research-ops-skills

The saved excerpt is a snapshot from review. The external source remains the complete and most current version.

---
name: research-ops-skills
description: Use when planning, funding, scoping, or synthesizing enterprise research across workstreams — clinical study design, R&D program finance, market sizing/surveys, or product/user research. Triggers on "design this clinical study", "what sample size", "R&D budget", "burn rate", "capitalize or expense", "TAM SAM SOM", "market sizing", "survey design", "segment the market", "plan user interviews", "usability test", "synthesize research insights". Forks context to route to one of four Research-Operations sub-skills (clinical-research, research-finance, market-research, product-research) and returns a digest. Distinct from ra-qm-team (regulatory submission), finance (corporate close/valuation), research/grants (funding discovery), product-team (persona/journey/live experiments), and marketing-skill (campaign analytics).
context: fork
version: 2.9.0
author: claude-code-skills
license: MIT
tags: [research-ops, clinical-research, research-finance, market-research, product-research, rd, orchestrator]
compatible_tools: [claude-code, codex-cli, cursor, antigravity, opencode, gemini-cli]
---

# Research Operations — Domain Orchestrator

The Research Operations surface is **how the enterprise plans, funds, scopes, and synthesizes research** across four workstreams: clinical R&D, R&D finance, market research, and product research. This orchestrator forks its context, routes your inquiry to one of four sub-skills, then returns a digest. Heavy intake (protocol drafts, program ledgers, survey exports, interview transcripts) stays in the forked context.

This is the enterprise counterpart to the academic `research/` domain. If your question is about **finding** literature, grants, or patents, use `research/`. If it is about **planning, funding, scoping, or synthesizing** research as an operational discipline, you are in the right place.

## When to invoke

| Symptom | Sub-skill |
|---|---|
| "We're designing a Phase 2 trial — what's the endpoint and sample size?" | `clinical-research` |
| "What's our R&D program burn, and is this cost CapEx or OpEx?" | `research-finance` |
| "What's the TAM for this product, and how do we survey the segment?" | `market-research` |
| "How many users do we interview, and how do we synthesize the findings?" | `product-research` |

## Routing logic (deterministic)

Same two-signal threshold pattern as `commercial-skills`. Single-signal → clarifying question. Mixed signals → highest-confidence first, chain second in a follow-up turn. Never silently chain.

### Signal table

| Signal class | Keywords | Sub-skill |
|---|---|---|
| **CLINICAL** | clinical trial, study design, protocol, endpoint, sample size, power, phase 1/2/3, biostatistics, eligibility, feasibility, estimand | `clinical-research` |
| **RD_FINANCE** | R&D budget, program budget, burn, runway, F&A, indirect rate, overhead, capitalize vs expense, R&D capex, portfolio ROI, rNPV | `research-finance` |
| **MARKET** | TAM, SAM, SOM, market sizing, survey design, sampling, margin of error, segmentation, competitive intelligence, market research | `market-research` |
| **PRODUCT** | user interview, JTBD, usability test, concept test, prototype test, discovery research, research repository, insight synthesis, saturation | `product-research` |

## Workflow (Matt Pocock grill discipline)

Derived from Matt Pocock's `grill-with-docs` pattern: **explore-then-ask, one question per turn with a recommended answer, walk the decision tree depth-first, track dependencies, anchor every challenge in the research canon** (`references/` of each sub-skill).

### Step 1 — Explore before asking

Check the user's working directory first:
- Is there a protocol draft, program ledger, TAM model, or interview guide already in the workspace?
- Does the inquiry already disambiguate the lane (e.g., "what sample size for a two-arm trial" — that's `clinical-research`, no question needed)?
- Is there an artifact filename that resolves the lane (`p