Regardless of where you are today in your career, at some point you'll want to work on new challenges, learn new things and be exposed to new experiences. When you start to get this itch it's important to recognize that it's a pivotal moment. At this point one might take the approach where they grab the best next opportunity that presents itself on the journey. This opportunistic approach will probably lead you to some interesting adventures, but it also comes with a significant risk. When you l...
Dec 23, 2021•1 hr
Looking for practical service design tips and tricks? Who doesn't right :) So in this episode you'll hear four commited service design professionals open up and share their best practices with you. ============ For more best practices join the upcoming cohort of our Selling Service Design with Confidence program. https://servicedesignshow.com/selling/ ============ These best practices focus on how you can get buy-in and support for your work (especially from non-designers). Which, as you probabl...
Dec 16, 2021•45 min
A clear pattern is emerging... You know what I see when I look at who is hiring service design professionals these days? It's product driven tech companies! When you take a closer look it's not that surprising that these companies are looking into service design. They are realizing that they need to take responsibility for a larger part of the user experience. A part which includes many non-digital aspects. Just think of how AirBnB deals with properties, Uber with cars and Amazon with physical g...
Dec 09, 2021•59 min
Ever wanted to have a good service design case study? What about 100? Coming up! Read on to learn more. I still struggle when someone asks me for a case study. Because services play out over time with many micro interactions across time it's hard to capture the entire thing in one case study. So why don't we take a different approach? What would happen if we tear a service apart and look at those smaller interactions rather than the entire thing? Would that help to identify best practices and el...
Nov 25, 2021•53 min
Does it matter? Can you be a good service design professional without any formal training or background? Many people I know just started doing service design without having a diploma or certificate. That's how I started in this field as well. Mastering the craft on the job and figuring stuff out as they go along. They have, what I would call, practical wisdom. But this lack of formal education sometimes causes unnecessary doubt and prevents you from doing your best work. So should you get that s...
Nov 18, 2021•38 min
The answer was simple... "It gave me the opportunity to start doing things the way I really thought they should be done." That's what Todd Wilkens said when I asked him why he decided to take on a leadership role. I think that every service design professional out there wants to have more influence on the decisions that are being made. Because you are the one who is fighting to do the "right thing" for your users. Who can argue against that right? Well in reality it's not that easy. When you wan...
Nov 11, 2021•54 min
Let's talk about rituals (and design)... Rituals have the power to turn an ordinary experience into something meaningful. They can be large and community based like a family reunion dinner. They can be small and personal like writing in your gratitude journal every morning. But what are rituals exactly? And how are they different from habits and routines? Adam Cochrane has been looking into the field of ritual design for a while. In this episode we explore the power of rituals as well as the pot...
Nov 04, 2021•43 min
Isn't it funny... Even though we live in a world which is dominated by services still many organisations have a very strong product mindset. And I get it (sort of). Products are tangible, easy to measure, perfect to manage. Everything a CEO wants right? Well, you as a service design professional know that product centric thinking is harmful. It creates silos, destroys the customer experience and in the end is bad for business. The reality is that product thinking isn't going to go away anytime s...
Oct 28, 2021•50 min
As a service designer you never stop learning. But as you may have noticed already textbooks will only get you so far. Pretty quickly you'll want to discuss details and nuances of our practice that aren't easily captured in traditional literature. So how do you continue developing your skills once you reach that point? In the old days you would join a guild. The bakers, blacksmiths or brewers. Today these guilds are more commonly known as professional learning communities. These communities offe...
Oct 21, 2021•51 min
There is a clash... A clash between existing business logic and service design. For instance the focus on value extraction versus value creation. The difference in an open versus hierarchical workstyle. And the emphasis on statistical versus empirical evidence. If not dealt with in the right way, this clash creates tensions which prevents you from making a positive contribution through your work. The first step to effectively dealing with these tensions is recognizing that you're in a clash. Our...
Oct 14, 2021•1 hr 2 min
This week's episode of the Show is a pretty remarkable one. You're going to hear the story of how design has not only survived, but is actually thriving within one of the most challenging environments... a bank. Our guest in the episode is Alex Guazzelli. Alex is the head of design at the largest financial institution of Latin America and has been part of this journey from day one. Today he leads a team of over 250 designers but it all started with a two man operation. Of course the journey hasn...
Sep 30, 2021•1 hr 1 min
Imagine that your organisation would fully embrace design? There would be much less friction between how you work and how the organisation operates. When you'd see an opportunity to improve something and make a positive contribution with your skills you could just go for it. Unless you're one of the lucky few, most service designers still need to fight hard to get support for their way of working. And think about it, there's a lot at stake here... Because when you fail to get proper support no o...
Sep 16, 2021•1 hr 6 min
Okay, I know it sounds almost impossible but it really happened… A fellow service designer named Delia told me that she has crafted an elevator pitch for service design that is really effective for her. How effective? Well she used this pitch and it landed her a speaking opportunity on the first encounter with someone at a random networking event. Pretty amazing. ============ Build your own perfect elevator pitch! Join the upcoming cohort of our Selling Service Design with Confidence program. ht...
Sep 09, 2021•36 min
If you're asking really good questions, you're going to get better results. This is a quote from the conversation with Warren Berger. Warren is the author of The Book of Beautiful Questions. Definitely one of my favorite books from 2021 that I'm sharing left and right. So I was really excited that Warren agreed to come on the Show and share his thoughts with us. Of course we address a lot of questions during this episode. Here are a few of my personal highlights: * How do we bring more and bette...
Sep 02, 2021•1 hr 7 min
Did you know that people are looking up to you? *** LEARN MORE ABOUT THE CIRCLE https://servicedesignshow.com/circle/ *** Sure, part of the identity of a service designer is to stay in the background, act as the facilitator and let co-creation guide the way forward. Humbleness could be our middle name. These are great traits that we definitly shouldn't lose but they aren't enough… Because when you're the only service designer in the room (or one of the few), people do look up to you for answers....
Aug 26, 2021•50 min
There is a dangerous trap in the ways you use to capture the needs of the people you're designing for. Of course, you have constraints and need to make design decisions. And the saying is true that if you're designing for everyone you're essentially designing for no-one. So there are a lot of tools and methods to describe who it is that you're designing for. Personas, empathy maps, customer avatars, user profiles, etc. But when not used mindfully and with care these tools can do more harm than g...
Jul 29, 2021•59 min
Okay, we all know that delivering tangible value in service design can be hard. You often have to deal with a lot of constraints that you have no control over and the distance to the end-users can be immense. So how do you, despite these obstacles, still make progress? And at the end of the day feel that you're actually contributing something valuable. This was exactly the question that was discussed during our recent Circle session. In this (podcast exclusive) episode you'll hear Jacquelyn Brio...
Jul 22, 2021•55 min
I'm sure you've experienced it... You put your heart and soul into your work, you try to create value through design, you have an optimistic mindset. But whatever you do, you always feel like there's a mysterious organisational force pushing against you. It's the "organisational dark matter" that makes your life as a service designer so much harder. But there's hope. As the design director at Livework tasked with bringing service design to many different organisations, Marzia Arico has experienc...
Jul 15, 2021•55 min
Are you an in-house service design professional? Have you ever wondered... * How can I show evidence of progress in my work? * How do I set the right expectation about what I do? * Where can I have the most impact? Well, you're definitely not alone. In this video 5 in-house service designer who participated in the Campfire, openly share their thoughts on these questions (and more) with you. Even if you're currently not on "the inside" I'm confident that you'll get some new insights out of these ...
Jun 17, 2021•33 min
Polestar is the manufacturer of one of the most iconic electric cars at this moment. So you can imagine that I was really excited when the opportunity came along to have a conversation with Christian Appelt, their head of service design. Making service design work within a company that is organized around a strong product is a challenging task for sure. But when I heard that their ambition is become a role model for how service design is embedded within organisations I knew this was going to be ...
Jun 10, 2021•52 min
Everything in service design starts with user research. But as you've probably experienced often it's challenging to get the time and resources to do proper research. And when research is already being done by an organisation it's often not the type of research that we'd like to see. It can be frustrating to see that user research isn't making the difference you know it can. So what does it take to push user research beyond it's current limitations? Author and industry icon, Steve Portigal has b...
May 27, 2021•59 min
Take a guess... How much time do you invest to learn something during your week? It's a lot. We learn all the time in order to grow as a professional, a team and an organisation. Heck by reading this email you're learning something (hopefully). Most learning happens organically and on the fly. Which is totally fine. But when you deliberately want to bridge a gap in knowledge, skill or experience it's smart to design that journey. That's where learning design comes in. According to Andre Plaut le...
May 13, 2021•52 min
Here's a question that makes every service designer cringe... Can you show (prove) the impact of your work? So what makes this such a tough question? Well the value created through design is emergent and appears in shapes and forms that you didn't expect upfront. It's often hard to capture the benefits and outcomes using traditional ways of measuring successes (excel sheets). Nevertheless it's not smart to ignore this question. When you can't show the impact of your work, you will eventually bec...
Apr 29, 2021•1 hr 2 min
Design is often described as a problem solving approach. But what if you didn't have to solve problems... What if you could let problems disappear by dissolving them? Let me give you an example. Now that we can't do regular school exams due to the pandemic we look for new ways to still do exams. That's solving problems. Dissolving problems is about figuring out how we can achieve the same goals without exams entirely. It might sound like a small nuance but the impact is huge. The way to dissolve...
Apr 15, 2021•1 hr 4 min
What's it like to be an in-house Service Designer the Swedish Tax office or the fashion giant Zalando? In this episode of the Service Design Show you're going to get a sneak peak behind the curtains. You'll hear about the challenges in-house service designers face. And of course get some practical tips on how to navigate around them! Even if you're currently not working in-house I think you'll find these stories very useful. [ Join the Campfire ] https://servicedesignshow.com/campfire/
Apr 08, 2021•41 min
How can I as a service designer, be of more value to my organisation? That's the question we're exploring in this weeks episode of the Show. And the answers we find will surprise you! So yeah, of course you want to work on challenges that matter. You want to make a difference. But all too often designers are still not heard within enterprise environments. And you know what that means. When this keeps going on too long you will eventually becoming irrelevant. And fail to achieve your mission. Tri...
Apr 01, 2021•47 min
Now be honest with me... What is the first thing you think about when you hear game design? Badges, points, rewards? Gamification? Minecraft? Well, in this weeks episode you're going to hear a completely different story. Together with Andy Morales I explore how game dynamics can be used in the word of service design. It's quite amazing that this topic hasn't been covered on the Show before as there are so many parallels between games and service, really! Andy gives some great examples of how gam...
Mar 18, 2021•55 min
"I didn't sign up to be making wallpaper." That's a quote I can strongly relate to from this conversation with Jim Kalbach. As service designers we want to make a tangible impact on the world around us. For that you need to make sure that your work gets "shipped". If you fail to do that you're often just making wallpaper as Jim said. And the stakes are high because if you fail to ship you run the risk that your contributions will be seen as insignificant or irrelevant. So an important part of do...
Mar 04, 2021•1 hr
Have you heard about Workplace Empathy? It’s a powerful movement championed by dr. Emma Jefferies. The idea is that too often we leave ourselves at the (remote) door when we put our professional hats on. This is a recipe for a lot of nasty things like work related stress and burnouts. The antidote to this might be closer than you think. What would happen when you employ the same levels of empathy towards the people you work with as you do towards the end-users in your projects? According to Emma...
Feb 18, 2021•47 min
Does your life get easier when you're embedded within an organisation as a service designer? Or do you run into the same challenges as the rest of us? In this special episode of the Show you'll get a unique "behind the scenes" look from 8 in-house service designers who participated in the recent Campfire. Next to this you'll also get some very practical tips on how you can be more successful when working in-house. I think that you'll find these tips helpful even if you're currently not embedded ...
Feb 11, 2021•51 min
