Edward Stull ConsultingProQuest: Exploratory Research and Training
The challenge
How might a global leader in EdTech explore the needs of their 26,000+ clients?
About the Project
ProQuest serves researchers, librarians, and 130+ million students across 150 countries. Over 9,000 publishers and providers deliver content through the company’s vast collection of products and services. To support such an expansive array of offerings, the company focuses its efforts on exploring the current and future needs of stakeholders and users.
In partnership with the company's product leadership team, Edward Stull Consulting built an exploratory research curriculum to train a diverse and global team of 56 product management professionals. The curriculum covered how to plan, conduct, and analyze qualitative research. It included everything from boilerplate interview discussion guides, research question banks, workshop scripts, design thinking exercises, best practices checklists, multiple synthesis frameworks, and exploratory research guidebooks – all tailored to ProQuest’s specific exploratory research goals.
Improved knowledge
Product managers
Countries represented
Million students
How to build an exploratory research practice
Exploratory research develops our empathy and deepens our understanding of whether there is a sufficiently worthy problem to solve. After all, the world is full of countless issues to tackle, only some of which happen with enough frequency or severity to rise to our attention. And an even smaller number of these issues are solvable in a commercially viable way.
The exploratory research training ranged from how to conduct interview users to how to synthesize research findings. For example, we conducted mock interviews, where participants could practice interviewing and note-taking within a safe and supportive environment.
An activity involving mock interviews ( View image )
Excerpt from the 12-section exploratory research guide ( View image )
Remote-first training
All training and workshops were conducted remotely. Edward Stull Consulting built the curriculum with trainers in mind. Such a “train the trainers” approach enabled future facilitators to extend the exploratory research program across the organization.
One of many facilitation tips in a workshop script ( View image )
Workshop activities included tips, timing, and reference links. ( View image )
Program Success
Three cohorts of project-manager-researchers presented robust findings to the company's leadership, revealing insights and clarifying several problem definitions. The cohorts prepared discussion guides, conducted dozens of interviews, and synthesized research findings using frameworks provided by Edward Stull Consulting.
Cumulatively, participating product managers rated their acquired knowledge of exploratory research as 33%+ higher upon the program's completion when compared to program's start (4.21 vs 3.16 out of 5).
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