Fast Research Tools Help You Be Wrong Sooner

Faster research tools help you be wrong sooner. Speed comes from clarity you built before you started, not from the software.

Fast research done well means the definition work already happened. The person running it already knows the decision, the segment, the right people, the right questions, and what the team will do with the learnings. Execution is quick because everything upstream is settled.

Fast research done badly looks identical from the outside. Same speed. But what got compressed is the thinking, not the doing. And you don't find out until you've gathered the data, made the recommendations, or shipped.

The tools got faster. The cost of running a study wrong didn't move. If anything it went up, because now you can be wrong at scale, in a fraction of the time.

Speed is a feature of good upstream thinking. Not a substitute for it.

Grateful to Optimal for having me on From the Inside Seat! Here's a clip from our conversation and the full conversation is linked.

Where have you seen fast research go wrong?