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Opportunities

Opportunities are everywhere

EAR members bring people together to explore real-world problems and opportunities through multiple stages of discovery and conversation. We encourage members to identify opportunity areas, whether or not you feel ready to lead a research project. Once members explore or discuss an opportunity, you are welcome to focus on a specific research questions or hypotheses to launch one or more research projects.

Explore an opportunity

Start each action research cycle with a discovery conversation to describe the current landscape, gather data, and support further inquiry. Consider the following inputs during discovery:

  • Landscape and motivation: What are the challenges and problems identified?
  • Participant stakeholders: Who is affected? What are their roles, needs, desires, challenges, pain points, and hopes for the future?
  • Opportunity: What are desirable outcomes of this inquiry?
  • Data sources: What data or research exists today that may be relevant?
  • Subject matter experts: What expertise or community of practice may add value to the line of inquiry? Who can be invited?
  • Scope: Describe a scenario and various situations to focus the effort.
  • Assumptions, risks, constraints: What are the potential risks and mitigating factors?
  • Activities, deliverables and timeline: Identify key milestones, touch points, and deliverables. Time box the effort.

You can draft an opportunity summary to kick off exploration for a specific area. Whether or not you draft a summary, schedule a kickoff call—either using a workshop format to surface these details or reviewing a pre-shared draft. Seek advice and participation from EAR members early to incorporate multiple perspectives, learn from prior art, and reduce rework.

Develop a research question

Opportunity areas grow in complexity as people introduce multiple perspectives. This can feel overwhelming even to a seasoned researcher. A complex or expanding opportunity area shouldn't alarm you—it signals that you need to prioritize key issues and prepare for a new phase of inquiry.

A research question identifies the main issue (or related issues) a research team wants to explore. From methodology hub:

A research question turns a topic into a task.

  • It should identify what the study is trying to answer, not only what the study is generally about.
  • It differs from a research problem: the problem explains why the study matters, while the question defines what will be investigated.
  • It differs from a hypothesis: the hypothesis predicts an answer, while the question asks for one.

Example research question (or ask):

Build a foundational understanding of the user experience of portable versus proprietary internet account use on online social networks, current paradigms, nuances of adoption, and the potential impacts of each on user trust and adoption.

Propose a research project

Once you define a research question and draft a project plan, bring it to the steering group for review. Create a topic in #Steering > Program proposals in Zulip and request feedback with a target approval date (e.g., 10 business days).

The steering group will evaluate question clarity and alignment with our charter. Once the steering group approves your proposal, member service teams. can support your research team.