Research Planning and Leadership

Leading a new product team with research, structuring its Beta program, and mentoring a junior researcher

(Yes, I used generative AI for this image.)

Context

We identified a significant market opportunity when the core collaborative functionality of our "Rooms for Real Estate" product—a dedicated space for streamlining document workflows and signing—demonstrated widespread and growing demand outside of the real estate vertical.

The decision was made to build a vertical-agnostic version of Rooms, aiming to create a better, unified space for diverse parties to share, communicate, complete tasks, and sign documents seamlessly. Crucially, instead of simply cloning the existing product, the team viewed this initiative as an opportunity to address existing UX issues and deliver an improved user experience. And instead of calling it "Rooms" we went with a more general name for a more general product: Workspaces.

My Role

My main objective wasn't the usual IC work (such as generative research or early concept feedback), but rather to plan and manage the entire research track for Workspaces to ensure it met all internal criteria for GA (General Availability) approval. We were facing a super tight timeline, a lot of moving parts, and a product team unfamiliar with the structure needed for a major Beta-to-GA transition.

The added complexities? I was preparing for paternity leave, and I had a junior UX researcher who needed to be ramped up to lead the day-to-day IC work. My focus was on getting all cross-functional teams aligned and bought into the timelines, deliverables, and critical follow-up actions before and after the Beta.

Building Data Redundancy

Recognizing the potential for customer participation and attrition issues common in longitudinal Beta studies, my primary focus was on mitigating risk to guarantee we would meet our internal success metrics for GA approval. I pushed for product managers to build a close relationship to our sales team and ensure we nominate and recruit as much customers as possible.

We layered our feedback channels to ensure we were never short on data points, meaning if one channel failed, we had backups:

An in-product feedback survey.
Docusign customer community channel for Beta customers.
A direct email for participants to provide unstructured feedback.
Usability testing on working demos; not concept designs.
Retrospectives with Beta customers.
An exit survey for Beta customers in case they were short on time.

Empowering the Junior Researcher

The biggest challenge was learning to let go of control and trust the team. My junior researcher was new to managing so many simultaneous research activities and a confusing timeline. My solution was to invest time in upfront guidance: clearly defining the timeline, establishing who to talk to and when, and setting up clear expectations. Also, I ensured all key stakeholders knew the junior researcher was the official IC point of contact, eliminating confusion and empowering them to lead the research. This groundwork paid off, enabling them to confidently take the reins and lead the research to the finish line.

On-Time and Team Growth

We successfully gathered all the required data points and met the exit criteria. Workspaces received GA approval and debuted exactly on schedule at the Momentum conference on April 16, 2025.

Beyond the product success, the experience was a huge win for the team: The junior researcher's excellent work leading the Beta and Open Beta cycles was recognized, and they were deservedly promoted. This demonstrated the success of the framework and mentorship I put in place.

Workspaces was announced at Momentum 2025 (Docsign's yearly conference) and went GA in April 16, 2025