Qualitative study planning includes great questions and tasks, estimating time, managing stakeholders, and setting everybody up for success.
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Explore other coursesCourse overview
You might call generative research discovery, exploratory, behavioral, or early user research. You might call evaluative research usability testing, user testing, or experimentation on a prototype.
Qualitative research can be broken into seven main phases, each with multiple tasks:
* Planning/goals/strategy
* Protocol/script/guide
* Recruiting
* Execution
* Analysis and synthesis
* Insights and actionable suggestions (reporting)
* Additional artifacts.
This course covers the first three. You'll learn how to start collaborating with teammates and stakeholders to learn what we need to learn. 😊 What are the guesses, assumptions, and unknowns?
Next, we'll put our strategy hats on to consider which research method(s) will best answer open questions. How many participants and what types of people will we need? Where will we find them? Will we pay them for their time?
We'll look at good and bad questions and tasks, and how to avoid common research mistakes that can lead to a flawed or invalid study. Which deliverables and artifacts should we create?
We'll also step into a little project management by learning how to estimate and plan your study. You'll also calculate and communicate the study's budget.
Learn how to deal with stakeholders with unreasonable requests, too many research requests, crappy questions they want you to ask, and other "ambiguities."
Each week, you will work on the plan for a sample or real research project. You'll get personal instructor feedback, and hopefully some feedback from others in the cohort as well.
This course is also available as live corporate training, on-site or remote. It can also be customized for your needs and teams. Contact me to learn more https://customercentricity.com/contact
Check out our other cohort courses at https://cxcc.to/cohorts You might want to join those or share them with colleagues.
01
CX and UX practitioners including Service Designers who want to improve their research planning skills.
02
CX and UX leaders who struggle with estimating and planning research studies or projects.
03
Career transitioners into CX/UX formalizing and improving their research plans.
Process
You will have a real, repeatable process for planning research studies.
Confidence
You got this! You can do it!
Practice
Use a sample or real project, and get feedback from your instructor.

Live sessions
Learn directly from Debbie Levitt in a real-time, interactive format.
Lifetime access
Go back to course content and recordings whenever you need to.
Community of peers
Stay accountable and share insights with like-minded professionals.
Certificate of completion
Share your new skills with your employer or on LinkedIn.
Maven Guarantee
This course is backed by the Maven Guarantee. Students are eligible for a full refund up until the halfway point of the course.
4 live sessions • 23 lessons • 6 projects
Oct
29
Introduction
Being evidence-based
Learning what needs research
Be proactive
When there are more research requests than you can handle
Different types of qualitative research
Main types of moderated research
Main types of unmoderated research
Always observe
Deliverables
B2B vs B2C research
Exercise: What would you choose?
Prepare your docs and systems
Templates and resources
Nov
5
Recruiting
How many participants of what types?
Participant incentives
Screener surveys
Exercise: Recruiting
Discussion guide
Bad questions and tasks
Great questions and tasks
Refining questions and tasks
Pilot session(s)
Exercise: Discussion guide
Nov
12
Exercise: Research plan, round 2
Exercise: Research plan, round 3
Nov
19
Project planning and estimation
Exercise: Study timeline
Debbie Levitt, MBA, is the CXO of Delta CX, and since the mid-1990s has been a CX and UX consultant focused on strategy, research, training, and Human-Centered Design/User-Centered Design. She’s a change agent and business design consultant focused on helping companies of all sizes transform towards customer-centricity while using principles of Agile and Lean.
Clients have given her the nickname, “Mary Poppins,” because she flies in, improves everything she can, sings a few songs, and flies away to her next adventure.
Her new book, “Customers Know You Suck,” (2022) is the customer-centricity how-to manual. Start investigating what’s holding you back from improving customer-centricity. Learn how to be value-led: how much value we can frequently create for potential and current customers.
She has worked in various CX and UX leadership and individual contributor roles at companies including Wells Fargo, Macy’s, StepStone, Sony Mobile, and Constant Contact. In the 2010s, San Francisco UX and marketing agencies had Debbie on speed dial. She completed projects for Traction, Fjord, LIFT, Rauxa, ROI·DNA, and Fiddlehead.
Outside of CX work, and sometimes during CX work, Debbie enjoys singing symphonic prog goth metal, opera, and New Wave. You can also catch her on the CX-CC YouTube channel.