It’s the last episode of 2025, and James celebrates his birthday while wrapping up Season 11 with a special Christmas roundtable discussion featuring his colleagues and regular guests - Lisa and Emma. We dive into the insights gathered from our recent forums in Manchester and London, where we engaged with numerous Insight leaders about the evolving landscape of corporate insight teams. As they discuss the key themes from these forums, James introduces the concept of the "Insight Professionals Pyramid," which outlines the essential skills and roles that Insight professionals should embrace as we navigate the future. The pyramid emphasises the importance of evidence-based activities, the generation of insights, and the need for Insight professionals to act as growth consultants, foresight pioneers, insight influencers, and knowledge stewards. And the apex of the pyramid is an ambition: an aspiration for all corporate Insight professionals to see themselves first and foremost as Insight activists. Much more on this to come in future episodes!

This week I’ve been thinking about the roles that Insight professionals are likely to play in an AI-shaped world, which is the topic of the IMA’s Insight forums in November and December. It’s too early to see the details of any reporting line roles, but I think we can start to map a journey that we will all need to go on – or continue along: a journey from being researchers or analysts to becoming Insight activists. This topic is framing the way I’m thinking about the content I’m reading and listening to, including a new edition of Matthew Syed’s book Black Box Thinking, which has been published to mark its tenth anniversary. It’s a great example, packed full of examples of how some sectors (such as aviation) have become famous for how they record and share learnings when accidents occur, whilst others have a culture of sweeping problems under the carpet and never moving forward.

Over the last 3 seasons of our podcast, we’ve explored 8 of the 9 Ps of the Insight Leader’s Playbook. In season 9, we looked at Purpose, Profile and People, in season 10 at Partners, Prioritisation and Products, and in this season at Processes and Performance.

This season we’ve been continuing our focus on the 9Ps of the Insight Leader’s Playbook, and in the last episode, we explored P for Performance. James asked ‘has your Insight team had a good year?’ and ‘how did you approach your assessment?’ The most progressive Insight teams focus on identifying value opportunities for their organisations, and know they have to quantify that value if they’re to prioritise the right projects, contextualise their findings, and sell their recommendations to senior decision-makers.

Towards the end of each business year, everyone in corporate life starts to think about the success they’ve enjoyed during the past 12 months. Which objectives have been hit, which pieces of work have received the most praise, and which things haven’t gone so well? Will our line manager see those issues in the same way as we do? What will that mean for our performance rating? And what about our colleagues? How will our team members be assessed and rewarded? Knowing how our contribution is going to be judged will be top of mind for everyone towards the end of a period. But how the success of any project is going to be measured is also a determinant in what we focus on in the first place.

Welcome back to the Transforming Insight podcast! This is episode 1 of Season 11, and we’ve called it 'Perfecting Insight’s processes'. How much value does your Insight team place on its ways of working? How much time does it spend crystallising best practice and establishing effective and efficient systems? Unless we pay attention to critical processes we can’t induct new recruits, set common standards, or buy back our own time so that we can work as Insight leaders, not as Insight managers without whose involvement nothing can happen.

It’s the last episode on Season 10, and a chance for James, Emma and Lisa to reflect on the IMA’s latest best practice research, the challenges recently shared by Insight leaders, and our emerging thoughts about the future of Insight roles.

This week we’re continuing our focus on an Insight team’s products – the output seen by the rest of the organisation. And I’m joined by Clare Gough, an IMA associate who has led great Insight teams at SAB Miller, Daily Mail, Waitrose and Haleon.

In this week’s episode we begin with an analogy I’ve drawn many times drawn between the responsibilities of an Insight leader and the roles performed by the director of a small business. Michael E Gerber, author of the E-myth books, says that it’s a small business owner’s primary responsibility to work on their business rather than in it. And I believe that it’s an Insight leader’s role to work on their Insight team, rather than just in it. It’s to help achieve that goal that I’ve been suggesting that senior people in corporate Insight teams might write their own Insight leader’s playbook. To document and develop your ideas for Insight team transformation, whenever you get the chance, and to build up, over time, a plan for how you can optimise your team’s impact in your organisation.

Welcome to episode 73, the fourth of season 10, and we’re continuing our focus on the 5th P of The Insight Leader’s Playbook – P for Prioritisation. IMA members and regular Transforming Insight podcast listeners will be familiar with James Wycherley’s obsession with removing the dividing line between Insight teams’ focus on markets, consumers and customers, and the rest of our organisations’ focus on sales, revenue and profit.

Welcome to episode 72, the third of season 10, and we’re moving onto the 5th P of the Insight Leader’s Playbook – P for priorities. We all know the 80:20 rule: that 80% of the value of pretty much anything will be generated by only 20% of the things we do. So it stands to reason that selecting the most valuable projects for our Insight teams to work on, allocating the right proportion of resources to them, and working on them in the optimal sequence, is going to be critical to the impact we can make.

Welcome to episode 71, the second of season 10, and we’re continuing our focus on the 4th P of the Insight Leader’s Playbook – P for partnerships. James is joined by two fabulous guests: • Ruth Hinton, Insight leader at Vue Cinemas and also Chair of AURA, the UK-based volunteer-led organisation, that was originally the Association of Users of Research Agencies • James Endersby, CEO of international Insight agency, Opinium, founder of Significant Insights, and current president of the Market Research Society (MRS)

It’s episode 70, the first of season 10, and we’re going back to the Insight Leader’s Playbook. Having looked at the importance of working on Insight’s purpose, profile and people in season 9, we’re now going to explore why we all need a plan for building better partnerships with the internal departments and external companies on whom we rely.

It’s episode 69, the last one in season 9, and it’s time to review the topics that we’ve discussed with Insight leaders at our forums and in 121s this term. Which questions have been asked most often, which new ideas have resonated with IMA members and guests at the Insight forums?

In our Transforming Insight podcast this season, we’ve introduced the idea of the Insight leader’s playbook, and James has recommended it as a tool for helping all corporate Insight leaders and aspiring leaders who want to transform their teams' impact this year. In the previous episode, we focused on the on the 3rd P of the Insight leader’s playbook – P for People – and today we’re going to continue this theme, but focus on a very particular aspect of it.

In this week’s episode of the Transforming Insight podcast we’re going to focus on the 3rd P of the Insight leader’s playbook – P for People. Since the Insight forums began in 2005, how we recruit, develop and support the analysts, researchers and Insight managers in our teams is the topic we have discussed more than any other.

In our podcasts this season, we’ve introduced the idea of the Insight leader’s playbook, and James has recommended it as a tool for helping all corporate Insight leaders and aspiring leaders who want to transform their teams' impact this year. In the previous episode, we focused on the second P of the 9Ps playbook framework. Today, we’re going to continue our discussion on the 2nd P – P for Profile.

In our podcasts this season, we’ve introduced the idea of the Insight leader’s playbook, and James has recommended it as a tool for helping all corporate Insight leaders and aspiring leaders who want to transform their teams impact this year. In our last two episodes we’ve focused on the first of 9Ps in our playbook framework – P for Purpose. Today we’re going to move onto the 2nd P – P for Profile. Why profile? Well, if we’re writing a playbook I think we should always start with a view of why our Insight team exists, and describe an amazing ambition for what it might achieve; but we then have to recognise that it’s how the rest of the organisation sees us that will largely determine whether we succeed or not. Hence the focus on our Insight team’s profile

This episode expands on the 1st P of the 9 Ps in the Insight leader’s playbook – Purpose. Can Insight teams truly drive business growth or Insight team transformation without a clearly defined purpose? Join us on this episode of the Transforming Insight podcast as James and his guests explore the pivotal role of defining the purpose of Insight teams in building an insight-driven organisation. We're excited to welcome Sandra Kampmann and Amanda Wiginton, IMA associates who share their experiences and expertise.

In episode 61, James described the wonderful opportunity for anyone who leads, or aspires to lead, a corporate Insight team. He also acknowledged a central challenge, that it’s a lot easier in principle than in practice to work on our Insight teams as well as in them. And he made a suggestion: that documenting and developing our ideas in a structured way could help us to transform Insight and its impact in our organisation. Our own Insight leader’s playbook.