Role
Lead UX researcher
Scope
End-to-end research practice across a national streaming platform
Timeframe
Foundations built over 3.5 years, evolving through organisational restructure
Our challenges
As the organisation grew and restructured into multiple product domains:
- Research demand increased across multiple teams
- Research requests were largely reactive and ad hoc
- No shared visibility of pipeline or prioritisation
- Insight relied on memory and informal sharing
- A single research resource supporting multiple product teams
Scaling the research function
Established structured portfolio planning across product teams
- Partnered with product teams to align research priorities with upcoming product initiatives
- Assessed initiatives by urgency and readiness
- Sequenced work transparently across teams
- Created a visible research backlog
Increased efficiency and consistency through operational foundations
- Created a centralised research repository
- Standardised templates (briefs, guides, readouts, participant communications)
- Documented vendor processes and tooling guidance
- Enabled product designers to run lightweight research with guardrails
Integrated research into early decision-making
- Initiated proactive research consultations
- Surfaced existing insights before new studies were commissioned
Impact
- Clear, shared view of research demand across multiple teams
- Improved trade-off discussions and sequencing decisions
- Better utilisation of research budget
- Increased stakeholder trust and awareness
- Freed capacity for higher-value strategic work
Research operating model today
- Portfolio-level oversight across multiple teams
- Transparent prioritisation and sequencing
- Infrastructure designed to support scale
