Hey! This time we got another fantastic duo on the show to talk about quite a tricky topic: research democratization.
Does it always make sense? How can you use it to your advantage? What are the risks it implies? Find answers to this and more in this amazing episode!
You can also find this episode on Spotify:
Audio or video not your thing? Here’s a full transcript of the conversation
Julian: Welcome to Finders to Builders. Today we're discussing research democratization with two amazing guests. Let's start with introductions.
Tina: I'm Tina, an independent researcher and innovation consultant. I've been in this business for more than 10 years working for client and Finance Science, now also in sports.
Kathleen: I'm Kathleen, an independent research consultant, coach, and the founder of Grown Connect - a community for research leaders where we talk about our challenges and help each other move forward and grow. I've been leading researchers and research teams for almost 20 years but am now independent. I've experimented a lot with research democratization and know about the good and the bad. I'm happy to talk about it openly so we can discuss what works and what doesn't.
Julian: This is a topic on which people have strong opinions. If you go online, you'll find many articles for democratization, some against, and voices that have changed their minds over time. It's interesting to address this in 2025 because there have been many changes since this first appeared a couple of years ago. How do you see democratization evolving in the following years? How do you see it merging with how researchers approach their work nowadays?
Kathleen: That's a good question. We've been going through these waves. For a while, research democratization was seen as something dangerous that you shouldn't touch. Now, with more smaller teams that need to grow and scale, they're looking at it again as a way to increase capacity or have more impact. At the same time, there's increased demand from product teams - many product people are interested in doing more research. They've been reading Teresa Torres's book, and I always say I'm not sure if you should love or hate her, but there's definitely an increase in demand from that side, which makes people consider democratization more.
Tina: Maybe to connect to what you just said - it was a big thing. I have a presentation on the topic where I point out that researchers are like these fluffy, very nice people, teletubbies. And then I have another slide where teletubbies become zombies. This happens when it comes to two topics: personas and democratization, where we love to fight and go into flame wars on the internet. I feel like it's not anymore about whether we should democratize, but how we do it well.
Julian: Absolutely. That's a key distinction. Sometimes I had the perception that democratization was framed as something that would end our jobs as researchers. But in other cases, I saw this as a recipe for success. Could you share your perspective on cases where democratization is a good idea and cases where it's not? Or if this is something we need to embrace, how can we embrace it in different types of organizations?
Kathleen: From my experience, it depends a lot on where you're at in your organization and where you're at personally. Sometimes when research maturity is low and you have a small team, it's very hard to get buy-in to do more research or hire more researchers and do the strategic work you want to do.
If you're interested in democratization, it can be a way to get people to understand research more. It can open up understanding, increase maturity, and from that increase demand and maybe get buy-in for extra headcount.
But as a solo researcher, that has a flip side. If there's a lot of demand for research and democratization, the only thing you'll be doing is teaching other people how to do research and handling research ops. Then you don't have time to do the impactful research you want to be doing, because those first rounds of research aren't the great, impactful research that should be happening.
So you can get stuck. If you're not interested in teaching others and helping them grow their skills, you'll feel really trapped. You might want to be doing different types of research, but when you start democratization, you typically begin with usability testing - the easy, entry-level stuff for quick wins.
It depends on whether you're interested in teaching others and scaling the practice. If you are, it's wonderful. If not, you should push back and say "I should be doing highly strategic, impactful research. That's where I'll get my wins and increase maturity."
Wherever you are, it's both about the organizational needs and maturity as well as what you want as a researcher. If there are people on the team interested in doing this, it's a wonderful opportunity to learn. I always find that when I'm sharing my practice and teaching others, I really love my job. But I've also had people on my team who I forced to work with product teams to teach them research, and after some point they said "this is not what I want my job to be." I've had a person resign from my team saying they wanted to do different types of research. I felt crushed - I lost a really good researcher because I made her do things that didn't sit well with her.
Julian: That's a really good point. This goes both ways because from the researcher side, maybe you force a researcher to become a trainer or someone who explains research. But also on the other hand, you have a lot of people who maybe don't want to participate. Maybe designers say, "Why are you taking me out of Figma? I don't want to leave my Figma world." Or product managers say, "I don't have time to talk to customers." So it goes both ways. People often argue "Karen from accounting cannot do research" - but I've never had any Karen from accounting saying she wants to talk to customers.
Kathleen: I actually have had Karen from accounting do research. It was really fun - they enjoyed it a lot.
Julian: But more as a one-off, not as a forever thing?
Tina: Just to connect to this - Kathleen mentioned maturity several times, which is important, but there's also the willingness to do research. It's not really connected to maturity because some people, even when maturity is low, are like "I want to do research" or "I want to get in touch with it."
What comes to mind is that with democratization, sometimes there's a peak and then it goes lower because people realize "Oh wow, it's so complex and it's so much work. Let's go back to the researcher to do it." This is maybe what comes to mind when you were speaking about that colleague leaving - sometimes we frame it as training, but it's more like internal consultancy. It's not just training that we give, it's "how do we approach the problem together" and we can lead people in it.
But I get the frustration. If you want to focus on the craft, you want to focus on the craft. And that brings me to another point - we all give each other recipes and it's great inspiration, but in the end, what is freedom in research? Personal and professional freedom in research is something I'm trying to understand for myself. I think everybody has to do it their own way. If you're a good trainer, train people. If you're good in research ops because you're structured, drive democratization through research ops.
It's also about the match between your approach and the people you're working with. As you said, there's Karen from accounting who might be more interested than the product manager. You can adjust your democratization attempts to their needs. That's what I find super interesting - sometimes it drives me nuts, of course, but it's interesting to work with different people and have different levels of democratization in organizations.
But I have a question for you both: where was your triggering point where you thought "I have to start thinking about democratization"? What was the situation where you realized "I have to do something about this"?
Kathleen: For me, it's always been about seeing people in product teams who don't understand their users and trying to get them involved in research to help them understand and get firsthand contact. The easy entry point is having them observe sessions, but I've always strived to get them in the room with me, asking questions and shaking hands with users.
It makes so much more impact on them personally. As soon as you talk to someone firsthand, you have a story to take with you, which can skew your idea of what is true tremendously. If you have one firsthand experience that hits you in the heart, then all of a sudden you as a product manager carry the torch for that one user you've spoken to - which can go horribly wrong, obviously. We've all seen that: "Why do they keep banging on about this one person they spoke to?"
I think that's where it originated for me. It started casually, but when I had a team of about 10 researchers working with 40+ product teams, we could never be embedded in all of them, but we wanted all of them to start doing research or have access to research and insights. That's when I started thinking about scale - this was about 8-9 years ago.
The mistake I made was saying "We'll divide all the product teams among these researchers, and every researcher has to help coach, train, and guide their product teams." That was a mistake - I don't think I should have forced it on people.
I think I could have eventually evolved it into creating a program, seeing which product teams were interested, and making it more voluntary. I could have ensured that researchers on my team who were really interested in teaching and training would build that program, freeing up time for other researchers to do other things. I've experimented with this and learned the hard way.
Julian: When you put it that way, maybe in some cases, if the team is large enough, that would make the case for hiring a research ops person so that all that training falls to them instead of researchers.
In my case, when you're the only researcher or first researcher, you're pretty much outnumbered. There are two situations: either there's a large appetite for research across the organization that you can't handle alone, so you need to leverage your skills with the capacity you have; or you're in a less research-hungry context, and you need to generate an appetite for research. By getting people involved and creating this appetite, the more people start learning and the better they become, the more appetite for research grows overall.
As the first researcher, you want to generate more appetite - you want people to get interested and hungry for more research. It's like the supermarket where you offer a bit of cheese to try, and then people can buy it. When there's little interest in research, this can set everything in motion. They experience it firsthand and then start valuing it much more.
This brings me to my next question for Tina: democratization is interpreted differently by different people. Some think it means everybody can research, others think only some people can research, and for others, it means bringing people along the research journey. How do you align people on what democratization means in your context?
Tina: If we're looking for a definition, I don't have one. Democratization, like most things in life for me, is a spectrum. It's connected to the research personality and to the freedom of the researcher - where do you feel strongest? You have to use your strongest suit; if you're not using it, you'll probably burn out quickly.
One thing that came to mind when you were asking this question: in companies, let's not talk about "democratization." People don't understand it. I made that mistake - I said "We're going to democratize" and the buzzword became so strong that people put their own definitions on it rather than letting research define what it really means.
On the other hand, democratization means different things with different clients. I'm working with a meteorological company for almost a year and a half, and it's a very different story than I've had with bigger, more structured but less mature companies where fewer people were into research. It very much depends on the spectrum of people and their willingness.
I know it's a somewhat cloudy answer...
Julian: It's a researcher's answer, right?
Tina: It's not only a research answer but a critical mind answer. And that's maybe one of the main messages about democratization - it doesn't have one recipe. As Kathleen mentioned, it's different for different types of organizations, teams, and maturity levels. You can't just copy-paste an approach.
Kathleen: I sometimes refer to it as "socialization of research" to get rid of the "democratization" word because it's so toxic by now and brings up anxiety for many people. Sometimes it's more about socialization or boosting empathy for research and insights - including people in your practice. It doesn't have to be called democratization.
And there's no one recipe. It can be asking interested people to do it with you. But it will never work if it's forced. We know if it's forced on the researcher, it doesn't work. If it's forced on designers, PMs, or product teams, that also creates resistance. That part is just hard, and I have forced it on people, but then it takes a long time, and I'm not sure if it's worth the effort.
I remember one PM who kept asking "This research objective you keep talking about, why is that important?" It took six months of constantly forcing her to think of the research objective. After half a year, she would be the one in a room saying "Okay guys, we need to have a research objective first." But it's a long time.
It made me think I needed to use different words - I couldn't keep using that kind of language because it's off-putting. I've had a designer say "Oh, you're so academic." I realized I shouldn't use "research objective" - it should be "What do you want to learn?" or "What do you need from this research?" You need different languages to make it accessible and feel like "Yes, I can do it" rather than it being a blocker because it seems academic or foreign.
Julian: This is a very interesting topic that could be a full episode - how researchers communicate outside the research team or across the company. We could discuss vocabulary and how to be less "researchy" when talking with the rest of the company.
I'm also interested in how democratization changes according to industry or company type. B2B versus B2C - what's your experience with these different contexts?
Tina: For me, in B2B, especially with complex topics (and I have the luxury of working with complex topics), democratization is essential. You don't just allow people - you need the product manager and specialist to be involved in the research because of the complexity.
For example, with meteorology, I tell respondents "Talk to me like I'm an idiot because the more I study meteorology, the less I understand it." I need the people who've been working in the company for 20 years - they're almost meteorologists themselves. We prepare scenarios together, analyze together, and I need them there.
We had to set rules like not interrupting me or the respondent - "Don't explain the software" - and they'd say "I know I made this mistake, but I had such a strong urge to interrupt." We have a rule that during the last 15 minutes, even if I forget because I'm in the flow of conversation, they have every right to interrupt and ask their specific questions - questions I wouldn't be able to ask in the next 10 years in meteorology.
The same goes for finance and investments. If we're talking to people with high financial literacy, I need a product manager from investments or debts to ask specific questions. Again, emphasizing the B2B aspect - if it's software for other companies, I need them there to ask specific questions and even understand what was just said.
Julian: This is fantastic because some people think that as researchers, we should know it all and have context and knowledge to interview about anything. But bringing people along the journey extends the reach of your research. If you have someone super technical, they can take you that extra mile by asking questions you wouldn't think of because they have years of specific knowledge. We as researchers get to learn about different industries, which is a cool part of the job, but we can't go as deep as someone who's specialized in meteorology, for example. What are your thoughts on this, Kathleen?
Kathleen: I think sometimes it's not so much about industry but how long people have been working in a company that makes them think "We know our users. I've been doing this for 10-15 years." It's such a wake-up call for them to actually talk to customers they don't think are their customers.
I worked in a media company where we did this radical experiment - we invited the whole media house (journalists, editors, product and tech people, receptionists, everyone) to do research with us for a full week. I had different research events planned each day - guerrilla testing in the mall, group discussions, one-on-one interviews with different types of users.
One of the target groups was younger news avoiders - people who don't connect with what the newspaper writes about or get information from social media rather than reading news. It was such an eye-opener for staff to talk to them in person and realize "This is the challenge we have ahead of us. I might know the 60-year-old news subscriber who still wants a paper newspaper, but I don't know the people who should be consuming our product in the future."
That experiment involved about 40 people doing research for the first time. They got scripts and guidance, but the quality of the work was terrible. Just imagine getting handwritten notes from 40 different people and trying to extract insights - it was horrendous. The researchers on that project probably still hate me for it.
But what happened throughout the organization was breaking down silos. Those in sales, content, product, and tech had to work together to conduct interviews. There was socialization inside the organization with people they hadn't worked with before, and they shared this experience of interviewing users they didn't know. There was this buzz around the whole media house - "I talked to this person, what have you done?" - and suddenly the research was generating conversation.
It changed a lot in terms of knowing to ask for research early rather than using it just for validation at the end. They realized you can get so much from these conversations and that research should happen more often and earlier. But they also concluded "And you're so good at this, you should be doing it." So it wasn't "We can do research ourselves" - even the journalists, who thought "This is easy, I'm good at asking questions," were stunned by how much skill it takes. They realized "This is really hard."
Julian: I'm going to play devil's advocate now. Kathleen, you just mentioned that these people were doing research and the results were terrible. Some might ask: should we actually allow people who might produce low-quality results anywhere near research? Could that be harmful to the product or dangerous? Are there contexts where we shouldn't consider democratization? Is it something we need to build? What are your thoughts?
Kathleen: If you're working with products and services where lives are at stake, that's maybe where I draw the line. But other than that, every person is making product decisions several times a day. They might make those decisions based on what they think and feel, what they think they know, or the bad research they have. But hearing different voices and experiences still enriches your gut feeling, putting some extra "microbes in the gut" that make it function differently.
I don't see how that's bad, honestly. I've never experienced it to be totally bad. I've seen worse things happening from "I talked to a friend and I think we should do this" or conversations people have at home or with potential investors. I've seen worse product decisions made there than from democratized research.
Tina: I think there's a difference between the event where you had this research day with people generating data for the first time, and democratization as a process. The event lets them taste research and see its beauty and what it can bring them. Then democratization becomes a process of collaboration - forcing collaboration on people and forcing us to collaborate with them.
It's progressive - step by step, they see how to get good quality results. What I love is when they ask those "Would you be using that?" questions in the last few minutes, and I allow it. Then I go back to the respondent and ask "When was the last time you did this?" and they say "Never." Those are the moments where I can say "See, this is why this question seems like a great idea, but it's actually a bad idea."
Then they understand the difference and what it means to come up with bad results because people claim they'll use something in the future that they've never used before. They connect the dots very quickly.
Kathleen: Yes, but this is the difference, right? You're doing a lot of guidance and coaching while keeping quality control in the loop. People are allowed to make mistakes, but then you wrap it up and make it a learning experience.
When bad research happens or leading questions are asked, people are quite often aware of it. They see the difference between them doing an interview and you doing an interview, and they learn by watching you.
I've never experienced people thinking "With a couple of training sessions, I can do this - I don't need you. Just get participants to come here and I'll do whatever I want." People really love the guidance and support and training to get better at it.
Julian: Throughout this conversation, I think the three of us are aligned on the virtuous cycle created when this process starts - everyone starts talking about research and understanding how it's done. Let's try to tackle the opposing voice. What would you say to people who argue "We are researchers and we are training people, so we are then obsolete"? How do you see this affecting potential researcher job openings in the future?
Kathleen: I have to add a caveat. I think I had great success experimenting with democratization while working in the Nordics, and both you and I are based in Europe. I think the climate here is very different from other places - the most resistance I've seen is more from America, for example.
I think education costs a lot more there, and job security is a lot less - this comes into play. I was working in a culture with a lot of focus on collaboration, continuous learning, openness about sharing your practice, freedom to do your work the way you want, and no strict performance indicators or bonus schemes. Everyone's very relaxed and open to doing things outside their job description.
I think if you've invested tons in your education and are paying off massive student loans, maybe you're less inclined to share your practice with the threat that your job might be on the line if others feel confident they can do it without you.
At some point, everything seemed fine, and then someone came to me and said "I lost my job after I trained the designers how to do research." So I realized my experience is different in different places, cultures, and types of organizations.
Tina: Nothing to add on that - the privilege we have here is real. On the other side, I think in this conversation we've shown that with democratization, you can actually demonstrate how complex the work is. You can sell it through democratization because people with even a little self-reflection will see "I would have to learn a lot." I haven't met many arrogant people telling me "Your job is easy" after experiencing it themselves.
Going back to freedom - make yourself crisp, as we say in my language. Make yourself a good cookie that people want to chew on.
Julian: I love that one.
Tina: It's hard to explain when I'm translating from a Slavic language, but hopefully some people will understand.
Kathleen: All the Slovaks in the audience!
Julian: Make yourself crisp. I love it. To add to something Kathleen said - it's a different dynamic here in Europe in both senses. I understand the education aspect, and also teams tend to be larger in other parts of the world. In North America, companies might have 15-20 researchers, but in Europe that's not as common. Even large companies here often have small research teams, and hiring happens much slower.
Even if you're successful as a researcher, getting the second or third hire can take a year and a half. In some European countries, notice periods are three or four months. So imagine you're hiring - it's already a slow process taking 2-3 months, and then they say "Great, in four months I'll leave my job and join your company." That's eight months of waiting for a researcher. The pace here is completely different than in other parts of the world.
In some places it might be "Hey, more researchers! We'll bring in six researchers in two months." That doesn't happen in Europe. So if you don't democratize, you probably drown if there's appetite for research in your company. You have a million requests and need to do this out of survival.
This brings me to my last question. I always ask guests for three tips for researchers, but let's twist it and ask for three tips for setting guidelines for democratization at a company. What would you advise people who are thinking "I need to set this up or create a program"?
Tina: I'm definitely not a patient person, but I'm very persistent. That brings me to persistently mapping the organization and their hunger for research, and picking ambassadors. Going back to our conversation about extremes - it's neither no democratization or total democratization. We live in extreme times where everything is either this or that, but it's still a spectrum. Finding your spot and how you want to do it is definitely a good recipe.
And the last one comes from personal experience: don't democratize because you're close to burnout. That's exactly when you should be doing something else - maybe setting priorities or democratizing but not running studies. That's maybe the third piece of advice on what you're not supposed to do.
Kathleen: I feel your pain. Yes, but it happens, right? Especially for solo researchers when it's too much, democratization seems like the solution. That can be stressful.
My advice would be to start with people who are keen. Start small - don't make it big. Start with interested people. Second, find peers who are also thinking about doing it or have been doing it, and exchange ideas with them. Geek out with another researcher like we're doing here. It's worth talking about it a lot - how have you done it? What has worked? What hasn't? See if you can exchange templates or training material so we don't all have to create everything ourselves.
Last but not least, be kind to yourself. Don't push too much. It takes time. I've told researchers on my team "Oh yeah, just do this and then it will free up time for us to do other things." But it doesn't work that way - it takes a year or two to do it well. It's not "This quarter we'll do this and then after that, we'll have more time." So be kind to yourself and stay true to yourself.
Julian: Thank you both for the tips and for this beautiful conversation. I had a great time and hope you did too. Thanks everyone for tuning in. You can find us at finderstobuilders.com, on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. Stay tuned and see you next time.
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