The Secrets behind Research that Scales / Kate Towsey / Ep. #216

There is no service design...

Without high-quality research.

Sure, we all know that.

But doing good research is hard.

Kate Towsey, often called the inventor of the ResearchOps field, can certainly attest to this.

If you're a dedicated listener of the show, you might remember Kate from our conversation about a year ago where she shared that she was writing a book.

Well, that book, titled "Research that Scales", has officially been published!

And with a 4.9/5 rating on Amazon, it seems to have struck a chord with readers.

Of course, we had to get Kate back on the show to discuss it.

In this conversation we delve into topics like:

• Do we need to scale research, and if so why?
• What does "scale" actually mean in the context of research?
• When should you start thinking about scaling?
• What are the key steps to scaling research?
• What role can AI play in all of this? Will it take over our jobs?
• Why did it take Kate 3.5 years to publish the book?

And as always, that's just the tip of the iceberg.

It's hard to imagine a service design professional who wouldn't be interested in the topics we cover in this episode.

Good research isn't just a nice-to-have; it's a must.

Without giving away too many spoilers, I found it fascinating that it's not actually research that you need to (or can) scale, but something else. Something that we as a community are pretty good at.

Can you guess what it is?

Enjoy and keep making a positive impact!

~ Marc

--- [ 1. GUIDE ] ---

00:00 Welcome to Episode 216

03:00 Quick overview about scaling research

04:00 Why she wrote the book

09:30 Pandemic's impact on the book

13:00 Research rabbit hole

15:00 Unscalable Research: What to Avoid

18:30 What is enough research?

22:00 The problem she saw

25:00 The main bottlenecks

27:45 Libriarian's role in making the change

31:00 How the process work

33:00 Knowledge as a network vs tree

35:30 Maximizing efficient use of library

39:00 Designing the system

41:00 Knowledge vs. Learning: Value Proposition

43:00 Cost center vs value center

47:00 AI and Research: A Synergistic Future

49:00 Cost of scaling: A Trade-off

51:00 Strategic approach to scaling

53:00 How to know when to scale

54:30 Her readers insights

56:00 Upcoming masterclasses

58:00 Resources

58:30 Food for thought

--- [ 2. LINKS ] ---

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katetowsey/
• Website: https://katetowsey.com/
• Substack: https://katetowsey.substack.com

--- [ 3. CIRCLE ] ---

Join our private community for in-house service design professionals.

⁠https://servicedesignshow.com/circle