INSIGHT on INSIGHT: Can I do it myself or do I need help?
So you’ve realized investing in better insight could help accomplish the goals your business has for this year.
Before you begin to work out all the details related to designing the actual project, you need to decide if it makes sense to utilize the services of a third party insight agency or do the work on your own. If you decide to go with a third party, it is then critical to pick the right third party.
This article will discuss the first decision of whether to do the project in-house or not, while this article will help you pick the right third party agency, should you choose to take that path.
SHOULD IT STAY OR SHOULD IT GO
There is nothing preventing any company from handling their own insight projects without hiring a third-party agency. At the same time, companies can decide to varying degrees how much of a project they want to hand over to third parties.
As you approach this decision, realize that doing insights on your own is not as simple as changing the oil in you vehicle; it is more like rebuilding the engine. It will demand an assortment of skills and tools, understanding all the steps in the process that can go wrong, investing the necessary time and patience, and accepting the risk that the end results could be useless if everything isn’t done right.
To a large extend, you can probably trust your gut feeling regarding how prepared you are to do this on your own. If it seems like a no-brainer, it probably is. If you’ve got some concerns, there is probably a good reason for those concerns.
In addition to that intuition, here are some other factors to consider when making the decision:
How much budget you have: Some companies operate on shoestring budgets. Others have more money than time. The primary benefit of doing insight work in-house is the cost savings. If budget exists to hire a third party, consider the opportunity cost of where else that money could be invested.
How much time you have: Insight projects are typically far more time consuming than people would expect. Typical qualitative projects will demand 50+ man-hours while many quantitative projects can consume hundreds of hours of work. Just like valuing the opportunity cost of the money you spend on insight, consider how the hours consumed by doing an insight project on your own could be invested in other areas. If your overall timeline is aggressive, realize that many third-party agencies have also developed process and abilities that reduce the total duration of a project.
How much past insight experience you have: Doing anything the first time is typically a learning process. Observing or being exposed to insight from the perspective of a different role (like marketing or sales) is a completely different experience compared to doing the actual work of designing and delivering the insight. While any skill can be learned, it does take practice and mistakes will be made.
How the insight needs to be internalized: For some insight projects, like concept testing or developing packaging guidelines, the results can be easily understood and translated in brief documents. For other types, like ethnographic immersion, shadow shopping or ideation, team members may gain significantly more by being present and participating in both the execution of the insight and the process of arriving at the overall conclusions. Keeping projects in-house or being more involved can improve the acceptance and incorporation of the learning, but will demand commitments that people may not be willing to make.
How much you can control your bias: Discovering great insight requires controlling the personal bias each of us naturally projects onto our work. It is critical to have an open mind, not jump to premature conclusions and be willing to probe and explore until the data provides the answer. Too much motivation for a certain answer or impatience to let the data reveal the insight could compromise the accuracy of what you’re able to deliver.
How strong your analytics, curiosity and creativity are: There are often dozens of ways to look at the same problem or opportunity. Limited skill sets will limit how many of these approaches are recognized and pursued. Doing insight work in-house also increases the risk of never getting to the “you don’t know what you don’t know” or relying on the continued utilization of the same approaches, which deliver more of the same results.
Does a dedicated insights manager position exist: Due to the particular skills needed and amount of time a typical project demands, few companies should keep insight projects in-house if a dedicated position does not exist. While anyone that is truly qualified for an insight manager position should have the skills to do projects on their own, workloads often exceed work capacity. Practical considerations and the job descriptions often dictate the need for third-party agencies to handle various components of projects.
What internal expertise is needed: The value derived from insight projects is a function of how well the insights influence decisions and improve the knowledge of decisions-makers. Some people believe it is critical to personally observe or even conduct interviews to really absorb the learning. Others like to get into raw data files and do their own analysis. Consider what parts of an insight project translate to building critical internal capabilities and require significant involvement to really be absorbed.
The decision to do insight work in-house is primarily a function of having the necessary skills and time, a strong need to internalize the learning experience or the lack of budget to hire it out.
Using a third-party agency will cost more money (but should save significant time) while providing skills, expertise and perspective that may not exist within your organization.