Service Design Show

Customers don't care about your internal departments. They only care about the experience they have with your service. So in order to deliver great services you need to organise around your customer. Not the other way around. But breaking down internal silos is easier said than done. Many have tried and failed. Big time. In this episode you'll learn from Emma Laurentz how customer insights can help to build those much needed internal bridges. Because when used in a smart way customer insights are one of the most powerful instruments you have to gently force stakeholders cross the borders of their own department. So the question then becomes what does it take to get the most value out customer insights? How can you best harness their secret powers? That's what you're going to find out in this chat with Emma! If enjoyed this episode and it inspired you please consider sharing it with just 1 other person you know. Every. Share. Counts. :) ----- [ GUIDE ] ----- 03:00 - The first encounter with Service

What is the best place for an internal service design team so that it can bring the most value to the organisation? A question which is becoming more and more important. Even if you're with an agency or freelancing. Because knowing where service design fits into the organisational structure allows you to help your clients more effectively. Judy Mellett leads an internal team at Telus. In this episode we talk about the benefits and the downsides of being close to the day to day operation. And whether it helps to be at a distance in a stragic role. Futhermore Judy shares her experience in tackling a massive challenge using service design: Improve the educational system in british columbia Canada. If you're interested to learn more about that check out the talk Judy gave at the Service Design Network Global Conference 2019. You'll find links to that presentation down below. Finally we explore how far and wide service design (and / or design thinking) can reach. Which challenges should we address next as a com

In this episode you'll learn about some time and cost effective ways to do proper user research inspired by the world of copywriting. Successful conversion copywriter Joel Klettke takes you along his process to craft copy which deeply resonates with readers. As you'll hear that process evolves for a large part on conducting user research in order to understand the people you're going to write for. The similarities between how Joel does research and the way we do it as service designers is sometimes uncanny. There's just so much overlap that you wonder why our paths haven't crossed before. We also talk about how Joel is able to convince clients to do user research. Even when they think they know everything there is about their customers. Stepping outside the world of service design is sometimes the best way to improve our practice and this episode is I think a great example. If enjoyed this episode and found it helpful please consider sharing it with just 1 other person you know. Every. Share. Counts.

Are you saying that I have to stop practicing Human Centered Design? Well yeah that's basically the answer. According to Nik Parekh human centered design has brought a lot of positive change to the world but it's not sustainable. And to be honest Nik isn't the first one to make this argument. Former guests like Mauricio Manhaes and Anab Jain have also made a similar plea. We have to adopt a different design approach which is even more inclusive... Nik shares some inspiring examples how we can do that. The other topic you'll learn about in this episode is the one of #standardisation. Especially how far can you standardize the service experience without losing touch with the local context? This doesn't only apply to services offered by global brands... this applies to every service provider because local might be as small as your street! Finally talks about the next frontier for designers which is #law. I didn't see that one coming either. But it's interesting to think about what would happen when privacy

Is all service design ** good ** service design? If we assume it isn't how do you recognise what's good and what's not? In this you'll learn about the importance of ethics in design. Because it's your moral compass that guides you forward when you have to make decisions which require certain trade offs. The guest in this episode James Samperi talks about how they are developing a manifesto to help them in this process. We also talk about craft within service design. A topic that we've addressed in past episodes but it keeps coming back. The reason is that a lot of people are still unsure what the practice of service design entails. It's important that we're as a professional field are able to articulate what the traits are of a good service designer, service design team and service design project. The final topic is connected to the previous one. We're seeing that service design is becoming more and more fragmented. There are different "flavours" of it appearing on the market. Agencies that focus purely on

What happens when you start using spaces as a distinct design material rather than a just designing a space? That's exactly the question Scott Witthoft is has been exploring for the last decade. Scott wrote the book Make Space along with Scott Doorley back in 2012 to provide a starting guide on how we can take control of the spaces around us and shape them in a way they support our needs. We talk about what has happend since the book was published and what Scott has learned years that have gone by about this topic. In this episode we also explore the notion of prototyping spaces. Scott shares his ideas on how to actually do that. And as you'll learn according to Scott prototyping should be treated with the same care and intent as the final output. You cannot slack here if you want your prototype to yield some useful results. Finally we dig into the world of small-scale builders. Especially people who create high end guitars. We look at what we can learn as designers from how this community practices and sh

Wouldn't it be great if we could get the design approach into the hands of many more people and empower them to improve their life? Keneilwe Munyai is on an inspiring mission to get design out of the corporate lab environment and make it accessible to people in rural areas of Africa. In this episode we talk about the barriers that we've put in place that make design less inclusive at this moment. And of course what we can do to break down these barriers. Because we can't afford to restricted design a small privileged group of people. Next up on is the topic of sustainability. There's a lot of talk about designing for sustainability but not so much action according to Keneilwe and that needs to change. We go over some strategies to actually make sustainability and integral part of your design process. Not hard, but super important. Finally it's all about redesigning education. Too many students end up finishing school with a degree but unemployed. As a program manager for the d-School in Cape Town Keneilwe

Once you start working as a service designer you'll quickly realise that climbing up the corporate ladder isn't the typical career path. Usually there is no "up the ladder" for service designers... So how do you make sure you don't get stuck in your career after a few years. The guest in this episode, Angela Yeh, has 20 years of experience helping designers to navigate their career. She works in the super interesting chasm between employers and design talent. In this episode Angela shares why a lot of designers struggle to communicate the unique skills they bring to employers. And as a result of this don't get the opportunity to show what they are capable of. Angela has a few helpful tips on what you can do to explain the value you create even when an employer doesn't know a lot about design. We also talk about the conditions which are needed for designers to thrive. And how to handle situations where these conditions are not (yet) in place. As Angela says it's not so much about the maturity stage of desi

How come we as customers rarely feel truly served even when we're surrounded by services? What has caused the disconnect between services and actually serving people. And more importantly how can we reverse this? That's what you'll in this episode with Joel Bailey. Joel is a true service design pioneer who can be credited for starting the notorious service design drinks and thinks events in the early days. We explore how the quest for efficiency has create a big gap in most organisations between us as consumers and the people who are delivering (and often designing) the service. Organisations who want to be more customer centric need to find ways to close that gap and Joel shares some ideas on how to do that. The other big topic we discuss in this episode is the one of scaling service design. Yes it's a topic that has been debated often on the Show lately. Joels take on this is that we when focus on scaling service design we are bound to fail. What we should do instead is focus on scaling the design of s

In this episode Patrick Bach shares his learnings about what it takes to successfully build and lead a service design that is able to create sustainable value within a large corporate. We talk about the need to expand our existing service design toolkit with new tools and methods. This might mean that we need to tap into areas like behavioural economics and lean six sigma. Collaborating much more with people who wouldn't necessarily call themselves service designers. Next we addresses the question: Where do good service designers come from? Patrick has a lot of experience hiring people for his team. So he's learned a thing or two about the background and characteristics of people that tend to fit well into this role. The big challenge for people who lead service design teams is how do you keep everyone on board and engaged? Because as you'll learn in this episode service designers aren't really interested or motivate to climb up the corporate ladder. Finally we talk about the kind of leadership that lea

What can service designers learn from how different industries, different markets and even different countries respond to the value of our field? Because as you know not everyone perceives the need for service design in the same way we do. In this episode Slavo Tuleya shares his experience from setting up an innovation lab focussed on mobility services in China. Slavo has a nice comparison as he previously setup a similar lab in Europe. It might not come as a big surprise that the perception of service design in China is different compared to other parts of the world. But it's not just the perception. It's also way you need to work as a service designer. A specific thing we talk about is how you collect feedback within your design process. Collecting feedback from users and stakeholders is vital in order to make sure you're on the right track. But what if people aren't used to giving feedback? How can you still collect the data you need? And finally we also discuss why it is so important to be able to a

Service Design can be a great driver of value. Not just for businesses but for a whole nation. Knowing this one might wonder how you can accelerate the pace at which service design spreads and is adopted by a community. As the CEO of the Danish Design Centre Christian Bason thinks about this every day. Spreading service design requires growing both the demand side and the supply side. More organisations need to be interested in applying service design to solve their challenge and there need to be enough skilled service designer to work on those challenges. In this episode Christian shares his perspective on how to that. Have you ever considered the outcome of service design to be new business models? Christian argues that that's actually a really important aspect of our practice and we should embrace it even more. We discuss the implications of what it means for you. At the end of the episode we're also doing a book giveaway! Read down below how you can get your hands on a signed copy of one of Christians

Human Centered Design is getting a lot of attention these days. But what are we giving up if we put the human at the center? What are the limits of our current practice? In this episode Anab Jain shares her perspective on why we need to look beyond human centered design. Or at least augment it with more holistic view. Next we challenge the notion of the designer as problem solver. Are we really solving problems or are we creating more and maybe even more complex challenges? Anab advocates that we adopt a more humble and probably realistic attitude. This is definitely a though provoking episode that will most likely change your mindset about our current practice. If you know someone who might be interested the things we've discussed make sure to share the episode with them. ----- [ EPISODE GUIDE ] ----- 03:00 - How can we as designers not think about climate change? 09:30 - What if we give up the idea of human centered design? 19:00 - How far can we live with the hybris that we are problem solvers? 25

Is Service Design a true distinctive design discipline? According to Lara Penin it certainly is. It's certainly a topic that evokes a lot of debate in our community. The transdisciplinary nature of service design often makes it hard to point out the craft in our work. Also the fact that we don't have a tangible design material doesn't make things any easier. But in this episode we explore what makes service design a distinctive design discipline. Lara also explains why service design is actually a lot about designing people. It's about designing the way people work. We should be really conscious about the consequences our designs can have on the lives of people. For that we must let go of abstracts like personas and really understand the people we're designing for as people. As simple as that might sound it's actually not that easy at all. Finally we talk about the advanced mindsets in service design which are needed to make real and sustainable impact. These mindsets are going to help you go beyond the

What does it mean to work as a Service Designer in a team that heavily relies on #RemoteCollaboration to get their job done? Can you still successfully operate as a Service Design when you don't have the ability to physically interact with your team mates, stakeholders and customers? Jacquelyn Brioux is exactly in this spot in her role at Shopify. She shares her learnings and gives some tips on practical tools that help to make this work. We also dive into the topic of #EmotionalIntelligence and debate why it's still pretty much undervalued in the workplace. The implications of this a huge by the way way. Lower employee retention. Less productivity. And less involved staff. Just to name a few/. Finally we talk about when we should start giving service design away. I know it sounds scary and uncomfortable but as you'll learn it's inevitable. But what is actually the thing we give away!? Jacquelyn shares how she's doing this right now at Shopify. Did you enjoy this episode? Leave a comment or send me a mes

How do you turn a customer centric vision into reality? This is exactly what Priscila Willams is tasked to do within large banks and in this episode she shares her most valuable learnings. How important is support from top level management? Do you need to make a business case upfront? Who are the people you should have conversations with in order to operationalize your ideas? These are just some of the challenges that Priscila has had to deal with. Every organisation is different and requires it's own approach to customer centricity but this episode will definitly help you to plot that roadmap. So roll up your sleeves and get ready to put things in motion :) Do you know someone who might be interested the things we've discussed during this episode? Make sure to share the episode with them! ---------------------------------------- EPISODE GUIDE 03:55 - The first encounter with Service Design. 05:35 - How can we develop a change management strategy to make organisations more customer centric? 13:50 - Why is

If you're a human being you are a storyteller. Stories are the human operating system. In this episode you'll learn that stories are not just useful for transferring knowledge or communicating results. They can also be used as a tool to explore, understand and co-create. Mary Alice Arthur proudly calls herself a story activist. She's on a mission to help people and organisations find the stories that make them flourish. It's hard to deny that stories and storytelling are getting a lot of attention these days. According to Mary Alice this is primaly due to the fact that stories have the power to evoke emotions and therefor influence people. But there's more to stories that just using them to influence. Stories are also about collective sensemaking and wholing. I really hope this episode with Mary Alice will inspire you to think about how you can use stories to design better service! P.S. If you enjoyed this episode don't forget to share it with someone who might like it as well. Thanks :) --------------

Often there is a big gap between what clients want and what they truly need to solve their challenge or achieve their goal. As a service designer you'll need to use all your diplomatic skills to open clients up for a fresh perspective. This is a crucial step if you want to make impact. We know about Service Design Thinking, Service Design Doing and in this episode Greg Lakloufi talks about Service Design Understanding. The rise of toolkits and the availability off the shelf methods makes service design more accessible for newcomers. But this also creates the need for deeper understanding of what service design is. Understanding is the key to using the tools and methods to their full potential. And finally Greg talks about how we can shift out focus from deliverables to outcomes. We are here to drive customer centric change. Our deliverables are just tools that help us get there. So we really need to focus on outcomes rather than deliverables. Did you enjoy this episode? Share it with someone who might lik

While law might not be the most sexy thing for designers to think about they are an essential part for delivering great services. You might not realize it but almost every aspect in our daily live has a some legal aspect to it. And the legal side of things is now primarily handled by people graduating for law school rather than by designers. But there's no rule in the law stating that rules and regulations should be boring and not user centered. Having both a background in law and design Angelica Flechas is evangelising the discipline of #LegalDesign. A discipline that aims to make law more user friendly and accessible. In this episode we talk about what legal design actually looks like and discuss some interesting case studies. Have you been merging law and design in your work? Leave a comment and share your experience! ---------------------------------------- EPISODE GUIDE 03:10 - The first encounter with Service Design. 04:20 - What if every service designer could work with legal topics? 12:45 - Why

What is the secret to designing and delivering great public services? In this episode Chelsea Mauldin shares her experience from running one of the leading service design agencies in the United States that focuses on the public sector: Public Policy Lab. We talk about the challenges associated with scaling and implementation of services in a public context. And why you should never engage in a project that lacks people who will eventually be able to execute on the generated ideas. Chelsea also shared some of her ideas on how you can get clients to take a more open approach rather than jumping straight to solutions. So the next time a client approaches you and asks for an App make sure to follow Chelsea's advice. And finally we address a really big topic: how far can you as a designer go in making sure that your work isn't used to do harm? You might think that this is primarily something you need to think about when working for oppressing regimes. But this is actually much closer to home then you think! A