DRIVING EFFICIENCY with research operations and building cohesive knowledge repositories

I bring rigor to decision-making by ensuring that valuable data never goes to waste. I establish functional practices that enable and enhance research capabilities.

Business

West Monroe is a global consulting firm that helps transform businesses by developing comprehensive digital strategies and designing great UX.

My Role

Research Manager

The Challenge

West Monroe needed a Research leader who could contribute to the development/enhancement of their methodologies, artifacts, and practice strategy by adding to the type and quality of research they perform for clients. Examples include introducing new research methods, improving existing methods, creating speed to value in how they produce insights, procuring tools, building vendor relationships, and assisting with business development and go-to-market initiatives.

That’s where I excel.

I built a comprehensive internal operations functionality for an enterprise consulting firm, bridging together data teams across the organization from marketing and branding, data science, internal UX, and client-facing teams. I then created the first white glove Research Playbook, delivering critical knowledge to businesses across industries, including healthcare, energy and utilities, e-commerce, CPG retailers, and major tech brands. Leading Research agencies and tools even called me in to consult on their ReOps roadmaps and programs.

IMPACT HIGHLIGHTS

• Procured contracts worth $500k for enterprise Research tools, enabling and empowering teams across the organization to do great research

• Led the research team on a $30M digital strategy engagement for a major healthcare organization and advised product leaders on ReOps.

• Cultivated strong relationships with market-leading vendors such as; Dovetail, Maze, User Interviews, dScout, Great Question, Fable, etc.

• Contributed to the development of a knowledge management intraweb and case study repository.

My Approach to Knowledge Management

Intake management and governance…

• A repository is only as good as its inputs and the work starts there, identifying and pulling in data from across the organization. This means building productive relationships with executives and cross-functional stakeholders to ensure that their valuable insights are being captured.

• All great ReOps begins with governance, determining the constraints and context in which a shared repository will live and thrive. I focus on defining what success looks like for those who will use these insights most and aligning measurable KPIs to the business strategy.

• I take a generative and primary approach, both capturing and cataloging existing knowledge and conducting new research to produce relevant findings and validate approaches.

Workshop facilitation, co-creation, and testing…

• It takes a village to build great products and experiences; ReOps is no different. I bring the whole team on board to create usable and helpful repositories.

• I ran several co-creation workshops where we gathered existing knowledge from stakeholders across levels and designed a taxonomy prototype.

• I conducted usability interviews and surveys to understand how users searched for information, templates, tools, and other resources.

THE OUTCOME

• A usable Knowledge Management intraweb that served a 400-person product team. This included a comprehensive internal UX Research playbook that served teams across departments.

• A new digital tool called CasePlace enabled the entire firm to discover and search for case studies. This increased go-to-market capabilities and was significant for business development strategies. CasePlace continues to help teams win more work.

• The procurement, enablement, and training of 4 new research tools that could be immediately engaged for client projects: Dovetail, User Interviews, Recollective, and Maze.