Service Design Show

Mark Howell, an experienced service design leader, discusses the often-misunderstood value of service design and its connection to business outcomes. He explains why organizations struggle with adopting design labels and suggests focusing on customer experience instead. Mark addresses systemic barriers to service design and shares insights from his experience during a bank transformation. He also emphasizes the importance of design maturity and offers practical tools, like a service design quality assessment, to effectively communicate value to stakeholders.

In this engaging discussion, Ben McCammon, an in-house service designer with a rich background in graphic design, shares insights on harnessing personal superpowers in service design. He and guests Gina Mendolia and Irina Damascan explore unconventional strategies like 'Setting the Trap' for engagement and the 'Organ Donor Chain' model for building influence. They emphasize the importance of subtle interpersonal tools, celebrating small wins, and adapting your unique strengths within organizational dynamics to foster meaningful change.

In this conversation, Jose Coronado, a seasoned design executive and advisor, discusses the struggle of maintaining one's design identity while climbing the corporate ladder. He shares his awakening moment regarding the importance of embracing one's whole self at work, particularly his Hispanic background. The dialogue covers essential leadership skills for designers, the impact of design in business metrics, and the necessity of change management in leadership roles. Jose offers actionable advice for fostering professional growth and remaining connected to design craftsmanship.

Tingting Lin, a Product/UX professional from TheyDo, dives into the challenges of journey management in this insightful discussion. She highlights the common implementation gap where stunning journey maps fail to resonate in daily routines. Tingting emphasizes integrating journey insights into existing workflows and warns against creating parallel processes. With practical strategies, she shares how to connect project backlogs to customer journeys, making prioritization more impactful. This conversation is a must-listen for anyone looking to make customer journeys actionable!

Join Dan Szuc, a seasoned consultant and author, as he delves into the intricate world of workplace culture. He discusses how culture transcends mere company values, stressing that it is rooted in daily actions and experiences. Szuc shares practical techniques like 'practice spotting' and emphasizes the role of leadership in fostering a healthy culture. Discover how to assess and transform organizational environments for meaningful work. Listeners are urged to reflect on their contributions to creating better workplaces.

Giles Colborne, an expert in service and human-centered design, dives into the critical balance between design maturity and business growth. He reveals that organizations with high design maturity experience 9x faster growth, yet many remain 'stuck' due to poor integration. Giles emphasizes the need for designers to engage with stakeholders early and map decisions to business metrics. He outlines practical steps to enhance design effectiveness, helping teams overcome inertia and align with organizational goals for maximum impact.

Tingting Lin, a service design and journey management expert from TheyDo, shares her insights on transforming journey maps into actionable strategies. She highlights the importance of distinguishing between opportunities and solutions, emphasizing how to embed these into business processes. Tingting discusses common pitfalls, like jumping to solutions too quickly, and demonstrates how AI can aid in crafting opportunity statements. Her approach ensures that journey insights lead to measurable business impacts, driving stakeholder relevance and alignment.

Stacey Barr, a performance measurement expert and founder of the PUMP measurement programs, shares insightful strategies to transform vague goals into measurable results. She emphasizes the importance of clear measures for increasing influence and focus, while bridging the gap between goal-setters and operational teams. Stacey also discusses the challenges of aligning incentives for systemic goals and the significance of thoughtful measurement in decision-making. Explore how to effectively map goals and measures to achieve meaningful impact!

Join Sara Langston, an in-house service design practitioner in public health, and Nancy Samayoa, an architecture-trained designer focused on higher education improvements, as they tackle the frustrating "prove it again" cycle prevalent in service design. They candidly discuss how service design can feel like a threat to the status quo, the challenges of achieving scale, and the importance of celebrating small, everyday wins. Their insights encourage rethinking success and emphasize building relationships and curiosity as keys to lasting impact.

In this engaging conversation, Ron Bronson, former head of design at 18F and now a professor at the University of Michigan, shares his insights on the evolving world of service design. He challenges the opacity of traditional practices and proposes a refreshing view of 'design as repair.' Ron emphasizes how AI presents opportunities for service design, rather than threats, and highlights the importance of trust and collaboration in implementing effective solutions. With a focus on local contexts and community-building, his perspectives inspire innovative thinking in a rapidly changing landscape.