Hi Luis! Thanks for the question. If you have a UX researcher, the best plan is to give them the time to do their best work. Why would we want anything less than their best work? :)

If you want it to take less time, I would team up 3 UX researchers. That’s what I do when my clients want things faster. It can turn months into weeks, but more importantly, it turns not knowing or guessing into knowing.

How can you do it properly? If I found you on LinkedIn, you’re an Agile Coach. It normally takes 3+ years of education, study, practice, experience to do research well. Many people are bad at research… bad at planning, recruiting, executing, analyzing, synthesizing, and finding the insights and opportunities. Therefore, I suggest strongly against having non-researchers try to be researchers. Same reasons why we don’t have marketers try coding to production. :)

Non-researchers can try research, but I would mark that in the risk register as a risk. What are the risks that we do research badly and validate something that’s bad? Get and work from the wrong data? Will it have been worth it to be “faster” if we are working from bad data? Will we still be “fast” if we have to redo or fix it later?

If you don’t bother with research or you try to go light on it, I would also mark that in the risk register. If you find out later that working from guesses or assumptions created any wasted time, money, or customer trust, then perhaps you try something different the next time. Use risk registers and the retro to take that honest look at what you choose to do, especially where you have non-specialists do specialist work.

Good luck and if I can answer any other questions, let me know!