From chaos to clarity: How Research Ops roadmaps keep you focused as a team of one

The message came in, and I could almost hear sirens:

“Hey, I can’t log into this tool. I’ve tried multiple times and need access ASAP. My user interview starts in an hour! Can you help?”

What seemed like a simple troubleshooting task (resetting the researcher’s password) quickly revealed the need for a completely new login workflow. I had to figure out the new process, document it in a guideline, and share it with the researchers, since the change would also affect others using the tool. This fire! — the unpredictable, urgent issues that often arise in day-to-day work — not only pulled me away from what I was focused on at the time, but also required several hours of my time over the next few days to fully resolve and make sure no one else would be affected or left uninformed.

I usually start my day thinking I know what to expect — plenty of time to work on strategic Research Ops initiatives, support my teams (five UX researchers and 32 UX designers) with questions or requests, handle unexpected fires, and still finish the day with a smile — a perfect ideal. But in reality, new challenges arise constantly, and addressing one random “Hey, can you help me with…” message can spiral into hours of support.

When I first established the Research Ops practice at Turo as a team of one, my workload was highly reactive — there were a lot of fires! — and I knew that wasn’t going to be sustainable in the long run. To successfully build and evolve the practice, I needed to shift from being reactive to proactive, developing structure and visibility to ensure my stakeholders were supported and that my work had a meaningful impact. I looked around to see how other teams managed their work, and noticed they had one common tool: roadmaps. I asked myself, “What if I developed a roadmap for Research Ops?” It seemed like a great idea, but I didn’t know where to start. So, I put my research hat on, went back to basics, and ran a workshop with my main stakeholders to understand their operational needs. Here’s what I learned — and my advice for using roadmaps as an indispensable part of your ResearchOps process, too.

Keep it simple

When I started planning the workshop activities, I had one goal in mind: keep it simple. I wanted to create a safe space where attendees could share both big and small ideas about what I could work on in the upcoming months while reflecting on the accomplishments and missed opportunities of the past few months. With that in mind, I developed a framework for a one-hour Research Ops Roadmap Workshop. I now run this workshop twice a year — once in early January and again in early July — to align with other teams’ planning cycles and ensure ResearchOps stays front and center when it comes to broader strategic conversations. Running it regularly also helps keep me in sync with company-wide planning, while clearly documenting Research Ops’ achievements and what’s ahead in the coming months, and even year. For example, I recently worked on an initiative to identify a new survey tool that could better support the evolving needs of our growing quantitative practice — something that required dedicated time for evaluation, stakeholder alignment, and a smooth transition plan. This sort of work would’ve been challenging to prioritize without a clear roadmap.

Use a framework

The Research Ops Roadmap Workshop Framework is a focused one-hour session that brings your team together to reflect on recent wins, uncover missed opportunities, and identify strategic initiatives for the months ahead.

The best part? The workshop framework is flexible and can be adapted to almost any team, so use it as a starting point and make it your own. Let’s take a closer look.

I use a template (see fig. 1) and the following agenda every time I run my Research Ops Roadmap Workshop, and it’s proven to be a simple yet effective structure for guiding reflection, sparking discussion, setting clear priorities, and defining desired outputs.

1. Retrospective (30 minutes):
   1. Use 15 minutes to focus on what went well and what didn’t go as planned over the past three to six months, or since the last time you did this exercise. Ask participants to respond to prompts individually, then regroup to review and cluster common themes.
   2. Spend another 15 minutes on areas for improvement, following the same structure: individual reflection, followed by group discussion and clustering to surface what Research Ops could have done better, what was missed, and any unmet needs.
2. Opportunities brainstorm (15 minutes):
   1. Ask stakeholders to spend 10 minutes individually answering prompts such as “What can Research Ops do or improve for the UX Research Team?,” “What can ResearchOps do or improve for the UX Design and/or Product Teams?,” and “How do you envision ResearchOps evolving in the next 6 to 12 months?”
   2. Spend 5 minutes reviewing and clustering the responses as a team.
3. Roadmap opportunities (10 minutes): Review the clusters from the retrospective’s “areas for improvement” and the “ResearchOps opportunities” exercises, identifying overlaps, and prioritizing the top initiatives for inclusion in the roadmap.
4. Opportunities prioritization (5 minutes): Review the top initiatives from the previous exercise, and ask stakeholders to rate them from high to low priority, as these ratings will guide the roadmap’s flow.

In just one hour, you’ll have what you need to craft a Research Ops roadmap built on collaboration and consensus.

Get on the road(map)

After completing the workshop, you should have enough data to inform your roadmap and reflect on recent Research Ops performance — this is a great opportunity to celebrate wins (something we often overlook!) — while identifying areas for improvement and determining the right strategic initiatives to pursue. I recommend presenting your findings in slide format to your stakeholders, as it brings transparency to the work Research Ops will be doing over the next few months. As a next step, share the slide deck (and any other relevant workshop artifacts) in a central location so they’re easy for others to access and reference.

I use a slide format (see fig. 2) that has proven effective not only for clearly presenting our key points but also for structuring the narrative, facilitating discussion, and ensuring stakeholders have a clear vision of what Research Ops will be working on. I use Google Slides; here’s a free template that you can use.

1. Retrospective: Create a list of the things ResearchOps did well over the past few months, along with a list of areas where there’s room for improvement.
2. Opportunities with prioritization: List all the clusters or overlaps that emerged from the “ResearchOps Opportunities” exercise, ranking them by stakeholder priority, from high to low.
3. Opportunities with prioritization breakdown: Outline each high-level opportunity with a brief description and the steps needed to achieve it.
4. Roadmap visualization: Create a visual representation of the opportunities arranged in the order you propose tackling them. Include all necessary steps under each opportunity, and consider using color coding to track progress (see fig. 2 or slide 10 in the Google Slides template).

Using this flow makes it easier to tell a compelling story, keep everyone aligned, and make sure ResearchOps efforts stay purposeful and strategic.

Make it a habit

Research Ops roadmaps opened up a new way to manage my workload and set expectations — not just for myself, but also for my stakeholders. They’ve helped me showcase the immense value Research Ops brings to projects and initiatives of all sizes by making behind-the-scenes work visible, connecting efforts to outcomes, showing progress over time, and highlighting the strategic thinking that drives impact. For example, Turo uses Culture Amp's 57-question Employee Engagement Survey, and my work has contributed to a 14-point increase in the enablement metric for that survey. Researchers have reported that most of the systems and processes provided to the Turo UX research team support them in getting their work done effectively. Of course, we'd like to get from "most systems" to "all systems"! But without proper planning, this improvement wouldn’t have been possible. Plus, roadmaps have also been a great tool for tracking my career growth and the evolution of the Research Ops practice over time.

There’s a clear before and after when it comes to implementing Research Ops roadmaps — they’ve transformed how I manage my time, align with teams, and demonstrate the true impact of Research Operations. What used to feel like a never-ending list of scattered tasks now has structure, direction, and visibility. Roadmap planning helps manage workload, enhance visibility, and set timelines for strategic initiatives, while also creating space for the unpredictable yet persistent fires! that inevitably arise. On that note, I typically allocate around 20 percent of my time to reactive needs, creating a buffer that helps me strike a balance between responsiveness and long-term focus.

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Edited by Kate Towsey and Katel LeDu.

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