How to Synthesise Findings Across Multiple Studies

Pick a product area your team has researched more than once. Now try to state the three most important things the programme knows about that area based on all the research conducted. If you find yourself thinking "I would need to go back and check", each study exists in isolation.

Before You Can Synthesise

Checkpoint: Search for all research related to [specific product area] from the last two years. How many places did you have to look? How long did it take? Are you confident you found everything?

Checkpoint: For the studies you found, can you quickly see the methodology, sample, and limitations of each one?

The Synthesis Process

Step 1: Gather and catalogue.

Checkpoint: If a colleague who has never worked on this area needed to do this step, could they complete it using your systems alone?

Step 2: Identify themes.

Step 3: Look for patterns and contradictions.

Checkpoint: When you find a contradiction between studies, can you easily check the methodological differences that might explain it?

Step 4: Assess confidence levels.

Step 5: Document the synthesis.

Checkpoint: Where will this synthesis live? If it goes into a shared drive alongside individual reports, it will be lost within months.

Keeping Synthesis Current

Checkpoint: Does your programme have a process for updating syntheses when new evidence arrives?

What Good Looks Like

If the checkpoints revealed that finding, comparing, and connecting past research is difficult, the synthesis method is not the problem. The underlying evidence is not structured in a way that makes synthesis practical.