Looking Back to Move Forward: How Past Research Can Inform Future Studies

Revisiting previous research can ensure your research is as effective and efficient as possible.

Reviewing existing artifacts—both from previous research your company has conducted and secondary research from external organizations—ensures your research team starts with a foundation of prior knowledge. This gives the team more perspective when sifting through data during the research process. Additionally, it can help the team craft smarter research questions than they originally started with.  

When reviewing previous work, use these considerations to contextualize research artifacts, determine how they relate to your team’s current unknowns, and decide how they can best support your efforts.

What were the goals and methods of the research?

Did the former research have similar goals to yours? If so, it’s likely to be more relevant to your learning goals. However, if the research was exploratory (for example, a Jobs to Be Done study focused on why people might use your team’s product), and you are hoping to do something more evaluative, like usability testing of that product, your goals and desired outputs are likely quite different. The contextual framing from exploratory research is still helpful for validation research. For example, exploratory work can highlight what’s crucial to a good experience, which can inform metrics to use to validate new concepts. However, you likely won’t directly use the outputs of exploratory work for validation research.  

Was the research context similar to the one you’re currently interested in?

For instance, if you’re looking to understand remote workers, but the previous research took place in an office, take the findings with a grain of salt, knowing the context is vastly different than a remote environment.  

How well was the research organized?

Reviewing a pile of sticky notes differs from learning from crafted themes that tie back to specific quotes and recordings. Consider how long it will take someone on your team to make sense of the data and how likely it is to relate to your interest. Beyond making old data easier to follow, well-marked themes ease the process of understanding what specifically a study was about and what it uncovered. (This is also something to keep in mind as you design new research—can you code it in a way that will make referencing it more efficient and valuable in the future?) 

Can you access the raw data?

Regardless of how research is coded, tracing it back to the raw data allows researchers to verify study findings. Teams can sometimes come to new conclusions from existing raw data and find that it informs responses to new questions. However, it’s important to consider confidentiality and privacy. If your organization keeps raw data, it’s best practice to anonymize and delete it after a standard period.   

How old is the research? 

What has changed for your organization since this research was last conducted? Were the research stimuli representative of a very different time in your product’s existence? Findings from three or more years ago often come from contexts that are different enough to warrant new studies.  

Sometimes, you’ll learn your research plan resembles your team’s previous research. Even then, conducting new research can be beneficial.

For newer team members, working with end users, even when somewhat repetitive, is monumental in building empathy and understanding around your organization’s areas of interest.  

Conducting research can also improve customer relationships by showcasing your organization’s investment in feedback and iterative improvement. However, this can fall flat without a commitment to fixing the top problems shared in feedback.  

Repetitive studies can also be used to baseline and track progress over time, highlighting how effective recent changes have been and identifying new opportunities for improvement. Many surveyors send out identical surveys over the years to compare results, confirming what’s improving and what’s not. In the qualitative space, journey maps can be a powerful artifact to revisit, showing how an experience has changed.   

Reviewing existing research strengthens relationship-building and ensures everyone is better informed.

Seeking out what has already been done makes space for another important conversation: what do other teams and lines of business want to learn? This can ensure that your following study is as effective and all-encompassing as possible, saving other teams the need to invest in separate research initiatives later. You might learn it makes sense to include a different research team. You may also realize that what you want to know is similar to another team’s interests, allowing you to address both questions simultaneously. This also helps consider who might be a champion of the findings after the research is conducted. 

Formalizing a process of reviewing previous research and sharing insights across teams can increase the impact of your team’s work. It can also strengthen collaboration within your organization and ensure future initiatives are as well-informed as possible. Utilizing existing research is invaluable, providing a solid foundation and context for current projects. Teams can build upon previous experiences and successes by using it as a launching point. Doing so allows organizations to maximize the value of their research efforts, drive innovation, and achieve strategic objectives. 

One North stands ready to partner with you on this journey, providing expertise and support to help you harness the power of research and drive organizational success.