Building a Research Foundation: How a Company-Wide Audit Powered the Q1 Product Roadmap

Project Overview

  • My Role: Lead Researcher & Strategist

  • Timeline: 5 Weeks

  • Methods: Research Audit, Desk Research, Moderated & Unmoderated Usability Testing, Concept Validation, In-Depth Interviews

  • Collaborators: Product Managers, Designers, and Leadership across 8 product squads

The Challenge

When I joined the company, I noticed that while individual research studies were being conducted, the insights were often siloed within specific teams. There was no centralized understanding of our users' biggest pain points, and as a result, no clear, customer-centric strategy guiding our roadmap. This led to reactive product decisions and put customer retention at risk. The business needed to move from a reactive to a proactive, insights-driven culture..

My Approach

I proposed and led a foundational research initiative designed to create a unified understanding of our users and inform the upcoming Q1 roadmap. My process had two core phases.

Phase 1: Conducting the First-Ever Company Research Audit Before running new studies, we needed to understand what we already knew. I conducted a comprehensive audit by:

  1. Gathering all existing research from our repository and directly from PMs and designers.

  2. Synthesizing dozens of past studies to extract high-level, cross-cutting themes.

  3. Integrating quantitative data from Pendo to validate and add context to the qualitative findings.

  4. Creating a new, centralized wiki that organized these key themes by user persona, creating a single source of truth for the entire organization.

Phase 2: Launching a Targeted, Multi-Method Study The audit revealed several critical knowledge gaps and recurring usability issues. I collaborated with product managers and designers from our 8 "Sales Persona" squads to transform these gaps into a targeted research plan. The final study was a multi-faceted sprint that included:

  • Unmoderated Usability Tests (10 users): To quickly benchmark the usability of our video and meetings features.

  • Moderated In-Depth Interviews (7 users): To dive deep into complex workflows around live chat and prospecting, and to validate concepts for a new "engagement score" feature.

The Impact

This initiative had a profound impact on both the product and the organization.

1. Directly Shaped the Q1 Product Roadmap My findings provided the clear, user-backed evidence needed to prioritize high-impact features. As a direct result of this research, the following were added to the Q1 roadmap:

  • Improved Firmographic Filters: We addressed a major user pain point by adding the ability to filter prospects by location.

  • New SalesLoft Integration: The research highlighted the need to meet sales reps where they already work, leading to the prioritization of a key integration.

  • Refined Engagement Score Cards: Concept validation sessions allowed us to refine the new score cards to ensure they provided the information sales reps cared about most.

2. Created a New, Collaborative Research Process Beyond the roadmap, the most significant impact was creating a new, collaborative way of working.

  • The Research Audit is now a standard practice, preventing duplicate work and ensuring we build on existing knowledge.

  • By sharing findings through squad-specific video recordings and debriefs, I created a scalable and efficient way to deliver tailored insights to 8 teams simultaneously, breaking down knowledge silos.

Reflection & Next Steps

The first research audit was a massive success, but I knew it could be even more powerful. For the next cycle, I evolved the process to integrate SEQ/PMF survey data and churn research findings. This deeper level of mixed-methods analysis allowed us to successfully advocate for even larger strategic projects, such as improving our core Salesforce integration, further solidifying the role of research as a key driver of business strategy.