👋 Reader,
I'm about to ruffle some feathers in the research community. But sometimes the truth hurts.
The research teams of tomorrow won't survive by clinging to academic-level rigor and methodological perfection. They'll thrive by embracing a new mantra: Fast, Cheap, and Good Enough.
Let me explain why this isn't heresy—it's evolution.
Think about how software development has changed. We used to spend months or years perfecting products before release. Now? Teams ship quickly, gather real feedback, and iterate. The cost of being wrong has plummeted, while the cost of being slow has skyrocketed.
Yet many research teams are still operating like it's 1999. They're designing perfect studies that take weeks or months to execute. They're writing comprehensive reports that would make their PhD advisors proud. And they're becoming increasingly irrelevant to the businesses they serve.
Here's the harsh reality: In today's business environment, a "good enough" insight delivered quickly is infinitely more valuable than a perfect insight delivered too late.
Consider this scenario: Your product team needs to make a decision about a feature by the end of the week. Would you rather have:
A methodologically perfect study that takes three weeks to complete and delivers insights after the decision has already been made?
Or a "good enough" study that delivers actionable insights in three days, allowing the team to make an informed decision on schedule?
The answer should be obvious. Yet I watch research teams consistently choose the former, then wonder why they're being left out of critical decisions.
Let's be clear about what "good enough" means. I'm not advocating for sloppy work or guesswork. I'm talking about right-sizing our research efforts to match the business need and timeline. Sometimes that means running a quick guerrilla usability test instead of a full-scale research study. Sometimes it means doing five user interviews instead of twenty-five.
The key is understanding that research quality exists on a spectrum, and "perfect" is often the enemy of "useful."
Think about it like emergency medicine. When someone comes into the ER with a critical injury, doctors don't run every possible test and spend hours analyzing options. They gather enough information to make an informed decision and act quickly. Because in that context, a good decision now is better than a perfect decision later.
Product development operates under similar constraints. The market waits for no one, and competitors aren't sitting around while you perfect your methodology.
The research teams that will thrive in the future are the ones that can:
- Move at the speed of product development, not academia
- Deliver insights when they're needed, not when they're perfect
- Focus on impact over methodological purity
- Adapt their level of rigor to match the business need
- Right-size their research efforts based on time and resource constraints
This doesn't mean abandoning rigor altogether. It means being pragmatic about when and where to apply it. Some decisions require deep, thorough research. Many don't.
The real skill isn't in knowing how to do perfect research—it's in knowing when perfect research is actually needed, and when "good enough" will drive better business outcomes.
For those researchers clutching their pearls right now, consider this: Would you rather be known as the team that delivers perfect insights that never get used, or the team that consistently helps drive better business decisions through timely, actionable research?
The future belongs to research teams that can adapt to the speed of modern business while maintaining enough rigor to be reliable. Teams that can balance methodological soundness with practical utility. Teams that understand that "good enough" delivered at the right time is often the perfect solution.
It's time for research teams to evolve. The choice is simple: adapt to this new reality or become irrelevant. Because in today's business environment, Fast, Cheap, and Good Enough isn't just a compromise—it's a competitive advantage.
Stay frosty,
/ari
Real Quick...
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