The Rise of ResearchOps: Lessons from DevOps and DesignOps

By Philip Burgess - UX Research Leader

In the last two decades, the way organizations build digital products has been transformed by operational practices. DevOps revolutionized engineering by creating smooth pipelines for code deployment. DesignOps helped design teams scale by standardizing tools, workflows, and governance. Now, ResearchOps is doing the same for UX research—helping teams move from ad hoc studies to scalable, strategic research functions.

But what exactly is ResearchOps, and what can it learn from its operational predecessors?

What is ResearchOps?

ResearchOps (ResOps) refers to the frameworks, processes, and systems that support user research activities. Instead of researchers spending hours on administrative work—like recruiting participants, managing incentives, or organizing insights—ResearchOps ensures that:

• Participants are recruited ethically and efficiently

• Tools and platforms are standardized and maintained

• Research repositories are structured and accessible

• Governance, privacy, and compliance are upheld

• Insights are shared, searchable, and scalable across the organization

In other words, ResearchOps creates the infrastructure that empowers researchers to focus on research.

Lessons from DevOps

DevOps taught the world that automation, consistency, and continuous delivery are critical for scale. Instead of engineers manually deploying code, DevOps introduced pipelines that standardized and sped up releases.

What ResearchOps Can Learn:

1. Automation is Essential – Automate repetitive tasks like transcription, scheduling, and incentives, freeing researchers for higher-value work.

2. Continuous Research – Just like DevOps promotes continuous integration, ResearchOps should foster continuous discovery, ensuring that user insights are always available to product teams.

3. Collaboration Across Silos – DevOps brought engineers and operations together. ResearchOps should bridge researchers, designers, product managers, and executives with shared tools and practices.

Lessons from DesignOps

DesignOps scaled design by creating processes, governance, and systems of record that enabled consistency across teams. DesignOps leaders focused on tool management, design libraries, and alignment between teams.

What ResearchOps Can Learn:

1. Centralized Knowledge – Just like design systems unify brand and interaction patterns, research repositories unify user insights for reuse and impact.

2. Standardized Processes – DesignOps brought structure to the design process. ResearchOps should offer templates for research plans, consent forms, and reporting.

3. Democratization with Guardrails – DesignOps empowered non-designers to use components responsibly. ResearchOps can enable non-researchers to run lightweight studies, with proper guidelines and oversight.

Why ResearchOps Matters Now

Companies face an explosion in demand for user insights:

• Agile development cycles move fast.

• Global markets require culturally diverse research.

• Privacy laws demand stricter compliance.

• Teams want evidence to guide product decisions.

Without ResearchOps, research teams get bottlenecked by logistics. With ResearchOps, research scales to match organizational speed and impact—turning scattered insights into strategic assets.

The Future of ResearchOps

Looking ahead, ResearchOps will increasingly leverage AI and automation—tagging themes, summarizing interviews, and even predicting user pain points before they happen. Like DevOps and DesignOps before it, ResearchOps will move from being a support function to a strategic enabler that drives organizational success.

Final Thoughts

DevOps taught us how to scale code. DesignOps taught us how to scale design. Now, ResearchOps is teaching us how to scale insights.

For organizations that want to stay competitive in 2025 and beyond, ResearchOps isn’t a “nice-to-have.” It’s the operational backbone that ensures research delivers value at speed and scale.