ResearchOps 2.0 is brought to you by User Interviews—the only solution you need to recruit high-quality participants for any kind of research.

In just ten years, ResearchOps has transformed from an obscure Silicon Valley speciality into a vibrant global profession. Despite economic headwinds, ResearchOps roles are emerging across industries far beyond tech, and the field is evolving at breathtaking speed. But where have we come from, and where are we going?

In this five-part audio documentary, we’re exploring the past, present, and future of ResearchOps—and it’s exciting, fascinating, and, at times, pretty mindblowing stuff! Each episode features the voices of Cha Cha Club members, senior research leaders, and the smart minds behind User Interviews.

To scale up, tune in!

In This Episode

In this fifth and final—”awwww”, we hear you say—episode of ResearchOps 2.0, we’re turning the spotlight on the people of ResearchOps: the curious minds, problem-solvers, and system-builders who’ve made this profession what it is today. We’ll explore who they are, where they’ve come from, and what drives them to transform how organisations learn from their users.

If you’re a ResearchOps professional, this episode will make you feel seen and heard. If you’re a leader looking to hire a ResearchOps role, this episode will help you think differently about who might hire. And if you’re looking to transition into a ResearchOps career, this episode will give you a great sense of the skills you need and the incredible profession you’ll become a part of. Here’s what this episode covers:

(1.05) About this Episode(2.04) From Primate Welfare to ResearchOps: Daniel Gottlieb(4.58) From Fishery Engineering to ResearchOps: Luana Cruz(6.12) From Anthropology to ResearchOps: Garett Tsukada(7.17) A Smart Start at Adobe: Tim Toy and a Three-Piece Suit(9.38) A More ‘Traditional Route’ with Jared Forney(11.23) ‘Hired by a Detective’ with Mia Mishek (14.00) Levelling Up: Shaping Career Growth in ResearchOps(16.13) The (Soft) Skills That Make Someone Successful in ResearchOps(22.26) We Have a Lot to Learn from Product Management(24.28) ResearchOps Pros Iterate—Constantly(28.00) The Art of Convincing and Selling(30.40) The Reality of Burnout (And Ways to Manage It)(34.16) Knowing When to Say “No” AKA Strategy(39.29) Ask for Help(41.00) The Problem of Invisible Work—or Glue Work(43.08) Making the Invisible Visible: Marketing Tips and a Case Study from Okta(46.33) Everyone Has Impostor Syndrome—Even the Pros(54.00) End

This episode features Daniel Gottlieb, Head of Research Operations for Microsoft’s CoreAI; Luana Cruz, Research Operations at Itaú Unibanco; Garett Tsukada, Head of Customer Connect UX Research Operations at Intuit; Tim Toy, the Senior Manager for ResearchOps at Adobe; Jared Forney, Research Operations Principal at Okta; Mia Mishek, Senior UX ResearchOps Manager at Target; ResearchOps specialist, Lydia Iana; Carolyn Morgan, ResearchOps and Enablement Manager at Cisco; Sam Gager, Senior Director, XD Research—Enterprise, Developer, Associate, & Accelerator, Capital One; and Erin May, Chief Marketing Officer at User Interviews.

Things Mentioned

* Cha Cha Club—a members’ club for full-time ResearchOps professionals

* Lenny Rachitsky and Noam Segal. “How Tech Workers Really Feel about Work Right Now.” Lenny’s Newsletter. May 27, 2025.

* Research That Scales: The Research Operations Handbook (Rosenfeld, 2024) by Kate Towsey

* Tanya Reilly. “Being Glue.” No Idea Blog.

* Emma Boulton. “The Eight Pillars of User Research.” Medium. The ResearchOps Community, July 11, 2019.

* Kate Towsey. “A Framework for #WhatisResearchOps.” Medium. The ResearchOps Community, October 24, 2018.

Brought to You By

A Cha Cha Club production, sponsored by User Interviews—the only solution you need to recruit high-quality participants for any kind of research.

Credits

Produced and narrated by Kate Towsey. Co-produced with Cha Cha Club manager, Glenn Familton, and ResearchOps experts, Jenna Lombardo and Renato Venter.

Aria, the robotic voice, was generated by Soundly. Explore the music and (most) sounds featured in this episode via this Epidemic Sound playlist.

ResearchOps 2.0 is brought to you by User Interviews—the only solution you need to recruit high-quality participants for any kind of research.

In just ten years, ResearchOps has transformed from an obscure Silicon Valley speciality into a vibrant global profession. Despite economic headwinds, ResearchOps roles are emerging across industries far beyond tech, and the field is evolving at breathtaking speed. But where have we come from, and where are we going?

In this five-part audio documentary, we’re exploring the past, present, and future of ResearchOps—and it’s exciting, fascinating, and, at times, pretty mindblowing stuff! Each episode features the voices of Cha Cha Club members, senior research leaders, and the smart minds behind User Interviews—the only solution you need to recruit high-quality participants for any kind of research.

To scale up; tune in.

In This Episode

In this fourth and penultimate episode of ResearchOps 2.0, we’re exploring a timely topic: how to build enduring research systems even when change seems to be the order of the day—every day. You’ll learn top tips from people who’ve managed to ride the winds of change and evolve to deliver successful research operations. Here’s what this episode covers:

(1.08) About this Episode

(2.12) Change Isn’t the Exception, It’s the Rule

(4.52) The Elephant-in-the-Room Topic: Layoffs

(10.39) Layoffs Impacted People All over the World

(11.55) Layoffs from an Economics Point of View

(16.30) But Layoffs Are Only One Form of Change

(20.18) A Real-World Transformation at LinkedIn: Taking an Initiative-First Approach

24.05) Attach Yourself to Interesting Problems, Not Solutions

(25.25) You Must Deeply Understand the Business: ‘Read the Tea Leaves’ of the Organisation

(29.00) Work on the Highest Priority; The Biggest Bang for Buck

(31.24) Carolyn’s Top Tip: ‘Businessfy’ Your Work

(33.11) Enable People to Own Things on Their Own

(35.00) Build Adaptability Into Your Research Systems

(37.45) Setting Healthy Boundaries to Manage Constant Change

(40.16) Good Relationship Building Can Help You Manage Change

(41.18) Make Invisible Work Visible

(43.19) Managing the Human Cost of Constant Change: Building Resilience Within Yourself

(47.03) About the Next, Final Episode of ResearchOps 2.0

(48.35) End

This episode features Luana Cruz, Research Operations at Itaú Unibanco; Lexi Breitz, the Director for Research and Customer Insight at Headway; Mia Mishek, Senior UX ResearchOps Manager at Target; Carolyn Morgan, ResearchOps and Enablement Manager at Cisco; Lydia Iana, a ResearchOps specialist; Noel Lamb, the Senior Manager for ResearchOps at ServiceNow; Tim Toy, the Senior Manager for ResearchOps at Adobe; Rodrigo Dalcin, the Staff User Experience ResearchOps at Wealthsimple; Kalee Dankner, the Senior Manager for ResearchOps at LinkedIn; Carina Cook, Director of Product Insights and Operations (ESPN BET/theScore) at PENN Entertainment, Inc.; and Dennis Meng, the co-founder and CPO of User Interviews. What a lineup!

Things Mentioned

- Cha Cha Club—a members’ club for full-time ResearchOps professionals.

- ‘The 2025 Research Budget Report’ by User Interviews

About the Next Episode

The next and final episode of this series drops on October 14th, and it’s dedicated to the people of ResearchOps: the diverse, smart, and incredibly authentic people who make ResearchOps what it is. We’ll cover major themes like burnout, making invisible work visible, and layoffs—the human stuff that’s defined our experience of ResearchOps over the past decade.

Subscribe to The ResearchOps Review to get smart thinking all about ResearchOps delivered straight to your email inbox.

Brought to You By

A Cha Cha Club production, sponsored by User Interviews—the only solution you need to recruit high-quality participants for any kind of research.

Credits

Produced and narrated by Kate Towsey. Co-produced with Cha Cha Club manager, Glenn Familton, and ResearchOps experts, Jenna Lombardo and Renato Venter.

Aria, the robotic voice, was generated by Soundly. Explore the music and (most) sounds featured in this episode via this Epidemic Sound playlist.

ResearchOps 2.0 is brought to you by User Interviews—the only solution you need to recruit high-quality participants for any kind of research.

In just ten years, ResearchOps has transformed from an obscure Silicon Valley speciality into a vibrant global profession. Despite economic headwinds, ResearchOps roles are emerging across industries far beyond tech, and the field is evolving at breathtaking speed. But where have we come from, and where are we going?

In this five-part audio documentary, we’re exploring the past, present, and future of ResearchOps—and it’s exciting, fascinating, and, at times, pretty mindblowing stuff! Each episode features the voices of Cha Cha Club members, senior research leaders, and the smart minds behind User Interviews—the only solution you need to recruit high-quality participants for any kind of research.

To scale up; tune in.

In This Episode

In this third episode, we’re diving into the importance of taking a platform approach to ResearchOps. But “what is a platform approach?” you might ask.

(1.08) About this Episode

(1.49) At the Intersection of Art, Technology, Research, and Design

(3.57) But What Is a Research Platform?

(6.04) Case Study No. 1: Intuit’s Data Validation Tool

(9.06) Building Custom Features to Meet Unique Business Needs

(10.29) Case Study No. 2: An Insights Platform at IBM

(12.07) Creating an Impact Long Into the Future and Well Beyond Your Immediate Team

(13.23) The Network Effect of a Research Platform—and Massive Scalability

(14.24) A Platform Needn’t Be a Huge Technical Investment

(16.41) Fostering an Integration Between People, the Business’s Goals, and Research Goals, Too

(19.57) Making the Shift from a Full-Service Operating Model to a Platform Approach

(21.51) A Platform Must Be a Win-Win-Win

(24.30) The Pros and Cons of a Platform Approach

(27.43) All-in-One Versus Best-in-Class Tools

(28.50) Platforms as Water Coolers Versus Filing Cabinets

(30.54) Walled Gardens and Capitalising on Your Own Data

(32.03) Choose Your Platform Partners Well

(34.41) The New Skills We Need to ‘Platformize’ Things

(38.12) A Super-Inspiring Moment with Garett

(39.30) What’s the Opposite of a Research Platform? Hint: It’s Not the ‘F-Word’: Fire Drills.

(41.18) Casey, What's the Future Research Platform of Your Dreams? (And He Lit Up.)

(43.27) Garett Wraps up with the Most Motivating Quote Ever!

(45.57) End

This episode features Casey Gollan, Garett Tsukada, Carina Cook, Lexi Breitz, and Basel Fakhoury.

The next episode drops on September 30th, and it’s all about building robust ResearchOps systems in the midst of constant change—advice that everyone needs.

Subscribe to The ResearchOps Review to get smart thinking all about ResearchOps delivered straight to your email inbox.

Brought to You By

A Cha Cha Club production, sponsored by User Interviews—the only solution you need to recruit high-quality participants for any kind of research.

Credits

Produced and narrated by Kate Towsey. Co-produced with Cha Cha Club manager, Glenn Familton, and ResearchOps experts, Jenna Lombardo and Renato Venter.

Aria, the robotic voice, was generated by Soundly. Explore the music and (most) sounds featured in this episode via this Epidemic Sound playlist.

ResearchOps 2.0 is brought to you by User Interviews—the only solution you need to recruit high-quality participants for any kind of research.

In just ten years, ResearchOps has transformed from an obscure Silicon Valley speciality into a vibrant global profession. Despite economic headwinds, ResearchOps roles are emerging across industries far beyond tech, and the field is evolving at breathtaking speed. But where have we come from, and where are we going?

In this five-part audio documentary, we’ll explore the past, present, and, most important of all, the future of ResearchOps—and it’s exciting, fascinating, and, at times, pretty mindblowing! Each episode features the voices of Cha Cha Club members, senior research leaders, and the smart minds behind User Interviews—the only solution you need to recruit high-quality participants for any kind of research.

To scale up; tune in.

In This Episode

In this second episode, we’ll explore how ResearchOps professionals are approaching AI today and what the future holds. Expect several unique case studies, ranging from knowledge management and sensemaking to participant recruitment, as well as mind-boggling concepts on how AI may impact the future of ResearchOps. Never mind AI research moderators. What about AI as genuine research participants?!

(1.08) About this Episode

(1.33) Introducing the AI Narrator

(3.00) Whoops! When AI Gets Things Wrong.

(5.46) We Must Embrace AI: Learning to Work with Its Flaws

(8.00) What You Put in Dictates What You Get Out

(11.34) Steve Jobs: You Gotta Start with the Customer Experience

(13.56) Primary Use Cases for AI in Research

(14.40) Case Study No. 1: Repositories and Sensemaking

(18.32) AI for Sensemaking at Microsoft

(21.09) Case Study No. 2: Research Mentorship and Support

(24.08) Is This the End of Research Templates?

(25.11) Could AI Be Used as a Research Moderation Coach?

(27.03) AI, the Career Guidance Coach

(28.45) Case Study No. 3: Making the Dream of Fast Participant Recruitment a Reality

(30.16) Identifying Bad Actors and Fighting Fraud

(30.56) Making the Most of an Avalanche of Data

(33.35) The Dawn of AI Moderators: A Terrifying Quantity of Data to Manage

(35.14) The Bombshell Topic: Synthetic Users

(38.27) Research Democratisation: AI Agents as Part of Product Teams

(38.27) Orchestrating AI Agents as Part of Product Teams

(44.13) Will AI Steal My ResearchOps Job?

(49.57) The Next Episode Is All About Taking a Platform Approach to Researchops

(51.23) End

This episode features Dennis Meng, Lexi Breitz, Rodrigo Dalcin, Basel Fakhoury, Brandi Amm, Tim Toy, Garett Tsukada, Daniel Gottlieb, Sam Gager, Casey Gollan, and Claude, the AI, prompted by Kate and narrated by Eleven Labs.

The next episode drops on September 16th, and it’s all about building research platforms for super-scaled-up impact. Subscribe to The ResearchOps Review to get smart thinking all about ResearchOps delivered straight to your email inbox.

Brought to You By

A Cha Cha Club production, sponsored by User Interviews—the only solution you need to recruit high-quality participants for any kind of research.

Credits

Produced and narrated by Kate Towsey. Co-produced with Cha Cha Club manager, Glenn Familton, and ResearchOps experts, Jenna Lombardo and Renato Venter.

The AI narrator’s parts were prompted by Kate, written by Claude, and narrated by Eleven Labs. Aria, the robotic voice, was generated by Soundly. Music and (most) sound effects featured in this episode were sourced from Epidemic Sound. Explore music and sounds via this Epidemic playlist.

ResearchOps 2.0 is brought to you by User Interviews—the only solution you need to recruit high-quality participants for any kind of research.

In just ten years, ResearchOps has transformed from an obscure Silicon Valley speciality into a vibrant global profession. Despite economic headwinds, ResearchOps roles are emerging across industries far beyond tech, and the field is evolving at breathtaking speed. But where have we come from, and where are we going?

In this five-part audio documentary, we’ll explore the past, present, and future of ResearchOps—it’s exciting, fascinating, and, at times, pretty mindblowing stuff! Each episode features the voices of Cha Cha Club members, senior research leaders, and the smart minds behind User Interviews—the only solution you need to recruit high-quality participants for any kind of research.

To scale up; tune in.

Subscribe to get sharp thinking all about ResearchOps delivered straight to your email inbox every two weeks.

In This Episode

In this first episode, we’ll take a whistle-stop tour of the history of ResearchOps, explore what’s driven its rapid evolution, and, in true 2.0 style, what the future holds.

(1.08) About this Episode(1.21) Introducing the ResearchOps Generational Framework(3.52) Gen1: The Lab Technicians and Administrators(6.30) The Evolution to Full-Service Participant Recruitment(9.35) The ResTech Revolution(13.00) Hello, Research Democratisation(14.40) Gen2: Research System Designers(17.19) A Push from the GDPR(20.00) Gen3: The Data Orchestrators and Knowledge Architects(24.00) Casey, the Platform Designer and Agent Architect(26.23) Orchestrating the Data Ecosystem(29.35) From Generalists to Super Specialists(32.40) The Age of AI: Vibe Operations(39.15) The Age of AI: Vibe Operations(42.19) The Next Episode Is All About Leveraging AI(43.49) End

This episode features Erin May, Lexi Breitz, Ph.D., Kalee Dankner, Tim Toy, Garett Tsukada, Noel Lamb, Sam Gager, Mia Mishek, Basel Fakhoury, Casey Gollan, Daniel Gottlieb, and Dennis Meng.

About the Next Episode

The next episode drops on September 2nd, and it’s all about leveraging AI for research superstardom. Subscribe to The ResearchOps Review to get smart thinking all about ResearchOps delivered straight to your email inbox.

Brought to You By

A Cha Cha Club production, sponsored by User Interviews—the only solution you need to recruit high-quality participants for any kind of research.

Credits

Produced and narrated by Kate Towsey. Co-produced with Cha Cha Club manager, Glenn Familton, and ResearchOps experts, Jenna Lombardo and Renato Venter.

Aria, the robotic voice, was generated by Soundly. Explore the music and (most) sounds featured in this episode via this Epidemic Sound playlist.