Need a Research Expert? When to Go Pro and When to DIY

Hosted by Carol Rossi, Jenny Wanger, and Lija Hogan

227 students

What you'll learn

DIY vs Pro: When to choose each approach?

We'll share considerations and frameworks to help you decide, based on available staff, decisions needed, and customers.

What do you need to know to get started with research?

You'll learn practical tips, like predictable challenges, how AI can help, and how to get training.

How can you make it easier for your team to do research?

The quick answer: operations. We'll share what's the minimum setup and how to scale, without the need for perfection.

Why this topic matters

Teams aim for quick decisions by enabling PMs, designers, engineers, and others to conduct some of their own research. As a leader, it's essential to create programs, frameworks, and tools to support this. Join three seasoned research and product leaders as they share decades of experience helping non-career researchers gather and act on insights effectively.

You'll learn from

Carol Rossi

Founder, Carol Rossi Consulting

Carol helps companies have maximum impact from customer insights, whether or not there are career researchers on staff. With 20+ years of experience, she's led research teams focused on vision and strategy, brand retention and building, and user experience metrics. Carol established research best practices and teams at Kelley Blue Book and Edmunds, and led the research team at NerdWallet. She developed programs to train non-career researchers to collect their own insights at each of those companies.

Jenny Wanger

Product Consultant and Coach

Jenny helps busy product leaders build more effective team cultures via product consulting and operations. Product teams that work with her conduct more user interviews, make better use of data, and have product managers that feel excited about their jobs because they know they're doing their best work.

Lija Hogan

Principal, Experience Research Strategy at UserTesting

Lija partners with people who use empathy and data to create compelling and inclusive products and user experiences. She is a UX consultant, researcher, and educator at UserTesting, a lecturer at the University of Michigan School of Information, and an instructor on Coursera and LinkedIn.

Previously at

UserTesting
Kelley Blue Book
NerdWallet
SpotHero
The Linux Foundation
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