Laying the Foundation for a New Capability

Strategic Research for Net-New Tool Development

Strategic Challenge: Aligning with User Needs and Creating Business Value

Project Role: Lead Researcher, Facilitator

Strategic Challenge Statement

Design a net-new advisor tool that boosts productivity, creates transparency with advisor teams, and builds trust with clients and their circle of influence to preserve wealth and legacies for future generations.

Research Objectives

  1. Inform and guide what we want to learn in the pilot

  2. Consider how to design a flexible system that aligns with user POV post-launch

  3. Confirm advisor goals and determine context needed around relationships

Research Approach

I designed a multi-phase research strategy to uncover potential risks before they became costly problems:

Phase 1: Generative Research with Advisors

  • Conducted in-depth interviews to understand how advisors currently define and manage households

  • Explored existing workflows, pain points, and workarounds

  • Mapped the ecosystem of tools advisors currently rely on

Phase 2: Concept Testing

  • Tested early householding concepts with advisors

  • Validated assumptions about user mental models

  • Identified gaps between business definitions and user reality

Phase 3: Stakeholder Facilitation

  • Led collaborative sessions for problem definition alignment

  • Facilitated ideation workshops with cross-functional teams

  • Synthesized insights into actionable recommendations

Key Findings

My research uncovered three critical risks that threatened the success of the householding initiative:

Risk 1: Usability Risk - Manual Process Burden

  • Finding: We were defining "household" in a way that creates manual processes for advisors and support staff.

  • Business Impact: Without addressing this, users would quickly revert to tools that best support them to maintain a seamless client experience, undermining adoption goals.

  • Opportunity: If a business goal is for advisors to deepen relationships with clients, then we must update the system logic and structure to reflect how a client sees their household while considering how an advisor manages a client's wealth and planning.

Risk 2: Viability Risk - Sustainability Concerns

  • Finding: We use the same value statement across advisor types, yet client relationship goals differ across channels and evolve with advisor tenure at the firm.

  • Business Impact: A one-size-fits-all approach would fail to support advisors at different career stages and client relationship models.

  • Opportunity: Relationship dynamics can shift instantly, so we can design a structure that is flexible enough to grow and change with a household rather than give allowances for non-typical use cases so advisors can grow their book sustainability.

Risk 3: Value Risk - Wrong Competitive Analysis

  • Finding: Competition for adoption isn't other CRM or internal client management tools—it's separate tools like Microsoft suite where users have created workarounds.

  • Business Impact: We were solving for the wrong competitive landscape, missing what actually drives user behavior.

  • Opportunity: We can replicate the value users derive from workarounds when collecting and tracking mass amounts of household member data to enable building households according to best practices.

From Insights to Impact

Initial Reception: My research findings were initially met with limited immediate action. However, I documented the recommendations and continued to advocate for user-centered design decisions.

Validation Through Reality: As the pilot rolled out, teams encountered exactly the issues my research had predicted. When pivots became necessary, my research became the strategic foundation for iteration.

Key Moment: I was pulled back into the project to help teams navigate the challenges, using my research insights to guide rapid iteration toward a better user experience.

Organizational Impact

Process Innovation

  • Created scalable research processes: Developed scrappy, efficient research methods that delivered high-value insights quickly

  • Template adoption: My approach became a template for other projects across the organization

  • Knowledge transfer: Other designers actively sought meetings with me to understand and replicate my successful process

Strategic Alignment

  • Definitional clarity: Changed how teams thought about householding—terms that were previously used interchangeably now had clear, aligned definitions

  • Success criteria influence: My research directly shaped how we measured pilot success, ensuring metrics reflected real user value

Leadership & Mentoring: Throughout the project, I mentored other designers, sharing research methodologies and helping them apply user-centered thinking to their own work. This knowledge transfer amplified the impact beyond my individual contribution.

Key Takeaways

Research as Risk Mitigation: Strategic research early in the process identified critical risks before they became costly problems, demonstrating ROI through prevention.

Persistence Pays Off: Even when initial reception was lukewarm, maintaining conviction in research findings and continuing to advocate ultimately proved valuable when reality validated the insights.

Scalable Impact: By focusing on creating reusable processes and mentoring others, the impact extended far beyond a single project to influence organizational capability.

User Truth Prevails: The most sophisticated business strategy fails when it doesn't align with user reality—research bridges this gap to create sustainable solutions.