Top 8 Skills for Highly Effective In-House Research Teams

Rapidly changing markets have accelerated the need for agile, in-house market research. Instead of limiting research to a few large projects with traditional agencies, Insights, Marketing, and Innovation teams are taking charge of their own research. They’re doing smaller, more numerous, focused studies that allow their teams to test, iterate, and adjust faster.

 

There’s a ton of evidence illuminating the trend of bringing research in-house:

• ESOMAR’s 2020 Users and Buyers Global Insights Study by Ray Poynter found that 45% of companies say their share of projects being done internally is increasing, whereas only 7% say in-house research is decreasing.
• SurveyMonkey’s 2020 Market Research Survival Guide found that 70% of research teams are likely to transition to more DIY tools in the next year.
• In the most recent Greenbook Research Industry Trends (GRIT) report, 72% of researchers already use or plan to use Agile research/methods/approaches in their organizations.

Bringing more research in-house means that team structure and skill sets required to succeed will need to adapt to rethink how research gets done effectively. Some of these skills lay the foundation for doing quality research, and are about helping the organization get value out of the research. So whether you’re looking to brush up on your own skills or make great hires, here are the top 8 skills for highly effective research teams:

1. Research expertise

First and foremost, you and your team need to have a strong understanding of how to do quality research. For research departments inside of businesses, this usually becomes a blend of art and science–knowing how to put good research theory into practice given resources and budget. Skills that matter most are being able to match the appropriate methodology to a business question, how to execute that methodology (recruiting participants, questions to ask, proper analysis techniques), and being able to manage the research process every step of the way.

Suggested resources to build research expertise:

• Sign up for newsletters from research industry publications like Greenbook, Quirk’s, ESOMAR, and others. They offer great guides and tips every week.
• Research Rockstar offers great courses for any research level.
• Vendors also offer in-depth methodology guides, like SurveyMonkey’s Ultimate Guide to Doing Market Research

 

2. Vendor management

Even if you bring a lot of your research in-house, there will always be a need to work with external vendors–from technology vendors providing you the tools you use every day to service providers who fill any gaps in your expertise. Skills that matter most are managing vendor selection and onboarding, negotiating contracts and scope of work, regular check-ins to make sure you’re getting the most out of your vendor’s capabilities and/or current subscription, and getting your entire team set up and trained on the tools you’ve purchased. At the end of the day, vendors also want you to be successful, so the best thing you can do is be open and honest about what you need–and not hold back any feedback you have!

Suggested resources for vendor management:

• 28 questions to ask vendors of online samples from ESOMAR
• Online course in Mastering Negotiation Techniques from Harvard Business School

 

3. Project management

Without a basic mastery of project management abilities, you run the risk of projects that become inefficient or take longer than they should. Skills that matter most in this area are creating a project plan with clear owners and expectations, timeline management to make sure deliverables are on time, and the decisiveness to keep things moving forward (especially when road-blocks arise).

Suggested resources for project management:

• Project Management Professional (PMP) Certification
• Project management courses on Coursera
• The “Planning” chapter of SurveyMonkey’s Ultimate Guide to Doing Market Research which includes a downloadable research brief template

 

4. Tech savviness

In Greenbook’s recent webinar, The Evolution of Agile Insights, Lenny Murphy said, “We aren’t seeing investment technology for the sake of investment technology. It’s investment technology because it can help you do research cheaper, faster, and in many cases better. That was the trend we already saw for years, and it kicked into hyperdrive in 2020.”

The terms “in-house” and “DIY” research sometimes get a bad rap because they paint a picture of mountains of work piled on the desks of a small, resource-strapped team. But if you know how to harness today’s technology, most of the manual, tedious pieces of research can be automated. Skills that matter most are awareness of the technology available, choosing the right tools to build out your research tech stack, being able to learn new tools quickly, and then knowing how they can all stitch together to make your research much more efficient.

Suggested research technology to investigate for your organization:

• Online survey platforms
• Online qualitative research platforms
• Panels and communities
• Automated research solutions (like SurveyMonkey’s expert solutions for concept and creative testing)
• Syndicated & behavioral data sources
• Data analytics software
• Data visualization and reporting tools

 

5. Stakeholder management

We’ve already touched on vendor management, but stakeholder management has more to do with people inside of your organization. Your stakeholders could consist of the leadership team, the department requesting the research and ultimately taking action, your immediate team responsible for the research, or any other internal dependencies. Skills that matter most are effective collaboration to make sure you’re tying the research back to the most relevant, urgent business problems and communication skills for setting expectations and presenting the final deliverables.

 

6. Ability to teach

Getting people in your company excited about your research will need to come with a bit of education. They need to understand the context around the research and why it matters to them (i.e. how it makes them better at their jobs). And ultimately, if you want to scale your research program by trusting other departments to do their own research, it will be necessary to arm them with tools, templates, and instructions. Skills that matter most are the ability to communicate complex methodologies in a way that’s easy to understand, break research into concrete steps, adapt to the environment and people they’re teaching, and a comfort level with presenting to large groups.

Pro Tip: when it comes time to train a broader group of people on how to use research tools and technology, lean on your vendors! In most cases, they’d be happy to set up an interactive workshop to get your organization ramped up.

 

7. Data storytelling

When it’s time to share your research findings, the best way to get a finding to stick in people’s minds is to wrap it into a story. According to an article in the Harvard Business Review, organizational psychologist Peg Neuhauser found that “learning which stems from a well-told story is remembered more accurately, and for far longer, than learning derived from facts and figures.”

Skills that matter most for storytelling are understanding your audience (who’s in the room, what’s the business context), stringing together a narrative (the situation, challenge or problem, and recommended solution), and building on that narrative with authentic examples and anecdotes.

Suggested resources to build storytelling skills:

• How to tell a great story in the Harvard Business Review
• DataStory by Nancy Duarte
• Data Storytelling course on Udemy

 

8. Business acumen

Clearly, these skills aren’t necessarily in priority order, because business acumen is so important. As research technology helps streamline the research itself, insights teams are becoming closer to the business. They’re spending more of their time on strategic recommendations and partnering with leaders in marketing, product, strategy, sales, and other departments. Skills that matter here is understanding your company’s business model (how you make money, where growth will be coming from), the key performance indicators (KPIs) that your stakeholders are measured against, and the day-to-day levers teams can pull to achieve their goals. Applying this lens to your projects will make your research not just relevant, but critical to the business.

 

Suggested resources to build business acumen:

• The Personal MBA by Josh Kaufman, ex-Procter and Gamble brand executive turned business coach
• Sometimes the best thing you can do is get time with people at your company. Have Finance walk you through the P&L; have marketing show you how they track the performance of their campaigns; have the product team give you a sense of their roadmap.

 

There you have it! The top 8 skills for highly effective research teams. Have additional ideas? Let us know in the comments.

 

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