličková: And you as a market researcher from the past, in the past roles, or a researcher with mixed experiences, have you ever been struggling with the business language?
How did you come to the need of: Oh, I should be speaking the business language?
[00:10:50] Chloe Sharp: I think I had an entrepreneurial mindset since a young age, because Way back, I think when I was about 30, I started my own business. I’ve always been interested, fascinated by growth. So I, what I’ve done is I’ve taken people on the journey with me.
So I worked in an organization where they hadn’t done any research at all on a product that they were developing. And in that scenario, I took the stakeholders on the journey with me. So I involved them in the interviews. Explained the importance of product management, which then saved money because we could be very clear as to what things needed to be done and then set a specific budget for things.
So then that helped them manage their cashflow and things like that. So I think that really helped, but it wasn’t as in a relatively small business. I think once they’ve done research and I’ve seen the benefit of it, I’ve never seen any guesswork again after that. I think that it means that they’re more likely to do research again in the future.
[00:11:51] Tina Ličková: Yeah. And as you now work in the field of innovations, how research helps you to identify the opportunities? And as you were mentioning your experiences, I’m also a little bit keen to learn what kind of research helps you with it.
[00:12:14] Chloe Sharp: In this report about research maturity, I found that only 3 percent of companies really use research in their strategy, but I think if user research could be used by the leaders to feed it into their strategy and identify innovations, which could help them become competitive, then that’s going to be a win for everybody, really. And what was your second question? Sorry.
[00:12:40] Tina Ličková: Yeah, sorry. I am, I’m guilty of asking two questions at once.
That’s one, I do the research. I always do this. And the second, what kind of methods or which type of ads, I’m hesitant to say which type of research, because for me also UX research, it’s based in market research originally. But what met. are helping you with identifying the opportunities?
[00:13:06] Chloe Sharp: I would say there’s a lot in interviews.
I get a lot of value from doing interviews and really deep diving the problem space. So what are the challenges that they’re having? What are their current workarounds? What they wish existed, what products they currently use, how are they finding them? So then you can figure out if their competitive products are meeting their needs because they might not be.
And then. Things like that can start to uncover opportunities for innovation because you can start to find the gaps, particularly if you ask them what you wish existed to help solve this particular problem, and then that can give some really interesting insights and ideas as to what gaps are out there.
Do you maybe have an example from your practice? Yes. What we usually do is hypothesize. as to what we think the problem is, and then we come up with lots of, come up with lots of assumptions. And from these assumptions, we create hypotheses. So I was working on one project where the hypothesis was that in a particular scenario, they thought that they needed really complex analysis to figure out the problem.
Their progress and understanding their bottom line and things. And then when we went out and did the research, it actually transpired that the customers really just wanted very simple analysis and simple data. So that was an interesting finding for that company because they were about to spend a lot of time and effort with this really complicated analysis and lots of API’s and things to feed into the, I think into the AI things, but it was The customers just didn’t need that at all.
That was almost too much. And that was something that maybe could be much further down the line. So that was really interesting for the company because it meant that we’d identified the gap, but also the problem wasn’t the problem that they thought existed. Listening
[00:15:06] Tina Ličková: to the arguments that you are giving the stakeholders, giving them the numbers, how they could be more successful, taking them on board, and then you saying, Oh, there is no further nay saying to research.
Is there anything else that you. Oh, this is important to onboard people on research.
[00:15:31] Chloe Sharp: So it’s stakeholders getting them on board with research. What else apart from get taking them on a journey? I think if I’ve, if I’ve made that business case that it will help make the product better fit for the customer needs, and if it’s going to help their company, I’ve taken them on the journey, maybe some funding.
So sometimes research, a research blocker can be, there’s not enough time, it’s too expensive, et cetera. So sometimes just having a small grant or pitching for a particular amount of money, if that’s possible in an organization, then that can help because, you know, Then that’s earmarked for that particular activity, but that’s what I found helped really when I was running the consultancy, which is why we mix grant writing with research because money was a big blocker.
But then as soon as they had grant funding, then they would spend lots of money on doing really good quality research that in the long run, saved them a lot of money and a lot of time.
[00:16:33] Tina Ličková: Makes total sense. Yeah. I’m wondering, because what I experienced in companies was that, that the way that the actually getting people on board with research.
Getting them to do research and serve them with research or even doing the research with them was happening, but where I was a little bit struggling in some companies, in some it was very straight ahead, was the implementation of the insights into the work. So how do you make sure that the insights are well implemented and brought to reality?
[00:17:08] Chloe Sharp: I think right at the very beginning, understanding what it is that they’re trying to get from the research. So then you produce the outputs that they need. Cause I think that there is a, like, it could be quite common to create research reports. There are lots of other ways of presenting findings. For example, recently I used a Miro board.
I mapped out a process. I made it very visual and interactive, and I found that the leaders of the particular company really liked that because they could move things around. They could see with affinity diagrams, have themes. By grouping all the posts it notes together. So with the names of the themes, they could go into it.
And what I’d done is on the post it notes, I’d copied and pasted some of the transcripts, then they could see some of it brought to life. So that was a format that I found worked really well because it wasn’t a report, but in other scenarios, when I’ve worked with developers, they like to have user stories and outputs in different ways so they can implement it.
Yeah. That’s really gonna annoy me what that’s called, but yeah, they like to have user stories so then they can put everything on their Trello board or whatever they’re using and then create the ticket and then we can implement things that way. Sometimes a presentation, sometimes I do that for myself just so then there’s a detailed document and then from that I might do like an infographic or I think video clips work really well as well if there’s like a highlight reel.
Yeah, those, I think it’s the outputs, that helps with the implementation of it and also working with the key stakeholders to see what are we going to do next and maybe create something like an improvement project out of it. So then if, if it’s for innovation, then it’s something that’s running in the background, but it’s really clear as to the roles and responsibilities, you’ve got regular communication.
So it’s almost like a project managing it internally.
[00:19:04] Tina Ličková: I’m wondering, you as a product person or as a developer, I’m not, I wouldn’t say generalist, but somebody who is a person with a renaissance product manager, I would say, and having this research hat on. And then going into the role of writing user stories or facilitating the whole process of how it’s, how they come to the result in the sense of product.
How do you navigate this?
[00:19:33] Chloe Sharp: Yeah, I think because I’ve been in so many different roles before, yeah, I’ve been in lots of roles before from being a researcher, being, being an entrepreneur, being a product manager, being in a leadership position, so I feel like I can chop and change my hats quite frequently.
I’m used to working on different things at the same time. So I can be a product manager one minute and then work on a project the next or grant or something in the next minute. So I’ve, I think that’s the thing with research is actually, which came up in another coaching session, which is almost looking at skill stacking because research is really important, but I think that.
If you’re able to have other skills as well, then it just makes the job market maybe a little bit easier if you’re able to enter it with another skillset.
[00:20:21] Tina Ličková: I always, when I’m mentoring younger professionals, say that having this additional skill set and having the ability to guide client or stakeholders internal environment through process is giving them extra strength, but I also understand that some researchers are very strong in. Yeah, I want to just deliver my report, whatever form it has, and I want to stay objective.
I would like to close with the question of what would be your advice for people who are a little bit hesitant into moving into this project management and into this facilitating of process, innovation processes space?
[00:21:12] Chloe Sharp: I would say that research is a team sport. And I think it’s, it can be good to get stakeholders involved and to play almost a coach, because your skills are always, always going to be needed. And you’re always going to need someone who can make sure that research processes are being put in properly, that you’ve got a research, that everything’s ethical, best practice.
So I don’t think anyone can take those skills away, uh, but it can be beneficial to have different, um, perspectives, but also they become the experts too and users, so then you don’t have to argue so much and advocate so much for them because they’re almost on your side and you’re taking them with you.
So I think, yeah, taking that coaching approach and having those skills can be really useful.
[00:21:58] Tina Ličková: So if I were to summarize, it’s Speaking in the language, the business language, showing the proof of it’s going to help launching products in, in the speed or in the high of the revenues, having this coaching mentality and approach, is there anything else we forgot about or you would like to mention?
[00:22:23] Chloe Sharp: I think it’s having that business mindset and keeping the stakeholders on your side, making sure that you have buy-in to think about what it is that they’re needing from the research.
[00:22:36] Tina Ličková: Thank you. Thank you for sharing your wisdom, your examples. I find it super interesting and how much experience from different fields you have.
I love it. I’m the same. I would say, yeah. Where could people follow you and your work?
[00:22:51] Chloe Sharp: So you can follow me on LinkedIn, I think it’s forward slash sharp without an E, Chloe, C H L O E. And I have a company which is Sharp Insights as well. And I’ve got a book, which is make products that matter.
[00:23:08] Tina Ličková: Great. Thank you very much for spending time with me.
[00:23:11] Chloe Sharp: Thanks very much for inviting me. It’s great to see you. Great to meet you.
[00:23:20] Tina Ličková:
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