When Smart Teams Execute Themselves Into a Corner
The University of Oregon's BRT team had everything needed to transform writing education: years of proprietary research, proven diagnostic methods, and institutional backing. What they didn't have was a product that worked.
After three years of development, WriteRightNow was fundamentally broken. Teachers couldn't sign up. The interface was confusing. The value proposition was buried under features nobody understood. Despite months of "fixes" and additional features, the team was stuck in an execution spiral—working harder but getting further from a viable product.
Even smart teams fall into this classic trap: when you're deep into execution, you work harder on patterns that aren't working. And it's nearly impossible to step back to read the label on their own jar.
the challenge
BRT was facing an existential crisis. Years of research and development had produced a product so broken that potential users couldn't even get started. The team was trapped in a cycle of tactical fixes that made the core problems worse, not better.
Strategic Assessment
Rather than telling BRT what was wrong, Juniper used a facilitated discovery process to help BRT see the pattern for themselves. And then we tested it with real users...and made them watch.
Key Consumer Insight
Teachers didn't need access to sophisticated research—they needed simple tools that solved immediate problems. The insight wasn't "make the research more accessible" but "solve the problem that prevents teachers from having time to engage with any tool, no matter how good."
BRT's most critical, addressable challenge:
Breaking free from the research-first mindset that had trapped them in an execution spiral, creating a usable product without starting over completely.
It directly addressed the core pattern: Building sophisticated features that showcased research instead of solving user problems, resulting in a product teachers couldn't even navigate.
It leveraged BRT's actual competitive advantage: Years of solid research that could be powerful IF presented in a way teachers could actually use and understand.
Breaking this pattern would prevent months of wasted redesign work while transforming their research into a tool teachers would actually adopt and recommend.
DIAGNOSING THE REAL PROBLEM
When 'more features' becomes the enemy of usability
Our first step wasn't diving into BRT's competitive advantages—it was understanding what had prevented a smart team with solid research from creating something teachers could actually use. We needed to see the pattern they couldn't see from inside their execution spiral.
Rather than diving into analytics or reviewing their research (they'd done plenty of both), we did something that made the BRT team uncomfortable: we put their product in front of several expeienced educators...and then made them watch.
The user testing revelation
Within the first five minutes, the pattern became painfully clear. Teachers would land on the signup page, read the description, and immediately look confused. They'd start the account creation process, hit roadblocks, and abandon.
"I feel like I need some kind of cheat sheet to finish and know what to do?" one participant said during testing.
Watching this happen over and over again, The BRT team started to see the pattern they'd been blind to. The problem wasn't that teachers didn't understand the value of their research—teachers couldn't figure out how to get started.
The breakthrough insight: When expertise becomes a barrier
The revelation wasn't about market positioning—it was about seeing how deep academic knowledge can accidentally create user barriers. When you've spent years thinking theoretically about a problem, it becomes nearly impossible to think practically about the solution.
BRT had built a platform that made perfect sense to researchers but assumed teachers thought like academic developers. Every feature showcased their expertise, but the basic question—"How does a busy teacher figure out what this actually does?"—had never been seriously considered.
They didn't need more research about what teachers wanted. They needed to see how teachers actually behaved when encountering something new.
BREAKTHROUGH: FROM BROKEN TO BRILLIANT
After watching teachers struggle with their product,
So, after really diving deep and positioning for Gerald's team finally saw what had been invisible to them for months. The solution wasn't adding more features or conducting more research—it was getting out of their own way.
Relief, clarity...and the courage to act.
1
Invisible expertise, visible value
Instead of showcasing their research sophistication upfront, we helped them bury the complexity behind a simple, clear user experience. Teachers needed to understand "What does this do for me?" before they cared about "How sophisticated is the research behind it?"
2
Rather than building around their research process, BRT redesigned around how teachers actually work—limited time, multiple priorities, and need for immediate practical value. The question became "How does this fit into a teacher's Tuesday afternoon?" not "How do we display our data insights?"
Teacher workflow, not academic workflow
3
Earn the right to complexity
BRT's research was genuinely valuable, but they needed to earn the right to share it by first solving basic problems. Get teachers successfully onboarded, show immediate value, then gradually reveal the deeper capabilities.
