The 6 best practices to overcome cultural barriers and do proper research / Circle #08

Service Design Show

On episode 7 of the Service Design Show Adam Lawrence once said this.. "If you can only do one thing in the entire design process, do research." I don't have to convince you of the importance of proper user research. It's the lifeline of our work. Unfortunately in a lot of organisations research is still seen as something that just slows everything down. It can be hard to get buy-in and support to actually do proper research. Recently I sat down with the Circle community to discuss this challenge. And it quickly became clear that the struggle is real. Everyone in the community had their own story of how company culture stood in the way of them just doing their work. When started to look at the solutions and workarounds people had found to get over these cultural barriers, 6 best practices emerged. And in this episode the Show you're going to hear what these best practices are. What I enjoy about the Circle is that it's a space where people aren't afraid to share the dirty secrets of our work. It's a refreshing alternative to all the polished case studies we otherwise see. --- [ EPISODE GUIDE ] -— 00:00 Welcome to the Show 03:30 Who is Taylor 04:00 Who is Tim 05:00 What are cultural barriers 06:30 Evaluating services 09:45 Where are we today 12:00 The struggles 14:00 The consequences 18:15 Make it into a habit 21:00 Reframing what research is 21:30 Quantifying qualitative research 23:30 Don't ask for permission 28:15 Create psychological safety 30:45 Getting over egos 36:30 Identify your champions 41:15 Tools & budget 44:00 Closing thoughts --- [ CIRCLE ] -— Join our community of in-house service design professionals at the Circle. https://www.servicedesignshow.com/circle/