Let's talk about a service designer's favorite topic... measuring impact. Why is it so d*mn hard!? We'll get to that in a minute. Of course, the idea behind measuring the impact of your work is smart. When done right, it helps you to stay on track. Make sure your efforts actually make a positive contribution. And show you if you need to redirect your efforts to something else. But often, we find that many things inside organizations are measured because they are easy to express in numbers... not...
Sep 22, 2022•49 min
Here's a question you might not think about daily... How is service design practiced in China? I'm always eager to learn about the (subtle) differences in how our field is perceived within different cultures. Why? Because seeing that there are other ways to approach things enriches my perspective and keeps me grounded about my way of working. The goal isn't to copy what's being done in other places but rather to understand its reasoning and philosophy. That's why I was excited to have a conversa...
Sep 15, 2022•57 min•Ep. 158
I could have seen this coming... That's the last thing you want to say when your project isn't going well. To minimize this risk, you'll need to identify red flags early on and work to create conditions for success. But it's challenging to talk about these topics with internal stakeholders before your project begins. People are eager to start; it makes sense. And you don't want to be seen as the one who is delaying things unnecessarily or putting roadblocks up. Before you climb a mountain, it's ...
Sep 08, 2022•49 min
No, it's not the latest shoes... What does it take for a professional athlete to perform at their best? Sure, she needs to have talent and be in top physical shape. But that's not enough. The top performing athletes are, for example, rigorous regarding their sleep, diet, and mental well-being. These things are the foundation for them to deliver a world-class performance. Now, I have a weird assumption. A design professional and an athlete might have more in common than meets the eye. I bet you t...
Sep 01, 2022•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 157
I wish it were different, but… The reality is that service design still isn’t business as usual. This means that you need to do a lot of evangelizing as part of your job. Getting business stakeholders, clients, and even your colleagues to buy into the value of a human-centered, design-driven way of working. I see that many service design professionals rely on their improvisation skills and hope to come up with the right message at the right time. If you’re lucky, this approach can work, but it’s...
Aug 25, 2022•1 hr 4 min
It's not a secret... Every day we are outsourcing more and more of our decisions to AI algorithms. Some of these decisions are frivolous, like determining if that's a cat in the photo. Other decisions are of much higher stake, like whether you will get that medical treatment. Especially with the last kind of decisions, we'd better ensure that these algorithms are designed and used responsibly. And according to Jillian Powers , service design professionals must play a vital role in this process. ...
Aug 18, 2022•1 hr•Ep. 156
Wouldn't it be great if... Delivering a great customer experience wasn't just a "nice to have" when there's time left but an actual strategic priority that guides decision-making? I'm sure you know many examples of (expensive) service failures that could have been prevented if the voice of the customer had been part of the conversations inside the company. Of course, this is precisely one of the things we try to achieve with service design. The problem is that we often don't yet have the authori...
Aug 04, 2022•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 155
Who doesn't want this... To come up with smart solutions for relevant challenges that are immediately embraced by the end-users. Well, in this week's episode of the Show, Victor Udoewa shares a radical approach to the design process that increases the chance you'll actually accomplish this. But first, let's quickly look at why solutions don't get adopted. It's often not due to bad intentions. Many times it has to do with the fact that a wrong judgment call has been made about what's important. B...
Jul 21, 2022•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 154
There's no doubt about it... Over the last few years, design has gained a lot of momentum in the business space. It's encouraging to see that design is slowly but surely getting a seat at the table. But at which price has this raise come? And are we willing to pay this price? When you zoom out a bit, you'll quickly notice that it's often the "easy to digest" form of design that is praised, the form where the focus primarily lies on gaining short-term benefits and incremental improvements. While ...
Jul 07, 2022•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 153
As a consumer, you use artificial intelligence daily. Just open any app on your phone, and the chances are that AI is somehow embedded within it. The development of AI so far has been driven mainly by engineers and scientists. But have you ever wondered how service design help to shape this powerful new technology? Well, it's not a question that's on my mind daily... But after the recent conversation with Carly Burton , I'm definitely more aware of the opportunity in front of us. As the pr...
Jun 23, 2022•47 min•Ep. 152
How can you enable service designers to deliver their best work? That's coming up in a second but first, imagine this... A wedding where the bride and groom have to take care of all the logistics on the big day itself. Everything from arranging the tables to welcoming the band. There will be little time and space to focus on why they are truly there. Yeah, that's why we have masters of ceremony and wedding planners. These people do all the heavy lifting so that the couple can own the moment. Oka...
Jun 02, 2022•1 hr•Ep. 151
How can service design help in times of crisis? This is one of the questions Max Tkachuk and I explore in this episode. Max lives in Kyiv and is an active member of the service design community in Ukraine. Being a first-hand witness of the war, Max sees how both the local and international service design communities respond to the situation. In this episode you'll learn about: The state of service design in Ukraine. If service design is relevant in times of crisis. What can we, as an inter...
May 26, 2022•54 min•Ep. 150
There's an intriguing mystery to the backstage... Think about it for a moment. People love to see what happens inside the kitchen of a Gordon Ramsey restaurant. Or to follow a sports team into the locker room before and after a game. We want to look over the shoulder and get an inside glimpse. See things that are usually hidden from the general public. We want to see beyond the frontstage. Well, I've got exciting news, because today we're going to do just that. Not for a restaurant or your...
May 24, 2022•59 min
I used to say that 50% of service design is about communication. Today I think the percentage might be even higher... Just think about all those moments where you need to collaborate with someone to get something done. Yes, that's like always. *** Learn more about the Circle: https://servicedesignshow.com/circle/ *** Sometimes what you need is the attention from your co-worker other times, it will be time or money from your CEO. Whatever the case is, when you fail to show the benefits your work ...
May 19, 2022•48 min
Every service design project starts with an initial conversation. From there, you build trust, confidence, and the relationship to do great work. But getting that first conversation started can often be one of the hardest things. Especially when you consider that many organizations still aren't aware that service design exists, let alone how they can benefit from it. Of course, you could sit back and wait for the moment when the organization is ready. But this approach will mean that while waiti...
May 12, 2022•58 min•Ep. 149
Patience has been described as a secret (and a must-have) skill of any service design professional. It's not hard to understand why. When you're doing service design, you are delivering change. This means that you will meet resistance and push back a lot of the time. You have to be very careful that you don't let this get to you. Because before you know it, you could start doubting if you're doing the right thing or get frustrated with the situation. Or even worse, it could take a severe toll on...
Apr 28, 2022•55 min•Ep. 148
How do you get the most value out of your service prototypes? That was the key question we explored in our recent Circle community session. As it quickly turned out, there's an entire field with its own set of tools and frameworks that focus on prototyping. During the session, the participants shared their success stories and common roadblocks that prevented them from doing the right experiments. What emerged were five best practices for doing better, more effective service prototypes that every...
Apr 21, 2022•53 min
What does it actually mean to be winning in service design? A question I think we don't ask ourselves often enough. Because when you put your entire heart and soul into delivering a great project but the results aren't adopted by the organization, can you say that it was a success? Most service design professionals I know genuinely want to make a tangible impact on the people and organizations they work with. This means that your work can't stop at the research or idea stage. If the recommendati...
Apr 14, 2022•54 min•Ep. 147
Do you recognize this feeling... As a service design professional you're the last one who's invited to the party (often when it's almost over). === Selling Service Design with Confidence === For more information and instructions on how to apply head over to: https://servicedesignshow.com/selling/ ====================================== This isn't just bad for your morale but it also limits the value you can create. The holistic nature of service design requires you to be part of the "upstream" co...
Apr 07, 2022•1 hr 2 min
What's one of the key ingredients of service design? It's the fact that we take a holistic view. A view which spans different channels and many touchpoints. Designing with this holistic perspective in mind is often challenging enough considering that most companies aren't organized in a way that supports it. But what if I told you that you can (and probably should) go even further. What if you take a perspective on the solutions you put into the world that doesn't just span a single service but ...
Mar 31, 2022•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 146
There's a really interesting new podcast on the block. It's called Designing the Robot Revolution. And the first episode is titled: Why Every Service Designers' Dream Should Be To Work In Manufacturing. Yeah, I know what you're thinking :) So obviously I had to get these fellow podcasters on the Service Design Show to hear more about their story. In this episode you'll hear Jacob Magnell and David Griffith-Jones share what inspired them to start a podcast about this somewhat surprising angle on ...
Mar 17, 2022•47 min•Ep. 145
Okay, here's a sensitive question... How comfortable are you with strategically influencing stakeholders? If this question feels a bit creepy stay with me a bit longer. This is really important. Because what if I told you that knowing how and who to influence is a key success factor for every service design professional? So it's no surprise that this is a topic that keeps coming up in our Circle community sessions. In our recent session we did a deep dive into this topic. We explored which tools...
Mar 10, 2022•1 hr 7 min
Service design isn't enough... This sentiment has been expressed on the Show many times before. And I agree. The challenges organizations face these days are too complex to be solved by (service) design alone. But here's the strange thing. Although we pride ourselves on bringing a holistic user perspective to the table, this holistic perspective is often missing when it comes to our own field. We still have many blind spots when it comes to collaborating with other business disciplines. Just thi...
Mar 03, 2022•54 min
What does it take... How do you enable a design team to deliver their best work? As the VP of Design at Capital One, Jamin Hegeman is thinking about this on a daily basis. He is tasked with the big responsibility of making sure that his 700+ design colleagues are able to make a positive contribution to the business and its customers. In this week's episode you'll hear the journey Jamin has been on over the last few years. How he transitioned from being a design practitioner at a respected consul...
Feb 17, 2022•54 min
On episode 7 of the Service Design Show Adam Lawrence once said this.. "If you can only do one thing in the entire design process, do research." I don't have to convince you of the importance of proper user research. It's the lifeline of our work. Unfortunately in a lot of organisations research is still seen as something that just slows everything down. It can be hard to get buy-in and support to actually do proper research. Recently I sat down with the Circle community to discuss this challeng...
Feb 10, 2022•51 min
What would you say is one of the most daunting design challenges of our time? I hope our climate crisis at least crossed your mind. As Cat Drew argues, we as a service design community play a key role in helping to solve this crisis. Cat is the Chief Design Officer at the UK Design Council and currently championing the Design for Planet initiative. In this week's episode of the Show we talk about the opportunities designing with the planet in mind brings to organizations. And how the organizatio...
Feb 03, 2022•53 min
Embedding design into an existing organization often feels like... trying to cram a square peg through a round hole. Right? In our attempts we often need to bend and shape design in ways that make it lose some of its most important qualities. Just think about how the holistic nature disappears when design becomes siloed across different departments. Which almost always happens. … and then people wonder why design isn't delivering on it's promise :-/ I recently had the pleasure to interview Naomi...
Jan 20, 2022•59 min
How do you keep growing as a mid / senior level service design professional? It's mostly likely less and less through formal theory and education. Once you reach a certain level of maturity in your craft suddenly the small details and nuances start to make a big difference. But you won't find those things on Google. These learnings are hidden in the lived experiences from other professionals and communicated through rich stories. Until recently there wasn't a place where you could get exposed to...
Jan 11, 2022•19 min
What is it that truly matters? Let's go back to the moment you first learned about service design. You know, when you entered the rabbit hole. There is so much to learn and to explore. It can easily become very complex and overwhelming. But if you want to become a service design practitioner you have to start somewhere. Right? You have to find a way to develop your skills without getting discouraged about all the things you don't know yet. And you know what the worst part is when you're getting ...
Jan 06, 2022•59 min
"Design and business only work together if there is common ground." That's one of the quotes from the conversation I recently had with David Dunne. But finding this common ground is easier said than done. These days it's still the school of management that's driving most companies. And I think you'll agree that design and management don't necessarily share the same world view, beliefs and approaches. These differences create tensions. These tensions prevent both sides from achieving the best pos...
Jan 03, 2022•45 min
