Project Background

Meta's Messenger team has completed 10 weeks of mixed-methods research on teen and young adult communication behaviors across the US, Brazil, and India. The research covers message composition, privacy expectations, and reactions to AI-assisted features in Messenger, and leadership wants the findings translated into product decisions before Q4 planning closes.

You are the User Experience Researcher responsible for hosting a cross-functional synthesis workshop with a 12-person core team: 2 PMs, 1 content designer, 1 product designer, 4 engineers, 1 data scientist, 1 policy lead, 1 marketing lead, and 1 research manager. The workshop must align stakeholders on the most important insights, unresolved questions, and near-term product implications for Messenger.

Key Stakeholders

The PM for Messaging Growth wants clear recommendations that can feed directly into the roadmap. The policy lead is concerned that some findings around teen privacy and AI suggestions may require additional review before any launch decisions. Engineering wants prioritized, actionable outputs rather than broad themes, while the research manager expects methodological rigor and traceability back to the original studies.

Constraints

You have 15 calendar days before Q4 planning lock, a budget of $8,000 for workshop support and participant incentives, and no additional headcount. Stakeholders are split across Menlo Park, New York, and London, so the workshop must work in a hybrid format. Only one 3-hour live workshop block is available, and pre-reads historically have less than 60% completion.

Complications

1. Two PMs disagree on whether the workshop should focus on immediate roadmap decisions or longer-term strategic themes.
2. A late-breaking policy review may invalidate one of the strongest findings related to AI-generated reply suggestions for teens.
3. Engineering has warned that any recommendation requiring more than 6 engineer-weeks this half will likely be deprioritized.

Your Task

1. Design the end-to-end workshop plan, including pre-work, facilitation structure, and post-workshop follow-through.
2. Explain how you would align stakeholders on synthesis criteria and decision-making before the session.
3. Define the outputs you would produce to make findings actionable for Messenger planning.
4. Identify the main execution risks and how you would mitigate them.
5. Describe how you would handle conflict if the workshop does not reach clear prioritization.