Thanks for putting up this task @GEscalante-WMF. One aspect of the plan to note is clarifying (I hope) that this is not a *complete* transition away from design research from doing any the usability testing, but capacity building for designers to be able to take on more of the work.
It would be important to set a rubric/prioritisation/triage system as there will continue to be projects requiring a design researcher to execute.

Action plan.
For feedback and approval before April 29th.

• (Per Rita's comment) Understand & analyze which types of testing will be held by the DR team and which will go to the Design team. Gabriel will prepare a classification and together with Leila we'll make a group decision. This decision is in consultation with Rita as the representative of Design who is most directly affected by the change. Before starting the transition plan, these units need to be defined.
• Do a pilot of content with a small group. This group could be populated by Designers and PMs. Then we move the training and references to LearnUpon.

Once that distribution is clear we can start working on the action plan.

This plan will include:

• Communicate the plan with the Design team. in written to the Director of Design and at her discretion to the designers, we could start with Managers and Principals and then to ICs
• Call out for participation. Invite and promote potential future users for the training.
• Prepare the syllabus accordingly. Understanding the level within the team is fundamental to preparing training sessions. Each training will include a theoretical and a practical part and will be divided in 4 great topics (number of sessions to be defined according to AP work and other activities. The topics will not change, but the level of in-depth explanations may change according to the level of knowledge declared, so it's important we have a tailored version depending on the situation on the team.
  • Topic 1: Tools & Methods. How does the qualitative approach impact Design work and what are the expectations a tester should have. `this is fundamental to know what type of testing and activities are needed according to the problem we want to evaluate)
  • Topic 2: Objective & Project definition. Differentiate between research and product objectives, setting a sample, defining audiences, and setting milestones. (this point is relevant to setting up expectations and being realistic with the work that might be done)
  • Topic 3: Research Ops. What needs to be done to guarantee a good completion of the project? From recruitment, translation, and platforms to a reasonable usage of resources and understanding of the processes. (this is fundamental to navigate our tools, platforms and internal processes to do projects with external help)
  • Topic 4: Applying (optional). For the practical section, we'll simulate a real project. If the participant has already a project in mind, we'll make sure to use it, if they don't we'll help them build it. (a good experience to mess-up, learn from mistakes and bring a good idea on how things will be happening in the future)

Outcome: A toolkit for designers to use regularly, both methodological and operational.

After the training process has been done, we'll:

• Continue consulting in UX testing projects that are led by Designers for Q1 and Q2. The level of these consulting activities might vary depending on the type and amount of work, for the experience of the designer. That needs to be addressed at the beginning of the project.
• By Q3 & Q4, only consult on high impact, high complexity Usability projects as needs arise in the Design team.

Notes:
a) Usability is a regular part of Product-Oriented qualitative work, so Design Research will still do this type of work if it belongs to a bigger more generative objective that Design Researchers are already contributing to.
b) Regardless of the transition plan, the DR team is always open to assist in project and objective definition. Also, we expect to be included in the Annual planing and KR and Hypothesis definition.