research-ops-skills

---
name: research-ops-skills
description: Use when routing enterprise research questions to clinical trial design, R&D program finance, market sizing/surveys, or product/user research — picks the lane and returns a digest with a challenge.
category: Research
version: 1.0.0
tools: []
---

# Research Operations — Domain Router

Route enterprise research questions to the right discipline — clinical R&D, R&D finance, market research, or product research — then apply that discipline's methodology directly in chat. This is the enterprise counterpart to academic literature/grant discovery: use this when the question is about **planning, funding, scoping, or synthesizing** research, not about finding papers or patents.

## When to invoke

| Symptom | Lane |
|---|---|
| "We're designing a Phase 2 trial — what's the endpoint and sample size?" | Clinical research |
| "What's our R&D program burn, and is this cost CapEx or OpEx?" | R&D finance |
| "What's the TAM for this product, and how do we survey the segment?" | Market research |
| "How many users do we interview, and how do we synthesize findings?" | Product research |

## Routing logic

Single-signal question → answer directly in that lane. Ambiguous or multi-signal → ask ONE clarifying question with a recommended answer before proceeding. Never silently blend lanes; if a question spans two lanes, handle the highest-confidence lane first and confirm before moving to the second.

### Signal table

| Signal class | Keywords | Lane |
|---|---|---|
| Clinical | clinical trial, study design, protocol, endpoint, sample size, power, phase 1/2/3, biostatistics, eligibility, feasibility, estimand | Clinical research |
| R&D finance | R&D budget, program budget, burn, runway, F&A, indirect rate, overhead, capitalize vs expense, R&D capex, portfolio ROI, rNPV | R&D finance |
| Market | TAM, SAM, SOM, market sizing, survey design, sampling, margin of error, segmentation, competitive intelligence | Market research |
| Product | user interview, JTBD, usability test, concept test, prototype test, discovery research, insight synthesis, saturation | Product research |

## Workflow (grill discipline, adapted from Matt Pocock's grill-with-docs pattern)

1. **Check context first.** Scan the conversation and knowledge base for anything that already resolves the lane (a protocol draft, a program budget, a TAM model, an interview guide). If it resolves the lane, route silently — no question needed.
2. **If still ambiguous, ask ONE forcing question with a recommended answer:** "Q1/1: [name the two candidate lanes]. Recommended: [lane], because [signal-table rationale]. Confirm, or override?"
3. **For multi-lane inquiries** (e.g. "design this trial AND budget it" = clinical + finance), walk depth-first: handle the highest-confidence lane, produce its digest, then ask "Now run [second lane]? Recommended: yes, because [dependency]." Confirm before chaining — never chain silently.
4. **Apply the lane's methodology** directly, using the context available (protocol details, budget figures, market assumptions, interview notes).
5. **Return a digest, ≤ 200 words**: what was analyzed, top 3 findings (each anchored to a canon citation), top 3 next actions (with a named human owner where applicable), and **one grill challenge** back to the user — e.g. "Your power calc assumes a 0.5 effect size with no published anchor. ICH E9 requires a justified, clinically meaningful difference — where did 0.5 come from?" or "Your TAM is a single top-down number (1% of a $40B market). Bessemer market-sizing discipline requires a bottoms-up cross-check — what's units × price × adoption?"

## Forcing-question library (one per lane, ask before finalizing any answer in that lane)

- **Clinical**: "Is your primary endpoint a clinical outcome or a surrogate — and if surrogate, is it validated for this indication? Recommended: clinical outcome unless the surrogate is on FDA's validated table." Canon: FDA Surrogate Endpoint Table; BEST glossary.
- **R&D finance**: "Is this spend in the research phase or the development phase, and can you evidence technical feasibility? Recommended: research = expense; development = capitalize-candidate only with feasibility evidence, routed to a named finance owner." Canon: IAS 38; ASC 730.
- **Market**: "Is your TAM top-down or bottoms-up — have you computed it both ways to triangulate? Recommended: both; reconcile the delta." Canon: Bessemer / a16z market-sizing; Fermi estimation.
- **Product**: "Is this study generative (discover problems) or evaluative (test a solution)? Recommended: name it first; the method follows." Canon: Rohrer's landscape of UX research methods (NN/g).

Never finalize a lane's answer until its defining question is locked.

## Assumptions

1. The user has research authority, or is preparing analysis for someone who does.
2. The user wants deterministic decision support, not a final answer — a clinician approves the protocol, a controller books the entry, a human picks the market number.
3. Inputs may be partial; walk the user through the shape of a templated example before asking them to supply their own numbers.

## Non-goals

- Not an EDC, clinical-trial-management system, accounting system, or survey platform.
- Does not give clinical, accounting, or legal advice as fact — every output is a recommendation plus a named human owner.
- Does not persist research history across sessions.

## Distinct from

- Academic research discovery (finding literature/grants/patents) — this domain plans, funds, scopes, and synthesizes research instead.
- Regulatory/QM submission (ISO 13485/14971, MDR, FDA 510(k)/PMA/QSR) — clinical research designs the study; submission is a separate, later step.
- Corporate close/valuation — R&D finance manages program/portfolio spend, not the corporate close.
- Funding discovery — R&D finance manages money already won, not the search for grants.
- Persona/journey artifacts and live A/B experiments — product research is the method + synthesis discipline underneath those.
- Campaign analytics/demand-gen — market research is the upstream methodology, not campaign measurement.

## Deliverables per lane

| Lane | Deliverable |
|---|---|
| Clinical | Protocol synopsis + sample-size rationale |
| R&D finance | Program budget summary + capitalize/expense routing recommendation |
| Market | Market-sizing memo (both-ways triangulation) + sampling plan |
| Product | Research plan + insight synthesis |

## Anti-patterns

- Presenting a clinical power/endpoint output as fact — it is an estimate with a named clinical owner.
- Auto-deciding capitalize-vs-expense — always route to a named finance owner.
- Reporting a market size as a single unsourced number — show method + both-ways triangulation + assumptions.
- Asserting a product insight from a single participant — flag it as an anecdote.
- Running all four lanes "to be thorough" — pick one, digest, chain only if the user confirms.

## Canon references

- Clinical: ICH E8(R1)/E9/E9(R1), CONSORT, SPIRIT, FDA Multiple Endpoints guidance
- R&D finance: IAS 38, ASC 730, 2 CFR 200, Cooper stage-gate
- Market: Cochran, Dillman, Kotler, Bessemer market-sizing
- Product: Nielsen, Guest et al., Christensen JTBD, ResearchOps/Polaris