You have a decision coming up and need to hear from the people it will affect. Perhaps you are reviewing a service, considering a change to your membership offer or trying to understand why some people are no longer engaging.
You know research could help. What is less clear is how much of the work your team should do and where to bring in outside support.
It can feel like a choice between running everything in-house and commissioning someone to deliver a complete project. There are options between those two. The right one depends on the question, the time and the skills available within your team, along with what information you already have.
First, see what you already know
Before planning a new survey, look for relevant information you already hold. This might include previous research, member or customer feedback, enquiries, service data or notes from earlier consultations.
The aim is not simply to gather every report into one place. It is to judge whether the information helps with the decision you face now.
Ask when it was collected, who contributed and what they were actually asked. Consider whether anything has changed since then. A survey from two years ago may still offer useful context, but it may not answer a question about a service that has since changed.
This review could show that you need less new research than you thought. It could also reveal a gap that gives a new project a much clearer purpose.
Be realistic about what your team can take on
Your team may know the audience well and have established ways to reach them. That is a strength. It does not however necessarily mean they have time to design questions, manage responses, analyse findings and produce output that decision-makers can use alongside their day-to-day work.
Think through the stages rather than treating “the research” as one task:
- Who will agree what the project needs to answer?
- Who will decide whose views are needed and how to reach them?
- Who will design and check the questions?
- Who will manage the fieldwork and respond if participation is lower than expected?
- Who will analyse the answers and identify what can reasonably be concluded?
- Who will present the findings in a way that helps people make decisions?
You may have a clear answer for most of these and a gap at just one point. That is a good reason to seek focused support.
When help with one stage may be enough
Suppose your organisation has the capacity to distribute a survey and manage the responses. You might still want an experienced researcher to review the questions before it goes out.
That review can check whether people will understand the questions as intended, whether the answer options give them room to respond accurately and whether the results will address your original question. It can also consider how much time you are asking participants to give.
Alternatively, your team may already have gathered a considerable amount of feedback but be unsure how to analyse it. Research support at that stage can help distinguish the main patterns from individual comments and identify the limits of what the information tells you.
Working this way lets your team retain responsibility for the project while drawing on specialist skills where they will make the most difference.
When a complete project may be the better fit
A full project can be useful when the stages need managing together and your team does not have the time or research capacity to do so.
The early choices have consequences later. Who is invited to take part affects whose views are represented. The wording and order of questions affect the answers people can give. The analysis needs to return to the decision that prompted the work in the first place.
Support across the whole project can keep those parts connected, from clarifying the brief through to presenting the findings.
It should still be collaborative. Your team understands the organisation, its people and the practical decisions ahead. A researcher brings an independent perspective and the skills to design and carry out the work. Both kinds of knowledge matter.
What should the findings help you do?
Before deciding on the scope of support, be clear about how the findings will be used.
Will they help you choose between options? Improve an existing service? Understand why engagement has changed? Explain a decision to members, funders or other stakeholders?
The answer helps determine the work required and the form the findings should take. A report full of information is of limited use if the people making the decision cannot see what it means for them.
It is equally important to be clear about the limits. Research may show a strong pattern, suggest something worth testing or reveal that an important group has not yet been heard from. Those are different to the research findings and should be treated in their own right.
Start with a conversation, not a finished brief
You do not need to know whether to ask for a survey review, in-house support or a complete project before approaching a researcher.
Come with the decision you are facing, any information you already have and an honest view of what your team can manage. That is enough to begin working out what support would be useful.
At Ask for Research, we can work alongside your team on a particular stage or support the project from beginning to end. The aim is to do the research needed to help you make a well-informed decision, with a scope that fits your organisation.
If you have a project in mind, get in touch and tell us what you are trying to decide.
