The Problem
The Solution
The Impact
Where We Landed
After 8 months of strategic implementation, we transformed Kroger's fragmented research landscape into a unified intelligence system. The Dovetail repository now serves as the single source of truth for customer insights across the enterprise.
The Dovetail repository homepage showing Kroger's six Insights Hubs, with recently published research and quick navigation across all business pillars
My Role & Approach
As Research Operations Lead, I owned the end-to-end transformation from identifying the knowledge fragmentation problem to implementing a scalable solution for 100+ team members.
Secured executive buy-in
Aligned cross-functional teams
Designed taxonomy
Created governance model
searching, analyzing & sharing research
Drove cultural shift
Key Responsibilities
- ✓ Led cross-functional team of 20+ stakeholders
- ✓ Facilitated requirements workshops across 6 pillars
- ✓ Managed vendor evaluation and negotiation
- ✓ Designed information architecture and taxonomy
- ✓ Supported training and adoption initiatives
- ✓ Established governance framework
User-Centered Infrastructure:
Rather than forcing a tool on the organization, I started with user needs—understanding how teams actually work with research to design a system they'd embrace.
The Process
Cross-Pillar Requirements Workshop
I facilitated a structured workshop bringing together researchers and designers from all four business pillars. Using a "what would you search for?" framework, we captured the diverse ways teams think about organizing and finding research, revealing both common patterns and unique domain-specific needs.
Workshop output showing how different business domains (CX, AX, Merch, Supply Chain) conceptualize research search—revealing the need for flexible tagging beyond traditional categories
Repository Platform Audit
We evaluated 5 research repository platforms to find the best fit for Kroger's needs.
Dovetail
FINALIST
EnjoyHQ
FINALIST
Airtable
Custom build needed
Glean.ly
Still in beta
Aurelius
Missing featuresFeature Definition & Prioritization
Based on workshop insights, we defined and prioritized critical features. The team individually rated each capability, then we aggregated scores to create three priority tiers that would guide our platform evaluation.
Prioritized feature list showing first priority (green): permissions, sharing, tagging, search, transcription; second priority (yellow): reporting, notes organization, persona tagging; third priority (red): templates, data visualization
Systematic Platform Comparison
Using our prioritized requirements, I led a comprehensive evaluation including hands-on testing, NDA-protected demos, and systematic scoring against our criteria. This objective approach provided clear justification for our recommendation.
Comprehensive scoring matrix and qualitative assessment showing Dovetail's superior performance in organization, searchability, and ease of use—the factors most critical to driving adoption across diverse user groups
Pre-Implementation Alignment
Before finalizing our selection, I led a Questions/Nervous/Excited workshop to surface potential adoption barriers and resistance points. This proactive approach allowed us to address concerns in our implementation strategy rather than discovering them during rollout.
Questions/Nervous/Excited framework revealing concerns about process change, time investment, and training needs—while also capturing excitement about improved knowledge sharing and research discoverability
Business Case & Approval
With clear evidence from our systematic evaluation and strong stakeholder support, I built a compelling business case highlighting the $1.2M annual cost of duplicate research and inefficient knowledge management. This data-driven approach, combined with the inclusive selection process, secured executive approval and budget allocation for Dovetail implementation.
The Decision
Dovetail was selected with full stakeholder buy-in. The inclusive process built consensus and excitement rather than resistance.