I am not a designer or a UX researcher. However, I have field experience as an investigative reporter and have been working to build consensus with stakeholders within organizations using phenomenological shifts and ethnographic thinking in corporate issues. I believe that in this era of rapid growth in the application of artificial intelligence, this perspective and attitude of trying to understand humans is more important than ever in strategically establishing itself within organizations.

Today, I will share observations that those who are trying to do similar roles in the field can relate to, based on the changes I have witnessed in the work environment and the personal reflections I have been reflecting on and applying to deal with them.

1. No one wants our 'strategy'.

This may be an exaggeration, but it's a good starting point to consider when it comes to how and how we deliver the findings. Many stakeholders believe they provide strategic insights through their experience and role in their respective work. Therefore, there is no reason for others to prioritize our insights simply because we are researchers or researchers. Therefore, if you start a conversation assuming that our insights should be prioritized because of the investigation process and results you participated in, you may seem arrogant and could fail to build and exert influence throughout the project.

Instead, focusing on the messenger role of conveying the sentiment of the target audience you are trying to understand at first can be a better option to lead to a more harmonious relationship.

2. 'Consumer' voices alone are not enough.

The silence that flowed when we turned on the lights in the conference room after presenting the results of a survey of key consumers of the product ahead of the annual marketing campaign planning is still vivid. I believed that I had confirmed the background of the project and explained sufficiently that the questions about the target customer's life were connected to the moment of revealing the value of the product. However, I was too focused on the process and didn't fully realize that the team's basic planning direction and message were in order.

To summarize:

It didn't matter how rigorously the survey was conducted or how interesting the process of deriving insights was. If the project stakeholders have no way of understanding this from their own perspective, it means they cannot get their buy-in. It is our most important role to identify this blind spot.

So how can we effectively deliver the deliverables?

1. Help internalize insights through storytelling.

Confirming the overall narrative greatly helps minimize the difference in interpretation among various stakeholders. It is also a good response to confirm what format of deliverables, such as videos or photos, will help stakeholders share insights with others in their work.

2. Keep it short and sweet.

It is good to provide specific materials that will help the team quickly absorb insights and apply them to their work. Consider a simple visual diagram or framework that helps define the global ecosystem related to the survey topic, the overall flow within the ecosystem, and current actionable opportunities to consider. Alternatively, you could provide a brief explanation of the market situation and competitor product features to help identify product differentiators.

3. Approach according to the work situation.

Instead of pressuring the team to stop their workflow and adapt to our process, try to understand where the work is at, identify priorities, short-term and long-term goals, and understand what will energize and drive progress at the moment. Then, revisit the insights, recategorize them into subsets, and consider what form of deliverables would be most helpful to the stakeholders and how the insights can be reorganized accordingly.

After all, summarizing the deliverables concisely and prioritizing immediate relevance is the most important thing we need to think about and the closest to the essence of this job that we need to do well.