Company Context

NoteFlow is a Series B productivity SaaS company that offers AI-assisted meeting notes and task tracking for small teams. It has 1.8M monthly active users, sells through a freemium model, and competes with tools like Notion AI, Otter, and ClickUp.

Problem

The team wants to improve activation for new users of its AI meeting summary feature. Today, only 34% of new workspace admins complete the setup flow, and just 18% of invited teammates use the generated summaries in their first two weeks. Product leadership is split on what research to run next: one group believes the team still does not understand the core user problem well enough and should run generative research; another believes the problem is already known and the team should run evaluative research on proposed solutions such as a new onboarding flow, summary templates, and sharing prompts.

You are the PM responsible for recommending the research approach for the next 6 weeks. You have one user researcher, one product designer, and limited engineering support for prototypes. Leadership wants a clear rationale for when to use generative vs evaluative methods, what questions each method can answer, and how the decision will affect roadmap confidence.

Deliverables

1. Define the difference between generative and evaluative research in this product context.
2. Explain how you would decide which approach to use now, based on the current evidence and product stage.
3. Propose a research plan, including target users, methods, sample, and timeline.
4. Describe what decisions the research should unlock for product and design.
5. Identify trade-offs, risks, and what you would do if findings are mixed.

Constraints

• Recommendation must fit within a 6-week window.
• Budget allows at most 20 moderated sessions total.
• Engineering can support only lightweight prototypes, not a fully built feature.
• Leadership expects a recommendation tied to measurable product outcomes, not research for its own sake.