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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast "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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 
