Intent and Objectives

What your research is on and why it matters.

INTENT AND OBJECTIVES

Write down the intent and objectives of the research project or initiative.

What are you going to doing?

Research Intent

Research Intent

Questions

Your Response

What are your intentions, what do you hope to achieve? What do you promise you will do?

Who is the user, group, community, you want to research?

What is the problem of the user you want to solve?

Where and when is the user experiencing the problem?

Why should this problem be solved now?

In which markets, will a solution work best?

In what other ways, can a solution be used?

There are no rows in this table

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How are you going to do it?

Objectives

Objectives

Objective

Your Objective Statement

Project/Business Objective

What is the project, innovation and business objective for undertaking this?

Objective Stm#1

Objective Stm#2

Research Objective

Goals or steps you will take to achieve your intent.

Objective Stm#1

Objective Stm#2

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FRAMING AND REFRAMING

Individuals have personal frames that they will apply to the research i.e. How they view general business problems, their view of customers, their functional area view, their typical approach to business negotiations, their view of risk. While an individual’s personal framing of the issue is part of his or her value to the team, it’s not without some potential mistakes.

What do we mean by Frames?

Mental structures are often based on history or experience, that cause us to look at the world from a particular point of view.

We use them to sort data and as reference points for decision making.

Our personal frames are part of the value we add to projects, but are often too limited to help us make sense of complex contexts on our own.

We need to consider multiple frames for a broad point-of-view.

Frames can cause too much focus and not enough peripheral vision – we naturally tend to focus on what we know. For example, the team may tend to make judgments based on the benefits of a choice more so than on the downsides.

Finally, it’s important to realise that most of the time, our frames are too narrow. Almost by definition, a frame represents the limits of what you or your team can see. As researchers we are required to uncover complexity, the frame has to expand to include a broader view. In fact, expanding the frame is one of the key reasons for having a team with diverse expertise and backgrounds to come together to make a decision. Such a team has a much higher likelihood, if it is disciplined enough, to ensure the widest possible frame is considered.

Framing and reframing will point to types of data that you might need to collect.

Each frame will suggest key issues to be solved or key opportunities to explore.

–Quantitative – statistics, trends, “facts” (e.g. big data, customer satisfaction surveys, profitability reports, external benchmark studies, etc.)

–Qualitative – e.g. perceptions, opinions, “feelings” (gathered through observation and conversation/interaction)

Combining quantitative and qualitative data is a powerful way to generate new insights.

A well-framed challenge should allow you to gather different types and sources of data to develop a clearer picture of what is going on and what challenges or issues might have to be addressed.