How NPR’s audience insights team collaborates within and across teams to ensure that they holistically answer stakeholders’ questions.
Like many corporate insights teams, NPR’s audience insights department is organized into staff focused on research, primarily qualitative and quantitative, and staff focused on analytics, which is largely mining our first-party data across myriad digital platforms. While this is logical given staff skill sets, it necessitates collaboration and coordination across the teams to ensure we holistically answer our stakeholders’ questions. For instance, when we analyze audience survey data on a particular podcast, we pull in analytics to check for any bias or distortions in the survey sample. Or, if we get feedback that the audience would like a particular feature prioritized in the app, we set up an a/b test to see if it actually can perform well.
In this session, NPR will share the practices we’ve implemented to facilitate collaboration: how we create the space; the systems/tools we rely on; and how we communicate with stakeholders.
Key takeaways:
1. Collaboration is greater than the sum of its parts.
2. It is worth investing the time and attention.
3. Collaborative insights teams are better-positioned to serve their internal stakeholders.
