Kate Towsey, Research Ops guru, joined us for a Rally AMA on September 19 to discuss her brand-new book Research That Scales: The Research Operations Handbook. If you missed our live event, or want to revisit the highlights, read our recap below. If you’d like to watch a recording of the full AMA, follow this link.

Who is Kate?

I’ve done operations for years, starting in 2004 when a friend asked me to help with his e-commerce site, Vedic Books. I managed customer services and developed automated systems to streamline operations, which significantly reduced customer inquiries. Over time, I worked in several other e-commerce roles, including at a vegan e-commerce company and a yoga company, where I redesigned back-office and e-learning systems. My journey eventually led me into content strategy, which sparked my interest in systems and operations at a larger scale.

Later, I joined the Government Digital Service (GDS), where I helped tackle issues with research getting lost in the system. Together with Leisa Reichelt, I started the GDS User Research blog, I built the GDS user research lab, and then built several research labs across the UK, applying my systems thinking. I also procured Sugar CRM and customized it to meet GDS’s needs, which laid the foundation for my later work in Research Ops. This experience, along with growing interest from others, inspired me to start the ResearchOps Community and really get a movement going around it to try and understand, “What is this thing that we’re doing? What am I doing? What are all these people doing? And how do we give it some shape–a framework–,because it’s so obviously needed by the research profession?”

What were the early days of the ResearchOps Community like?

I want to preface this by saying I don’t run the ResearchOps Community anymore. That’s a big point of confusion for many people. I stepped away from it in 2019, and it’s been run by fantastic people since then. So, all the work you see over the last four years isn’t mine.

But in the early days, I began the community thinking, “Well, the 20-odd people who had been chatting with me over a few years will come and join me in my little Slack.”

Very quickly, I realized that was not going to be the case. The reality was hundreds of people were interested in this topic and joined. When there’s energy around something, I want to turn it into a tangible asset of some kind. When I saw there were 400 people interested and chatting, I thought, “Here’s an energy we can use to direct what it is we’re doing and understand what we’re all trying to accomplish.”

Within that group of 400, there were a number of people who were really proactive, like Brigette Metzler, Emma Boulton, Nishita Gill, and Andrew Maier. 

So I said, “Hey, let’s gather together.” In fact, Andrew came up with the idea of calling it the “cheese board” because we were the big cheeses of the ResearchOps Community. So we just became known as the cheese board, which stands to this day.

This is when we started to have conversations like, “Can we not do something to frame up what we, as researchers, need?” At that point, we were still primarily focused on researchers. Democratization was on the horizon but hadn’t quite arrived.

So we started to think, “What can we do to shape this up?” We came up with the idea of hosting workshops around the world. For me, it was really important that this wasn’t just a Euro or US-centric initiative. I’ve lived in Africa, I grew up there, I’ve lived in India, now in Australia, and I’m of UK descent. I’ve also spent a lot of time in America. So it was crucial to me that we involved people from all over the world.

That’s exactly what we did. I had countless phone calls with people in South Africa, India, and South America to make it a truly global movement. Out of that, the #WhatisResearchOps movement and the framework we created were born. I think we ended up hosting 32 workshops globally, run by people who volunteered their time. Hundreds of people came together to say, “What do we need from ResearchOps? What does it mean to us?” And the result was the #WhatisResearchOps framework.

What inspired you to write Research That Scales?

I wanted to capture what I know about ResearchOps. And I really went for it – it’s a big book, probably one of the thickest Rosenfeld Media has ever published!

But for me, there was also the personal challenge: “How do you write a book?” It’s something I’ve wanted to do for as long as I can remember. I wanted to learn how to write a good book. I spent a long time working with my editor, Marta, at Rosenfeld Media, learning about structure and how to put together something that reads well.

So, part of the inspiration was how to write a good book. I hope everyone who reads it will agree that I’ve managed to do that.

What does it mean to scale Research effectively? 

When I first started writing this book, in 2020, we were all flying around in premium economy, if not business class. Offices were amazing, money was flowing, and research was scaling like no one’s business. I was writing from this incredibly optimistic perspective.

Then, of course, February 2020 happened, and the world as we knew it shifted. The tech layoffs started, and the landscape of research changed dramatically. By 2023, research was being scaled back just as quickly as it had grown. And that made me think about what scaling research actually means.

I rewrote half of the book. Instead of delivering the ABCs of ResearchOps and how to deliver excellent tooling, I stepped back and asked, “What does scaling research really mean?” Because we were descaling at such a rapid rate and we needed to think about how we could do things differently next time, so that when another economic shift happens – and it will – how do we become more resilient?

I have a cheeky chapter called “Research Does Not Scale–Systems Do.” The book is called Research That Scales, but I argue in that first chapter that research itself doesn’t scale, systems do.

What I mean is that when we talk about scaling, we’re talking about making something repeatable and proportional. For example, with a chocolate bar, you can figure out how many chocolate chips go into each bar, how to make them more efficiently, and how to produce more of them at a lower cost while maintaining quality. 

But research doesn’t work that way. Research is knowledge, and knowledge is only valuable when it’s in someone’s head and they believe in it enough to act on it. So, the challenge is, “How do we scale something that’s not tangible?”

I use the analogy of a house. A house is made out of many repeatable elements – bricks, wiring, light fittings – but an architect can take those same elements and create completely unique environments. That’s what we need to think about when we talk about scaling research. It’s not about repeating the same research over and over. It’s about creating systems that allow us to deliver unique research experiences using the same foundational elements.

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Recruitment is a great example. No two research studies are the same, even if you’re studying the same feature. One week, you might want to speak to people living with disabilities, and your recruitment process will be completely different than the next week when you want to speak to able-bodied participants. The job of operations is to step back and figure out what the repeatable elements are that we can use to deliver unique research experiences efficiently and at scale.

What is the most important mindset shift for both new and experienced ResearchOps professionals?

Learning how to step back and think about how all the pieces fit together before diving in. For example, someone might say, “Fix participant recruitment,” which is one of the most common tasks, or “Build us a library.”

These are what I call knee-jerk operations, where people rush to procure a tool without fully thinking through the entire picture of what needs to happen. The book gives a series of frameworks to help with this. You should only need to read my book once because I’m aiming to retrain your mind to think operationally as you go through it. 

You need to step back and look at the entire picture involved. 

• Why are you doing this? 
• What are you specifically trying to achieve? (This ties into Chapter Two, which is all about strategy.)
• What’s the research strategy? 
• What’s the strategy for your operations? 
• What do you want to achieve with something like a library? 

Don’t just build a library – understand if it’s meant to speak to the C-suite, or to a particular segment, or if there’s a specific type of research you want to highlight.

Once you’ve decided why and what you’re going to do, you can be specific, and that’s the mark of a good system – specificity allows for solid planning. What often happens is people rush to procure a tool without realizing the amount of work involved in research operations, such as dealing with privacy, ethics, archiving, and information management. Then there’s the need for training people to use these tools.

Can you explain your Venn Diagram of ResearchOps?

In the book, I share what I call the Venn Diagram of ResearchOps, where I outline eight elements: participant recruitment, knowledge management, onboarding and support, tools and vendors, ethics and privacy, money and metrics, program management, and people and skills. All these elements are connected. You can’t touch one without involving the others.

The ReOps Planning Matrix in the book helps plan across all these elements and figure out what can be reused or automated, and what the “keep the lights on” tasks will be – the tasks you’ll always need to do to maintain the system over time. Over time, these “keep the lights on” tasks tend to pile up, and you end up constantly maintaining all the systems you’ve built.

So, I hope that after reading the book, people will be able to step back, plan realistically, and question why they’re doing something. This will help them deliver sustainable, scalable systems that support research in the long run.

What advice would you give to someone who’s new to ResearchOps and is looking to get started?

One of the big things is to dig into what the research organization wants to achieve. Speak to your manager and find out what’s at the top of their list – what’s frustrating them, what’s exciting them, and where the company is putting its energy.

I truly believe that strategy is an emotional thing. It’s not just cerebral or futuristic. Strategy should be written down, organized, and achievable, but the impetus for something becoming a strategic priority is often emotional. “This is annoying me,” or “This is blocking me.” That’s what drives people to focus on solving problems.

If you can figure out what’s causing frustration or excitement for your manager and team, you can focus on delivering that one thing really well. It might take 3 to 6 months to deliver a truly impactful, well-thought-out solution, but it will make a measurable difference. Once you can show that measurable impact, you’ll have buy-in for future (and perhaps much bigger) projects. There’s nothing wrong with starting small.

It’s about stepping back and looking at the big picture, not just diving into the day-to-day tasks. Use frameworks like the ResearchOps Planning Matrix to map out the full scope of what’s involved in solving a problem, and then plan for sustainability.

How are effective ResearchOps teams organized? 

ResearchOps is still a young, fast-maturing profession, but we’re learning as we go. What happens sometimes is that teams hire a lot of administrators who do most of the day-to-day work, but they don’t necessarily have a senior leader or systems designer who can see the big picture and put a cohesive system in place.

The reality is that without that senior leader or systems designer, you end up with a lot of people administrating systems that haven’t been fully designed or thought through. So, the first thing to consider is hiring someone who can step back and design the full system – someone who understands what’s needed, how it all fits together, and what the workflows should be. That way, when you bring in people to administrate or manage the system, they’re working within a cohesive structure.

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I think this is where a lot of teams need to focus. Before you hire more researchers or administrators, hire a systems designer or service designer who can help put the infrastructure in place. Once you have that foundation, you can hire the right people to manage and maintain it.

You mention money and metrics in your book; what have you learned about that topic, and what advice do you have for ReOps professionals who are reading your book?

Money and metrics are huge. One of the quotes I have in the book is from Joe Biden, and I don’t often quote politicians, but it’s a good one! He says, “If you want to know where people’s priorities are, find out where the money is.”

It’s so true. If you want to figure out where to focus your energy, look at where the money is going. That’s where you’ll find the strategic priorities. So, part of it is about understanding how your company is investing and where you can align your work with that investment.

Another thing I’ve learned is that there’s often money left on the table at the end of the fiscal year – unspent budgets that departments don’t know what to do with. If you’re organized and have a project ready to go, you can scoop up that money and make a big impact. I’ve built labs, delivered projects, and done all sorts of things because I was organized and ready to spend leftover budgets.

It’s about being savvy and understanding how money flows in your organization, and then using that to your advantage to get things done.

What has been your biggest ‘aha’ moment or most delightful experience with the re-emergence of Research Operations?

The “aha” moment for me came a number of years ago when I realized we really need to ask ourselves: “What do we mean by the word research?” Writing a book can lead you down philosophical rabbit holes; before you know it, you’re reading Aristotle and Plato and wondering, “How did I get here?” 

The real aha moment for me was understanding that if we push away the jargon and assumed concepts about what research is, and look at it with fresh eyes as systems for learning, everything changes. The whole world opens up.

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There are so many external examples that can inform how we uniquely operate within our organizations – how we sell ideas, help people learn, and communicate in ways that build trust. Because, ultimately, people won’t act on knowledge unless they trust you. That was the big realization for me: I’m not just here to help people recruit faster or to build a library that looks nice and organized for a short while before it falls apart.

Research Operations is not just about setting up systems and waiting for them to work. It’s about creating a culture. I love community-building, and that’s exactly what you’re doing when you set up ResearchOps. It’s about thinking ahead: 

• What kind of culture do you want to build? 
• Who do you want to empower?
• How do you want them to feel while doing it?

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For me, that’s the real aha moment. It makes the work much more fun, more engaging than just administrating systems or becoming a concierge for others. You’re actually building something with long-term impact and substance.

Connect with Kate

If you enjoyed Kate’s AMA:

• Give her a follow on LinkedIn and say hello!
• Check out Kate’s website to learn more about her.
• Get your copy of Kate’s book Research That Scales: The Research Operations Handbook.
• Read even more from Kate on her Medium or Substack.

Thank you, Kate!

It was an absolute pleasure to have Kate join us and we’re so grateful for her willingness to share her time, insights, and experiences! If you’d like to watch the full AMA, follow this link.