UX Research as a Team Sport

Overview

Even great research can fail to stick. During the c-one client portal project at Randstad, I noticed a pattern common on large product teams: the team was receptive to findings, but not connected to them. Insights would land, get noted, and fade as the sprint moved forward. Research was something that happened to the project.

This case study is about changing that — rethinking how research gets shared so the whole team stays in it. The goal was higher UX maturity across the team and a different relationship between research and the people who act on it.

Thought Process

People are more receptive to research findings when they were part of getting them. When a researcher disappears for three weeks and comes back with a polished deck, the team receives conclusions — but they don't own them. They weren't there when a user said the thing that changed everything. They didn't feel the moment the pattern clicked.

Keep the rigor. Stop treating research as a deliverable. Make it something the team experiences alongside you. That shift — from output to process — changes how insights land, how long they stick, and how likely they are to become action.

Approach

01 Open observer slots to the whole team. POs, BAs, tech leads, and designers were all invited to watch sessions with low-stakes briefings beforehand. No expertise required — just curiosity. This brought direct user exposure to people who rarely get it.

02 Share progress in the open, not just at the end. Video clips, recruitment updates, and "inside baseball" commentary went into the team channel throughout the project. Notes like "here's how I approached this participant" or "interesting moment at 4:32" kept the team engaged and demystified the research process.

03 Open up synthesis in Miro. Rather than solo analysis followed by a presentation, synthesis happened in a shared Miro board that team members could contribute to. More raw than Dovetail, but the collaborative energy was worth the tradeoff.

04 Replace recommendation presentations with conclusions workshops. Instead of presenting findings and hoping someone acts on them, we came to conclusions together. Team members left the workshop already committed to actions — because they'd helped decide what those actions should be.

Tradeoffs

This approach came with real costs. Presentations were less polished. Miro is a less mature research tool than Dovetail, so synthesis artifacts were rawer and harder to reference later. Workshops required more time — both to facilitate well and to schedule around everyone's calendars. The work process felt more ephemeral overall, with fewer clean, citable deliverables.

These were conscious tradeoffs. The question was never whether the polished deck was good — it was whether the polished deck was actually producing the outcomes we needed. When the answer is no, the tradeoff is worth it.

Impact & Outcomes

↑ Workshop recommendations became actions team members were already committed to — not a list for someone else to prioritize

↑ Measurably higher UX maturity among POs, BAs, and tech leads — team members began referencing user quotes and interview moments in their own work

Observer meetings were well-attended and the workshop format was a genuine hit. The team described the process as feeling more "live" and "engaged" compared to past projects — less like receiving a report, more like being part of the discovery.

What I Learned

The team sport approach worked better than I expected — and in hindsight, I should have been doing it sooner. The thing that surprised me most was how much team members internalized the user voice. Months later, people were still referencing things specific participants had said. That kind of retention doesn't happen with a slide deck.

The one structural improvement that made the biggest difference: adding explicit prioritization to the workshop. Early versions produced good discussion but left too many actions at equal weight. Once we built a prioritization step in, actionability improved significantly.

Don't worry about territory. The more you invite people in, the more your work matters to them.

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