Brett Krajewski [00:00:00]:
There's so much weight on what we produce and what we publish that it's gotta be digestible. I think the feel of failure there is, well, I have all this data. I need to include everything. And if you include everything, it's just word vomit. And there isn't a story. It's not strategic. It's. Well.

Brett Krajewski [00:00:15]:
But I asked these people all this stuff. I need to put this somewhere. Well, like, what are you trying to say, right? What's your elevator pitch? What point do you want to get across?

Erin May [00:00:24]:
Hey, this is Erin May, and this is Carol Guest. And this is Awkward Silences. Awkward Silences is brought to you by User Interviews, the fastest way to recruit targeted, high quality participants for any kind of research. Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Awkward Silences. Today we're here with Brett Krajewski. Brett's the VP of research and growth at Accelerant Research, and you have a really cool background leading design and research at Lowe's, at Walmart, now on the agency side, working with a variety of different kinds of clients. And we are so excited to have you here today to talk about design thinking and maybe some things that have gone wrong in practice and how research can actually be a big part of the solution. So, so happy to have you here, Brett.

Brett Krajewski [00:01:16]:
Yeah, excited. Thanks for the invite. Appreciate it.

Erin May [00:01:18]:
Awesome. We've got Carol here, too.

Carol Guest [00:01:20]:
Great to have you, Brett. Excited to jump in.

Erin May [00:01:22]:
All right, let's do it. Well, Brett, before we get into the meat of everything, maybe you could tell us just a little bit about your background and how you got into the role you're in now.

Brett Krajewski [00:01:30]:
Yeah, I think it's a culmination of all the things I've done throughout my career that has kind of pushed me into this, you know, giving some advice to more junior staff that we have at Accelerant or even just throughout the industry. You know, really telling them to do their stint on the agency side, you know, do their two to three years, get the repetition, the exposure, the ability to touch a bunch of different stuff in the product lifecycle. And that's where I started a company called User Centric and what became GfK, which is now Ipsos in doing my beginnings there and really coming up through the ranks, and then moved over to in house and at Lowe's and then Walmart and then back to agency. But prior to coming to this specific agency, I've known Bill McDowell, our CEO for roughly eight to 10 years. And he kind of gave me the advice of, you know, be intentional, know what you want to do. And what you want to go into the role having, and then, you know, when you do your time, there's a job waiting for you and you know, whatever you want that to be and however you want to create that. Let's figure that out. So lucky to and fortunate to have someone that believed in me way, way back and kind of set me up and bring me in and take me under his wing.

Erin May [00:02:33]:
Yeah. Awesome. It's an interesting aspect of a career trajectory at the beginning. I don't know about you, but it's like, I just want to find a job and get this thing started. And then you kind of mature and then you have lots of options. So you have a different problem but a better one to have.

Brett Krajewski [00:02:47]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Erin May [00:02:48]:
Awesome. All right, so where along the way did you kind of start to notice some of the challenges that were happening and how design thinking, you know, gets tackled in real life?

Brett Krajewski [00:02:58]:
Yeah, I mean, I think my shift from agency to in house, that was like the biggest eye opener when I moved to Lowe's and then when I moved over to Walmart, you know, different maturities, different cultures, different flavors of how they utilized research and design or even the cross functional teams, which, you know, is amazing in its own right of what I was able to take or like the different. I equate it to like the U.S. right. And Lowe's is a different state to what Walmart was. And it has its own culture, it has its own personality, which is really cool. But with that comes, you know, different challenges and obviously advantages of the maturity, the budgets, the ability to do the type of research we were doing. And in terms of my time at Lowe's, you know, it was really a one for one. So I had a designer and a researcher on both of my teams on all of the projects.

Brett Krajewski [00:03:44]:
And we were able to translate like all these data findings into conceptual like designs and bring the imagery to life or bring the insights to life, which was awesome. At Walmart, we weren't as fortunate to have a large enough team to service everything. So it was more, you know, the ability to do more with less. And that's where it was a little bit more eye opening of how do we do more with less. Right. And you know, there's an overemphasis on just speed and outputs versus outcomes. And that was more of that eye opener. Around that 2022 mark of budgets started getting shrunk, things started getting cut back in.

Brett Krajewski [00:04:20]:
You know, how do we figure out how to service a Fortune 1 company with the staff or the resources that we have?

Erin May [00:04:26]:
Yeah. And is this something you've seen? I know you've worked on the agency side quite a bit. Is that something you've seen kind of play out across clients as well?

Brett Krajewski [00:04:34]:
Yeah. Right. I'm sure you guys see it as well. Back in the day, 2016, 2018, around that time frame, it was such a polarized difference between the west coast and the east coast. And the west coast is very much like a churn model of just pulling push things out. Right. The metas, the Googles of the world that were we were working with and it was how can I do more and just make things a little bit more optimized versus the East Coast. It was a lot more handholding and education and showing people what UX was or what research was and how to utilize it.

Brett Krajewski [00:05:01]:
Right. They're so much more familiar with traditional market research and stat sig and large sample sizes. So, you know, the educational element. But then also, you know, that's the fun part about my role now. It's being able to flex and become that. The thing I love about accelerant is, you know, we can kind of slot in and be this different entity or this different agency depending on the client. Right. So, you know, we have a major automotive client that we met with this morning and you know, like they might just use us as a research ops only for this subset of what they do.

Brett Krajewski [00:05:31]:
And then this other part we're doing full service and you know, another part we're embedded and you know, they're asking for opinions about their staff and how to grow their team and reviews and you know, really being an embedded in a collaborator as an agency versus just ad hoc work. And that's where I see the value. That's what I enjoy is being more strategic. And then I also think that's kind of the topic that we're talking about today. It's how can it morph to something more strategic and more thoughtful than just outputs and pushing things along. Right.

Carol Guest [00:06:02]:
So two things just playing it back that I'm hearing you say. One is a difference between the west coast and the east coast. And maybe what we prioritize so, or maybe this is more in the past, but more of an understanding of UX versus more familiarity with maybe the quant side on the east Coast, I think is a piece that I'm hearing you say, and then also a shift over time, which we certainly heard, especially since 2022, with a real shift toward, you know, impact outcomes away from pure outputs. Is that right? Are there other things that other changes you've noticed.

Brett Krajewski [00:06:30]:
Yeah. I mean we just collaborated on something with you guys at user interviews. Right. With Trevor. He put up a blog article and we just hosted that webinar last week about measuring the ROI of ux and so timely, especially you know that conversation we're Talking about that 2022 when it started turning into, you know, what the recession was and a lot of these major companies just getting rid of roles and we need to start justifying like what we're doing and how it kind of moves that bottom line. Right. And then why these roles are prioritized. The other part of the east versus west coast, the beef that always existed.

Brett Krajewski [00:07:05]:
I think it's interesting now that there's almost like a turning point in our industry where at least that's in the past as a hiring manager and even now as I try to add to my team, it's how can I find someone that is that unicorn that understands like what the quant world is and how to do more quantitative methods such as conjoints or max dips versus also having that ability to mash the art and the science. That is what more qualitative is. Right. So putting your own flavor, putting your own spin, putting your own personality on that qualitative research as a moderator to extract those really rich in depth and insightful findings. Right. And the so what behind what we do?

Erin May [00:07:46]:
So I'm loving the east coast, west coast research. I did not know that this was a thing. I love it. That's good to know. Maybe we could talk about some of the specific challenges that you've seen and some of the solutions that you've seen work. I think that'll be really interesting to folks.

Brett Krajewski [00:08:00]:
One of the biggest issues that I saw is like the gatekeeping or like the silo of what UX has been or what research specifically has been. You know, we do such great work and I always give the example of like, hey, I can design a button for world peace, but it's in Japanese and I don't speak Japanese and I put it on a webpage and you're never going to click it. So same thing of what we do. It's, you know, we can do all this great and meaty research and really make change and make experiences people love. But if it's not actionable or it's not put out there or it's hidden behind different org charts and infrastructures or not the roadshow isn't going on, then it really doesn't do much. Right. So both in large and small orgs, as well, as an agency and in house, crucial to get that exposure, crucial to be able to make those advocates and have friends cross the aisle, right? That almost that bipartisan action of like, how do we translate to our product folks? How do we translate to our business stakeholders, engineering developers, et cetera, of like, you know, this is the value and this is what we can do and this is why it's helpful to the overall business. But also like translating the research and the designs into developments, that was a major thing at my time at Lowe's that we couldn't crack at times.

Brett Krajewski [00:09:09]:
And then we finally started having those collaborative environments and saying like, hey, this is actually what we mean. Can we bring this to life in this way versus just the cookie cutter, the templatize, the low effort. Like we need to spend some time, energy, money, you know, hours to develop this stuff, to make it what we want to make it, right?

Carol Guest [00:09:27]:
What do you find works in terms of either as a, as an agency or in house? What are some of the tools that you use to break down those silos?

Brett Krajewski [00:09:35]:
I think the big thing is it's not our job. That was always what I preached with my team. It's not our job, but go figure it out and let's go ask the question, right? Who better than a researcher to ask the question why? And keep asking how to connect those dots. So I think that is one aspect of curiosity and always being curious, always trying to learn. During my end of my tenure at Walmart, you know, stood up a little mini action team with a couple of researchers and we started doing product certs and understanding how do we translate what we know into the product speak. And in order to do that, I need to learn how to do that and I need to go immerse myself in their world to better understand how I can translate my findings, my insights, my language to them. You know, another example of that is in automotive. We have a lot of automotive engineers, human factors engineers that are in that space and so black and white and, you know, whether they call a radio and all that stuff an infotainment system and the labels on some of the buttons and it's just not intuitive.

Brett Krajewski [00:10:32]:
And that was a lot of the time. We were doing a lot of distracted driver stuff early in my career when I was in that auto space. And obviously, you know, if you don't know what the button's called or where it's going to go, it's going to take you longer to find that. So just being able to translate, empathize and then try to Build that empathy. So like always staying curious, right? Huge TED Lasso fan. So like stay curious. Judgmental, right? That's a big learning and then trying to build that empathy. We did this at Walmart.

Brett Krajewski [00:10:58]:
We did this while I was on the agency side too. Is that like immersive activities where whether it's bringing them into those sessions and they can have that first glance viewpoint of like hey, customers are saying this or your user is saying this. Wow, that's eye opening, right? Those little tidbits, those sizzle reels, all that kind of stuff. And then also doing our homework and the earnest is also on us of how do we make our stuff more actionable, how do we start translating to our business and our product folks? Not a fair world that we have to do all the work, but if we want to make it impactful and also start climbing the ranks and having that seat at the table, I think that's the ultimate goal.

Erin May [00:11:35]:
Yeah, sounds like a little bit of what you're talking about is kind of extending where research ends and really what's going to happen with it. Of course important to making an impact. And then that stakeholder empathy of what is the ways in which this research, these insights are going to be shared or even designing the research itself from the beginning, right. Such that that impact is going to be possible. Understanding the priorities of the PMs and the designers and developers and so on.

Brett Krajewski [00:12:02]:
The UX of our ux, right. Like you know, what is our report and how is it being digested and what do we need to do to make that easier? You know, like the efficiency, the optimization, all that kind of stuff, the strategy, the different layers that we look at and how do we do that and how do we make that a little bit more clear on what we produce. Right. So I think like that first real thing is how do we integrate, how do we have that holistic integration and that exists, you know, within large design orgs that exist across cross functional teams and to be able to actually have that seat at the table, be able to speak, be able to be heard, but be able to translate. Right. I think that next element kind of leads to a good segue to like the over reliance on singular insights. You know, I'm a big component of that and hoping and trying and hearing this week if I can get accepted for a TED talk. But the triangulation of multiple different insights within UX and it's not just a silver bullet, right.

Brett Krajewski [00:12:55]:
I think at times a lot of these less research mature orgs tend to focus on you know statsig or market research insights or you know, like some more traditional flavor of what research is. It lacked respect for the qualitative research and smaller sample sizes and what their role is, how that's paired with quant, how that's paired with behavioral sciences and some of the newer brainwave technology that they're doing or eye tracking or looking at that kind of components and kind of packaging all together as well as secondary research and competitive analysis and internal metrics that our product folks are super fixated on because that's success for them. How do you increase conversion? Well, you got to do all these other things, one plus one equals two and you're just doing too. So like how do we do all that and make that math problem make sense? Right.

Erin May [00:13:44]:
I imagine part of why the quant is appealing. This is the east coast, right? We like the quant.

Brett Krajewski [00:13:50]:
Maybe it's a beef that I have in my head.

Erin May [00:13:52]:
No, I love it. I'm here for it. Okay? It's objective, it's clear, it's, you know, it's not gray, black and white, easy to understand or well, maybe it's not, but let's just say it is. You know, you talk about mixed methods, triangulating data sources, right? Right tool for the right job. How do you take that approach which makes good sense but bring that simplicity to it, that clarity of insight. And here's what we should do now.

Brett Krajewski [00:14:17]:
We like a good, better, best, right? Like I can give you the Rolls Royce of research and I would love to do that, but realistically, like we don't have time for that. I mean at Walmart we moved at the speed of light and Walmart was drinking from a fire hose and a million fires. And what fire do you want to put out today? And it's a time suck, right? It's how do we do more with less. And you can do that good, better, best. But a lot of the time people don't have the budget, the timelines, there's dependencies. So we need to get this out before Q4 when we have code freeze and it's holiday. And how can you get this in the next month? Well, I have a good and I have a better. And we can pull those different levers of like I can decrease sample size or I can do something more gorilla testing or right testing or, or even just like pure method where it's a little bit, it doesn't lack the rigor necessarily, but it's more agile in nature versus something more all encompassing.

Brett Krajewski [00:15:05]:
And then that's when you Go to that point that we just hit on is it's not the over reliance on that one piece of data. So it is like it's a yes and right. It's a we'll do this, but then we're also going to do some desk research or secondary research and we'll look at our foundational research that we've had for eight to 10 years now, or all these other things that we're building up this story and then creating almost like a meta analysis of here's what we did today, here's what we've always done, and this is what our POV is. Great, we can go answer these questions now. We have four of the rabbit holes we got to go down. But that can wait during the Q4 when we can be a little bit more cautious and things aren't being produced or being developed during that time and we can really do more sinker teeth into that generative research. So I think the answer to it in a roundabout way is it's a never ending answer. It's a never ending game of, you know, there's, I guess, job security and the fact of there's always going to be more research to do on the research and there's always going to lead to more questions, but also being able to diversify our methodology and say, hey, we're hearing this and it translates to these research objectives and we can do these two really quick and we'll get stuff back to you within two weeks and then the next one is a little bit more longitudinal and that might be a month or two months, having those milestones and those touch points in between to have the little digestibility during a project.

Carol Guest [00:16:28]:
So you mentioned that different organizations, different coasts can have different natural tendencies in terms of what types of research they use. If I imagine you're talking to maybe your head of product and you're trying to convince them that we should add quant to this qual study or add qual to the quant or use a new method. Any techniques that you found work there?

Brett Krajewski [00:16:48]:
Yeah, interesting question. It really depends on maturity. You know, I have one client and she's a senior director over research and products at a major telecommunications firm and she loves to just nerd on on methods with me. And you know, we'll talk for hours on end during our calls and I'll go over about just methodology. So really I have to show up and be like, hey, this is what we're doing, why we're doing it, the justification, these are the sample sizes really go into Detail about the methodology. The other it's built off of the polar opposite. It's built off of rapport and trust. Right.

Brett Krajewski [00:17:20]:
It's how can we do these small things in order to build your trust? And coming from an agency side nowadays it's doing recruit only and research ops. Right. Hey, we can give you the cream of the crop and be able to do some research op stuff. And you know, that's why again at Accelerant we've partnered with user interviews to help solidify that and make sure, you know, Basil and our CEO Bill, having that communication of how do we show up for our clients in the best way. But then from there, you know, building that rapport, building that trust again, going off of that same automotive client that we talked to this morning, they're like, hey, you guys pass the beer test, right? Like we want to go have a beer with you. We trust that you know what you're doing. We also know that you're not just selling us research to sell us research. You know, there's a lot of companies out there now that whether they're VC backed or they have margins that they just can't compete with, it's almost they templatize it and they try to toss it out there and it's just round after round and really you needed two rounds versus the six.

Brett Krajewski [00:18:16]:
So why are we continuing to do that? Let's use the budget elsewhere. We try to treat it as our own. Right. And I think that comes from just the company and our brand of what we want to build. But also like the Walmart in me of hey, we operate on everyday low costs and everyday low prices and it's our money at the end of the day. And how can I make sure I can keep doing really good research and it doesn't cost us an arm and a leg to do it.

Erin May [00:18:38]:
Yeah. And I like that it applies both ways, right. In house versus agency of you're selling research either way. And like let's make sure that the research is and is perceived to be valuable and to not be a cost.

Brett Krajewski [00:18:50]:
Yeah. And what are they getting out of it? Right. So I think that was, you know, we talked early on about the stint in agency and then going into in house and knowing just the politics and being able to navigate that spear and not step on a landmine. And a lot of that is building that rapport and building that trust and being like, hey, like I understand that you were over fulfillment and you know, what are some metrics you need to hit? How can I help you Hit those and there's the weighing the user needs with the business needs. And I think as researchers that's where we're morphing into. And that strategy element of, you know, we've been so, I guess on our high horse about like user needs and advocating for users and that's extremely important, but not really balancing those scales of like, hey, we need to make the business money and at that same time, how do we prioritize the user and make it an experience that people love and cultivate that loyalty? A friend of mine is head of product over at yeti and that's exactly why she went over there, right? It's I love the brand. We're building an ecosystem, we're building a following. And there's certain brands that just come to mind about like they just have a cult following.

Brett Krajewski [00:19:54]:
Apple was that way. Big Simon Sinek fan and that's a big thing he talks about is you'll never see someone with a dirty Apple, you know, go have it clean. And obviously like that icon needs to be showing and shining. There's just a brand prestige about certain things and it stands for something more than just a user need. Right. There's a business need there too.

Erin May [00:20:12]:
Brett, tell us about more problems, problems and solutions.

Brett Krajewski [00:20:15]:
Yeah, I think we're hitting on the big thing is like do less with more. And you know, at times that deals with, you know, not making time for research. I think I see that a lot in design thinking of like it's put lipstick on a pig and ship. It is kind of what I equate it to. And research is that cog in the machine. Research is that time suck. And okay, I have to go do these user sessions and it's a checkbox and it's my leadership told me to do this versus how can we do research early and often and fail forward of now? We know all this criteria that we didn't know before which allows us to cultivate a better product that cultivates better experiences and really allocating the appropriate time. But then on that reverse, it's researchers showing up to the table and saying like, hey, what is that good, better, best? Like, I don't need to do a dissertation level research methodology.

Brett Krajewski [00:21:07]:
How can I make sure that I compare it down that it's scalable in these Fortune 500 companies? And I think that's where I see a lot of more junior researchers struggle where they'll continue to turn their wheels, they'll not meet deadlines because it's just, hey, there's always something more there's always another question, when do you stop? When you prioritize. And that goes back to kind of what we talked about with the business goals of like these are the core goals. And this is how I start writing and formulating my report in my mind. And that's where I need to kind of get those things out the door versus I can keep asking why? Right. You can be that five year old kid, why, why, why? Constantly. But it stops somewhere. And in order to make sure that research is prioritized, research is in that cog in the machine and it isn't perceived as that time suck to that. It's just going to be that halt and we're not going to get anything done because of that.

Brett Krajewski [00:21:55]:
Right. And I think that exists from those other disciplines, not just our product and our business org or you know, those that are more product centric. It's also existing from what I've seen in design where a big thing was we have maybe two to three weeks, we don't have months. And some of this research might have to take months. But what can I do in those two to three week time frame that I can give you answers and start trickling down those insights as we get them, you know, in a less formalized way. And then when we show up to that executive meeting or those executive presentations, my report's done. Your design is now done because you've been able to move with speed. And it's not a go off in a silo and then come back in.

Brett Krajewski [00:22:33]:
It's that integration and that collaboration with our partners.

Carol Guest [00:22:36]:
Yeah, we often hear about this idea that research can sometimes move at a different speed than product development, which is a situation you don't want to be in.

Brett Krajewski [00:22:43]:
Right.

Carol Guest [00:22:43]:
Where like the research cycle is really long and product development has moved on without you. And it sounds like maybe part of what you're suggesting here is when you're putting together, you're pulled into support to do research on a product development process, making sure that you're providing sort of like a menu of like faster turnaround and longer turnaround projects. Or maybe there's one that continues. Is that what you're describing and how actually do you have those conversations?

Brett Krajewski [00:23:07]:
Yeah, absolutely right. I think it's similar to, you know, what you said, all these different steps. There's no step to go in of like A, B, C, D. Right. It's more of a how do we do this all at once and how do we build up that rapport in order to have these conversations, but then also have a seat at the table and then make sure we're thorough enough that we're doing the right research. It's that constant juggling act and prioritization and reading between the lines and connecting the dots that I think that's what I look for as I hire researchers. It's like, hey, it's not your job, but are you proactive and do you have that grit and do you have all the unteachable skills to go do that? Versus like, I can teach you to be a researcher, I can teach you methodologies, I can teach you that stuff. And it's really critical thinking skills, right? I think a lot of that, I guess, going on, on different tangents, like, it's a lot of those critical thinking skills to be able to understand when to use those different soft or hard skills or technical skills and make that judgment, to be able to have that conversation of like, I hear what you're saying and I just need to go do this because there's this bottom line that we need to move and it's not worth fighting over versus, hey, I have that rapport with you and I can push back and say, I understand the questions and objectives you're saying, but really you're trying to say this over here.

Brett Krajewski [00:24:21]:
And this is this kind of methodology that leans more towards a simple monadic survey or something along those lines, right? Versus, you know, a whole diary into ideas and Personas and journey mapping and all that great stuff that we all love to do as researchers, but a lot of the time there's not time to do it. So again, building that rapport and then having that judgment to kind of go in and say, like, when is it worth fighting for it in order to make sure that we can make it actionable in the long term.

Erin May [00:24:49]:
Awkward interruption. This episode of awkward silences, like every episode of Awkward Silences is brought to you by User interviews.

Carol Guest [00:24:57]:
We know that finding participants for research is hard. User interviews is the fastest way to recruit targeted, high quality participants for any kind of research. We're not a testing platform. Instead, we're fully focused on making sure you can get just in time insights for your product development, business strategy, marketing, and more.

Erin May [00:25:14]:
Go to userinterviews.com awkward to get your first three participants free. I'm picturing a flowchart right of, you know, because we think a lot about what are the right methods, what's the right study design. To your point, you're talking about taking a really pragmatic approach of, well, here's my best option. But we've got constraints, time, budget, et cetera. So I'm going to have a menu arrange here. But then this angle of we're in the business of persuasion, of selling our ideas of what we think is best to our internal stakeholders. And how am I going to do that? Is that going to be a functional technical conversation or is that going to be an EQ kind of conversation? So I think that's an interesting way to think about that. Not to get what you want, but to get obviously what's best right for the business, for delivering the best insights, to build the best products.

Brett Krajewski [00:26:03]:
Yeah, I really liked your point there about eq. I think where we're seeing a lot of researchers struggle or as I talk to different researchers in the community and hearing about what they're looking for in their next role or being laid off from one of these tech companies or whatever, there been an over index of just doers, right? And it's a, hey, I do this methodology and I execute it and I get this insight and it's very much insight to report versus the EQ of how do I take it further? How do I understand the justification and the why behind not only why I'm doing it, but why this work is being commissioned. And it's less about just executing our methodologies. That might be kind of some of more the old way of thinking, but now like how do I integrate and how do I connect and how do I kind of, you know, all those corporate jargon have moved the needle forward and all that great stuff of building rapport and you know, building up, I guess, my walls to make sure I'm defensible, but also doing the right thing for not just the organization, the company, the user, the business, etc. And it's hard. There's at times it's a losing game and there's hard days and then there's other times that you're, you know, Cloud nine and you know, you just did an amazing session back towards, in my time at Lowe's, we realized like the business need was how do we push product, right? And that was kind of what business said to us is, hey, we're coming to holiday. How do we start pushing out more product, like relevant product to Christmas trees and all this other stuff that Lowe's sold. But then it was, you know, like the project was called Lowe's Ready and it was looking at Lowe's preparation, response during these natural events or natural disaster events, and then the response to those events as well.

Brett Krajewski [00:27:40]:
And at that time there is, I think, flooding or Tornadoes in Kentucky area. That was like one of the major natural disasters at that time. And obviously now with the fires going on in California, I'm in North Carolina, so western North Carolina, the hurricane that came through there is super close to home. And Lowe's is in our community. And it's. How does Luz respond to that? And it was just so impactful and just, it was something to feel good about in that instance of like, you know, it's not just research to sell product, but it's more. How does Lowe's show up and. And had his Lowe's, you know, do the preparation beforehand and then do the preparation afterwards in order to be there for really a neighbor.

Brett Krajewski [00:28:17]:
Right. And you know, same thing with Walmart. And you know, I think we always hear this story during the time at Walmart of, you know, Hurricane Katrina happened and you know, our CEO at the time essentially said, like, hey, what are we doing? We're Walmart. We have the power to really just change something. And harnessing that entire power of a Fortune Global, one company to send aid and help down to New Orleans and the ability to do that. And that shifted Walmart's perspective from this, you know, global conglomerate to something that was more neighborhood focused. Right. And almost like a rebrand just based off of action and.

Brett Krajewski [00:28:52]:
Good.

Erin May [00:28:53]:
Awesome.

Carol Guest [00:28:54]:
So we talked about some of the, I think sort of like the greatest hits in dealing with stakeholder challenges. I would say in particular. Right. Getting a seat at the table, making sure that you're able to advocate for the right research methodology, qual quantum, making the right case for how much time to spend and how to be iterative about that. Any other challenges that come up on the sort of like stakeholder side or other, just challenges that you want to.

Brett Krajewski [00:29:15]:
Call out, I guess, one more for stakeholder side and then we can, you know, there's a couple other challenges that I think are important to call out. But, you know, the research budget aspect. Right. So do more with less was a big thing. You know, the return on investment or how do we show the roi? A lot of our stakeholders are asking us to like, hey, do that before we do research. Well, I can go back and you know, this is something we touched upon in Trevor's article as well. But you know, I can go back and calculate from past research, like what we did, but I can't tell you based off a projection and be confident in that. That's not research.

Brett Krajewski [00:29:47]:
Right. That's subjective opinion or projections that we can try to play in. But that's a dangerous game. And not something as researchers we really like to play in. So it's more, you know, going to our stakeholders and saying, like, hey, you have these questions and these issues and you know, what budget are you allocated? Like, I can do what I need to do. And we talked about like the Rolls Royce of research versus the good, better, best mentality and how to do that. But I think it's kind of siloing there of like, what is my budget? What can I do with that budget? How do I be creative? How do I use that critical thinking to be like, it's not just a cookie cutter process of just doing these couple steps. It is, does quant maybe answer two of these questions and it's a low cost and high reward and does Qual answer these others? And what is the depth? Can I do unmoderated into moderated? And can I treat the unmoderated as like a pseudo diary? Like, it's the fun Jenga game of being a researcher to create a research program that hasn't existed before.

Brett Krajewski [00:30:42]:
In quotes, I guess realistically, you know, we've done it all, but these programs that necessarily haven't really gotten together in these organizations and playing that game to put it together and be proud and try something for the first time. And that kind of leads to the fear of failure. I think, you know, the researchers I managed and mentored during my time at Walmart, you know, it's just a quick response off of stakeholder questions. And, you know, the response from my team was like, how do you think of that? Or how do you realize what they're asking that quickly? And it's like, well, I've done it and I've failed probably 20 times. And, you know, have, have felt like the stupidest person in the room. And that was the best feeling in the world because now I'm trying to be the stupidest person in another room of high executives, you know, but the feel of failure, the want to experiment and figure out, like, how can we continue to iterate and experiment and test often and test early and fail forward and all these things didn't work, but these others might. And that's kind of what we're looking for and what's going to lead to innovation. Right.

Brett Krajewski [00:31:44]:
I think, you know, that's leads to that final point of not just a design for accessibility, but also diversity. And the innovation really comes from all these outside thoughts and outside opinions. And, you know, I think research was so academic focused for such a long time. When I got started, the agency I started with, they wouldn't hire anyone without a master's and I don't have a master's. So, you know, it was more of a do I belong here? And always feeling like I was inadequate versus now it's, we have so many people that have come into the agency or in house space that went through a boot camp or don't even have a bachelor's or, you know, whatnot. And it's the life experience and it's the natural talent or just the ability to go on YouTube or go on podcasts like this and just listen to people within the industry and just immerse yourself and learn so much that, you know, you can really try to push the boundaries and that brings the diversity of thought, that brings the want to design for those that are have accessibility issues. Right. You know, when we first got on talking about, you know, the seeing eye and the guide dog stuff that I do in my personal life and how important that is for me, and, you know, taking that into my professional life and being able to design for those with cognitive impairments or vision and hearing impairments or mobility impairments, you know, that's something that we try to do during my time at Walmart is the accessibility design.

Brett Krajewski [00:33:05]:
And we started that with empathy sessions where we went to the stores during our yearly off site where we'd all go to Bentonville, Arkansas, and then we'd go into these stores split up in groups and they would be given different tasks, right, in simulating these different accessibility needs, such as, you know, you're a single mother and you know, you have two kids. So every time that you go off to the shelf, you have to wait 45 seconds before you can continue to move down your list to go get your things. And the realization of wow. A five minute shopping trip took me 45 minutes to go complete because I had to simulate that environment or different kinds of accessibility issues that those may face. Right. Again, neurodivergence. Walmart, during, I think Covid started to dim the lights, turn off the music during certain hours in order to accommodate those with neurodivergence and you know, such a small change that can do so much and help people. So I think the fear of failure, the diversity of thought, the inclusion and want to design for accessibility just helps further our space.

Brett Krajewski [00:34:06]:
And then similar to that final point is the immersion, the ability to not have the traditional route and be able to kind of jump into this space and learn on the job, but also listen to all these experts that are trying to put a lot of good out there. There's a friend of mine that leads up the UX team over at Hilton. And you know, she loves to go over to Europe just because of how inclusive and collaborative their seminars, their conferences are. And her big challenge to me was like, hey, you're in this agency space now. You need to bring that. You need to bring a lot of that collaboration. You need to just publish things that are free that people can go listen to or watch or just immerse themselves in and learn versus having to take a boot camp or get a degree or really have a piece of paper that proves that they're doing this.

Erin May [00:34:51]:
Thinking about the bringing the inclusion and accessibility research into things, I'm thinking about back to your good, better, best and how the accessibility research can be forgotten or left behind. I think less now than 10 years ago, 20 years ago, hopefully. Do you, I guess always seek to sort of include it in the good option or how does that fit in and how do you keep it from being a nice to have given the do more with less and the cutting of corners and these sorts of things?

Brett Krajewski [00:35:20]:
You hit the nail on the head, right? It's a nice to have for a lot of our clientele. You know, I think it's being pushed a lot, especially lately, but it's also a touchpoint, right? How do we continue to bring these things on to organizations, these Fortune 500 companies, and really push as an agency for like, hey, I know this isn't your first thought or these aren't early adopters in terms of your segmentation or whatever that might be, but if we push for this, you know, look at all the things you can do or all the good you can do. The other thing that we're doing at Accelerant Research is we're funding pro bono accessibility research, right? So partnering with girls on the run or different charities and utilizing some of our clients. So as Accelerant we are going to be funding all the participant recruit costs, all the incentive fees for quant quality research, whether it be a 15 minute survey or a 60 minute idea or a diary study. We'll be funding that pro bono and then utilizing some of our clientele and their researchers that are in house for those moderators or for that time to do analytics and report writing to give back to these nonprofits and giving them industry level research or research programs at zero to no cost. Right? So that's something we are super passionate about. Not just to be a major player in the space and also set the Southeast as like a major area for accessibility, but then also, you know, like, hey, we can do this. And we want to give back good to our industry and it doesn't really need to be from these Fortune 500 companies.

Brett Krajewski [00:36:48]:
Let's start doing that. And, you know, I think that's a good way for people to also get involved in the research space is how do you build your portfolio? How do you build your repetition and exposure to these different methodologies? Well, if you're going to volunteer to do pro bono research, like, we're more than happy to have you. Right. So it's the mutual beneficial of like, you know, come in and do this, use it for your portfolio, we'll fund it. But also, you know, it's something that's needed. And you're right. At times our clients aren't necessarily funding it or choosing it. Well, we're going to start doing that ourselves.

Erin May [00:37:20]:
Yeah, that's one way to get it done. Love that.

Carol Guest [00:37:22]:
To your point on fear of failure, just to jump in there a little bit, are there places where you find that researchers are more afraid of failing? Like, is it, you know, designing a methodology or I'm presenting insights and it's a big stakeholder presentation. I'm worried they're not going to feel. They're going to feel like things we already knew. Like what stands out most to you?

Brett Krajewski [00:37:42]:
Yeah, I think exactly those two points that you said. It's the how do I design something that has rigor but is also dealing with all the complexities of independencies that we talked about on this call. So, you know, like, how do I do something quick and rigorous and it's going to hold up at a executive level meeting. But then that last part, it's the, the deliverable. Right. There's so much weight on what we produce and what we publish that it's got to be digestible. I think the feel of failure there is. Well, I have all this data.

Brett Krajewski [00:38:13]:
I need to include everything. And if you include everything, it's just word vomit. And there isn't a story, it's not strategic, it's. Well, but I asked these people all this stuff. I need to put this somewhere. Well, like, what are you trying to say? Right. What's your elevator pitch? What point do you want to get across? Right. That is really vital to what research really stands for.

Brett Krajewski [00:38:30]:
It's the storytelling skills that, you know, we hinted at with some of this stuff and in terms of the strategy, but that's where I think it's not necessarily a job role or something that is asked of research. But it's so necessary to grow as a researcher. Because again, if we can't communicate what it is, and that's largely what the deliverable is, then it's not going to go anywhere. It's not going to be as impactful as it could be. Right. So really the two sides of it, Right. I think there is an emphasis on methodology and craft in a lot of the companies I've worked for and within the space and especially with the academics that are just amazing at that and amazing researchers and themselves, that there's a lot of good craft and a lot of good mythological approaches. But being able to do that in a ever changing, ever moving, fast paced corporate environment, whether that's agency or in house, and then also the deliverable element of impact are the two sides of the coin that really need to be hidden and where that fear really resides.

Erin May [00:39:28]:
Yeah, great beginning and ending. So we've covered a lot of ground. Any parting advice for folks who are struggling with any or all of the above to just kind of leave them with. If you take one thing away, no pressure, what would it be?

Brett Krajewski [00:39:44]:
Yeah, I think it's the emphasis on collaboration and then, you know, again, going back to. It's probably not your job, probably never will be your job, but signing up for it and being able to connect those dots, there's not only just so much power in being able to be that person that people go to and you connect the dots for them and you can spin that optically of like, hey, my team is doing all these things because we've included it in our work. But also, you know, now you know what, you know, you know what they know and you know what team over here knows. You can triangulate that data and, or you can triangulate those insights. And connecting the dots is never a bad thing. Right. It's a lot of work. Not easy, not fun at times.

Brett Krajewski [00:40:22]:
Probably miserable to be sitting up at midnight working on a report and, you know, been there and you know, before Christmas Eve and you know, be doing that. But also being proud of where you leave it because you did so much more and kept pushing the bar up higher and higher.

Erin May [00:40:36]:
Yeah, yeah, I like that. Not your job, but it is your job. And I think those trends will, I mean, we'll see, who knows? But with AI and I just think the human part of it, the stakeholder alignment part of it is only going to get more important, but we'll see how it shakes out. All right, rapid fire section, here we go. What is your favorite research interview question?

Brett Krajewski [00:40:56]:
I wouldn't say it's a question as much as it is kind of a statement in order to get people to open up. I usually tell people, like, pretend you're that sports commentator. Give me the play by play. Tell me what you're seeing, doing, looking at, like, really walk me through something. So not necessarily a question, but more of an icebreaker. It also puts them in that mindset of, like, you know, everyone's listening to some kind of sport at some point in their life, and it's like, okay, I'm looking at this and this is how I feel about it. And, oh, wow, this caught my eye for this reason. So it really lets you just like, immerse yourself and have your participant or your user immerse ourselves in the session.

Brett Krajewski [00:41:30]:
And you can always pull that out versus having to pull teeth to get something out of it.

Erin May [00:41:35]:
Yeah, love that familiar one.

Carol Guest [00:41:37]:
Yeah, I haven't heard that one before. All right, what are top two to three resources that you most recommend to others?

Brett Krajewski [00:41:42]:
I love to start with heuristics. Heuristics is probably some of my baseline. It's so easy, so quick. So Nielsen Norman Group, you know those 10 heuristics that they've published and have had for so long now, that's something that I reference of as my designers, Right? Like, hey, I can't do research, I don't have time. This was due two days ago. Have you done a hero circuit? Right. Simple, easy, should be part of your process to begin with. Same with product, same with your other folks.

Brett Krajewski [00:42:07]:
And then that second, probably another resource, you know, I'll plug Trevor Calbro UX in the wild. He has a podcast or he has a stockflow thread. That's something that, you know, he's just a great person in general, but also really approaches research in such a strong methodological standpoint that I think the industry really needs right now.

Erin May [00:42:26]:
Awesome. And where can folks follow you?

Brett Krajewski [00:42:29]:
I only have LinkedIn. That is my only social media. So trying to be more active on there, that's really what I've used. Trying to, like I said, put good back into our space, our industry. So whether that's podcasts, whether that's blog posts that we try to do, webinars, it's all on there. You know, we have some upcoming webinars that are coming out, but yeah, that's really where I'm most active. You know, feel free to reach out. Always love to talk methods or just be able to meet other researchers and.

Erin May [00:42:54]:
Yeah, fantastic. All right, well, thanks, Brett. Thanks so much for joining us. Real pleasure to have you here.

Brett Krajewski [00:43:00]:
Thank you. I appreciate it. Thanks for the time.

Erin May [00:43:08]:
Thanks for listening to Awkward Silences brought to you by User Interviews Theme music by Fragile Gang. Hey there Awkward Silences listener. Thanks for listening. If you like what you heard, we always appreciate a rating or review on your podcast app of choice.

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