Summary: Use the RAS (Recommendation-Adoption Score) to track how much research value reaches your user.
In the first article of this series , we defined research breakage as the gap between recommendations and actual change. While breakage is real, spotting it is tricky without data. A vague spreadsheet or a status line in a slide does not cut it. Without structure, adoption gets overstated, breakage stays hidden, and sooner or later credibility takes a hit.
This is where the recommendation-adoption score, or RAS, comes in. We developed the RAS as a real-world metric to track breakage in our work at Cisco. But the RAS is more than just a number: it tells you how much of the value you worked to create actually reaches the user.
Treat Recommendations like Inventory
Retailers track products through every stage of the supply chain. If something breaks along the way, they want to know where and why. Design recommendations that come from research should be treated in the same way. Each recommendation represents time, energy, and money. Each one is a unit of value that either reaches the user intact or is lost.
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