How events help our user researchers collaborate

Niamh Smith, a fast stream User Researcher, and Nicole Cannon, a project manager, recently organised a User Research (UR) Collaboration Day in our Manchester Hub. They’ve written about their experiences hosting the event, which focused on collaborative research for Strategic Reference Architecture (SRA) User Researchers.

The purpose of the day was to facilitate and explore collaboration between user researchers in the SRA, strengthen the SRA UR community, and begin to build a holistic view of the intersection of SRA products.

During the morning sessions, we explored what collaborative research looks like for URs in the unique SRA space. We held an interactive session about what collaborative research looks like, and its specific importance to DWP. The microsite approach of the SRA inherently has a necessity for collaboration; combining expertise on user research projects facilitates a greater awareness of dependencies amongst products and avoids research duplication.

In exploring the different considerations when conducting collaborative research, we heard how UR’s within the community have already been putting these tactics into action. Amy Rebbeck presented on a cross cutting research project we’ve been working on, explaining the various methods and how we’re using secondary research where possible.

A crucial aspect of this session was identifying collaboration opportunities amongst the UR community present so that we can continue to collaborate after the event. Feedback from the day revealed that URs felt more confident in conducting collaborative research and identifying collaborative opportunities than they did prior to the session – success!

In the afternoon, we focused on a journey mapping activity to theorise how and where products could fit together in example scenarios. We encouraged the UR community to talk to each other about other products to get an understanding of how different products fit together in real life journeys, and better conceptualise how products interact.

This was done through an interactive session where we focused on specific benefit line journeys. URs placed their product functions on post-it notes and ordered them on a timeline to construct a real-life journey. Service line eligibility and scenarios were provided to help URs understand the context better.

This emphasised to us the value and importance of journey mapping moving forward. The session was a great way to get the community to think about their products from different perspectives, and in the context of the bigger, SRA picture.

The journey mapping activity enabled URs to better understand and identify opportunities for collaboration in the future and make connections across teams and the SRA UR Community. I’m really looking forward to planning similar events in the future.