Lost
in
opinions?
When data, research, and opinions pull in different directions, decisions lose clarity and politics fills the space.
I help organizations get better insights, use them well, and make clearer decisions.
Three ways
I help.
I run the research that gives teams a clear picture of how users behave and what they need, how the market is moving, and where the offering can stand apart. From early exploration, to concept evaluation through to post-launch learning, the point is always the same: fewer assumptions, sharper decisions.
Research that sits in a deck doesn't change anything. I help build the operating rhythm that connects evidence to development decisions on an ongoing basis: what questions to ask at each stage, what proof looks like, and how teams make calls when the picture is incomplete. The goal is a process that teams actually use because it makes their work easier, not one they comply with because they have to.
From time to time the important question is not about customers or markets. It's about the organization itself. I run post-mortems that go beyond what happened to surface why it was likely. I help teams see their own decision patterns: where past success reduced the appetite for challenging information, where politics replaced evidence, and where learning stopped travelling between teams. This is harder to commission than a research study, and it matters more than most of them.
Insights
AI built in,
with judgment.
AI can speed up research and expand what a small team can handle. I use it for clustering large qualitative datasets, mining text across feedback sources, and automating repetitive steps. I also build local evidence repositories where findings are interpreted through an explicit framework, linked to source quotes, and accumulate across engagements. The evidence gets sharper over time rather than starting from zero on every project. Where judgment is required, AI stays out of the way.
Janus Rau Sørensen
Copenhagen, Denmark
I've spent twenty years inside product organizations (IO Interactive, Crystal Dynamics, Square Enix, and startups) in Silicon Valley, the UK, Copenhagen, and remotely across continents. I've built research and insights functions from scratch and run portfolio-level decision processes across more than 50 products under real commercial pressure.
What's unique about my UXR/Customer Insights background is that I was also trained in organizational theory and ethnography. This means I tend to notice things about how teams use evidence, not just what the evidence says.
That has led me to turn the research lens on the organization itself: how decisions drift from evidence, what gets in the way of collaboration, and why teams sometimes stop learning. And what to do about it.
Want to work
together?
Copenhagen-based. Working internationally.
janusrau@playbookinsights.com LinkedIn → janusrau