Research teams talk about prioritization frameworks, impact versus effort scores, Eisenhower matrices, and ROI calculations. These tools are important but they miss something fundamental: prioritization isn’t just about deciding what to work on. It’s about having the right information to make that decision in the first place.
And getting that information comes back to relationships.
When I think about research prioritization done well, it’s not a researcher sitting alone scoring intake requests on a spreadsheet. It’s someone who knows their PM well enough to understand which upcoming decisions are locked in and which decisions are still fluid. It’s someone who’s built enough trust with engineering to hear about technical constraints before they become blockers. It’s a person who can tell when a designer or design manager says “would be nice to know” versus “I actually need this to move forward.”
This context [the decisions, the timelines, the information needs] is what determines whether research lands at the right time with the right insights. But you can’t get that context through intake forms or prioritization rubrics alone. You get it through conversations, by being present in planning meetings, and by asking follow-up questions that help people articulate what they actually need, not just what they think they should be asking for.
The mechanism for effective prioritization is a dynamic system. It’s made of relationships that enable ongoing dialogue about what matters when and why. When you’ve built these relationships, intake becomes natural. Cross-functional partners reach out because they trust you’ll help them think through their information needs, not just execute on whatever request lands in your backlog. And you can push back or redirect because you understand their constraints and they trust your judgment.
Without this foundation, prioritization risks becomes reactive. You’re responding to requests without the context to evaluate whether they’re the right questions, whether the timing makes sense, or whether a different method might better serve the underlying need. You end up delivering solid research that doesn’t move the needle because it informed the wrong decision or arrived too late to matter.
The right information informing the right decision at the right time — that’s what we’re after. And that outcome requires relationships that surface the context, trust, and understanding that make smart prioritization possible.
jordan beck, phd 