What makes you think the 100 insights are actually insights, and not simply deriving from confirmation bias?
To be clear, I support qual + quant user research (+ split testing). They are all tools that help influence product direction. I have, however, seen a lot of cases where qualitative research uncovers an insight that doesn't actually match real world behavior when we bake it into the product.
Compare that to a split test, where I don't know why something is happening, but I am able to optimize against goals. It gives less insight but is more foolproof-actionable. With insight, you have to go insight -> improved_action. With testing, you just have the improved action.
To me, qualitative research is crucial to build a model of the environment. These can be used to generate hypotheses, which you then split test. Any time I see someone take direct insight and build a product feature from it, I have a lot of questions about what alternate ideas they tested. And how to know the one that was developed is as close to optimal as you can get, given the fixed resources available.
To be clear, I support qual + quant user research (+ split testing). They are all tools that help influence product direction. I have, however, seen a lot of cases where qualitative research uncovers an insight that doesn't actually match real world behavior when we bake it into the product.
Compare that to a split test, where I don't know why something is happening, but I am able to optimize against goals. It gives less insight but is more foolproof-actionable. With insight, you have to go insight -> improved_action. With testing, you just have the improved action.
To me, qualitative research is crucial to build a model of the environment. These can be used to generate hypotheses, which you then split test. Any time I see someone take direct insight and build a product feature from it, I have a lot of questions about what alternate ideas they tested. And how to know the one that was developed is as close to optimal as you can get, given the fixed resources available.