Case study 2: Scaling Research Operations
Context & Challenge
When I joined the company, there was no ResearchOps function in place:
No centralized repository of insights
The research team did not own the participant panel
Few processes existed for recruitment, compliance, research training, or knowledge management
As a result, research was fragmented, difficult to scale, and decisions were often made without evidence. My challenge was to build the foundations of ResearchOps, create the role training the person who leads it, and enable research democratization across the product organization.
Actions I Led
1. Participant panel ownership & infrastructure
Implemented UserInterviews to centralize recruitment.
Designed incentive models to sustain participant engagement.
2. Compliance & governance
Established GDPR-compliant consent and secure data storage processes.
Set clear guardrails for privacy, ethics, and research approvals.
3. Knowledge management
Created a central research repository to store, tag, and share insights.
Ensured insights were reusable across teams, reducing duplication.
4. Democratization enablement
Trained designers, PMs, and POs in research techniques (usability testing, interviews, surveys).
Delivered playbooks, templates, and workshops to standardize practice.
5. Culture of “the doubt”
Introduced workshops where teams shared hypotheses and research questions to prioritize the Product Discovery roadmap together.
Embedded a culture of inquiry, making research a shared capability.
What Changed? Results & Impact
Research became accessible: Non-researchers can now run low-risk studies confidently within our framework.
Time-to-insight dropped dramatically: What used to take weeks now takes days.
Zero duplication: Teams search the repository before starting new studies.
Sustainable operations: Our panel is healthy, our processes are compliant, and our tools actually get used.
Cultural shift: product decisions now grounded in evidence, with teams embracing structured hypotheses instead of assumptions. The moment I knew it worked: A PM ran a usability test on their own, found a critical issue, and came to me saying, "I need help digging deeper—this is bigger than I thought." That's democratization working: empowering teams to handle the routine stuff while knowing when to escalate.
What I Learned
Democratization Needs Guardrails: Not every study should be "self-serve." Early on, I was too hands-off—teams ran studies they weren't equipped for, and the quality suffered. I learned that clear boundaries aren't about gatekeeping; they're about setting people up for success. Low-risk studies? Go for it. Complex methodologies or strategic discovery? Let's partner on that.
Infrastructure First, Then Scale: I wanted to democratize research immediately, but without the operational backbone—tools, compliance processes, a functioning repository—it would have collapsed. You can't scale chaos. Build the plumbing first, then open the floodgates.
Culture Change Requires Rituals, Not Just Training: Training teaches skills. Rituals change behavior. The "Culture of Doubt" workshops became a regular practice, not a one-time event. That repetition—seeing leaders admit uncertainty, watching hypotheses get tested and refined—normalized evidence-based thinking in a way that a training deck never could.
ResearchOps Is a Form of Care: When you remove friction for teams—confusing processes, scattered tools, unclear recruitment rules—you're not just being efficient. You're showing respect for their time and energy. You're saying "I want to make it easier for you to do great work." That's when people start leaning in.
Key Takeaways
Building ResearchOps from scratch isn't about buying tools—it's about creating systems that make good research easier than bad research. It's infrastructure, yes, but it's also culture, training, and trust.
At Travelport, we went from fragmented, reactive research to a democratized practice where insights are accessible, processes are trusted, and teams feel empowered to ask (and answer) their own questions. The research team didn't become less important—we became more strategic because we weren't drowning in logistics.
ResearchOps isn't the glamorous part of research. But it's the part that makes everything else possible.