Service Design Show

Imagine that you'd get the opportunity to join an intimate dinner party.  A dinner where you're accompanied by some of the brightest people in our field. And where you'd get the chance to explore a thought-provoking topic. Would you enjoy the evening? That question was going through my mind when I was thinking about how the Circle community should feel. Now, almost two years after the first "dinner party" at the Circle, it's time to take score. So I sat down with two members of the Circle for a fun and open-hearted conversation. In this episode, you'll hear: How spontaneous conversations help you to become a better professional. What the value is of exploring the unknown-unknown together. Why Slack channels don't work, and how this community is different. What the future has in store for the Circle. I hope that this episode will inspire you to join, grow or maybe even start your own professional community. Because we all should eat more often together :) - Marc --- [ 1. GUIDE ] --- 00:00 Welcome to the Show 02:30 Who is Jeannie Fung 03:00 Who is Veronica Vela 05:30 The Circle in 3 words 07:00 What didn't you expect 09:45 How has it evolved 12:30 Most surprising topic 16:45 What do we agree on 19:30 Value of the Circle 23:00 What makes it different 26:30 Debates and disagreements 31:30 Small wins 34:45 What would you have missed 38:00 The Circle in 5 years --- [ 2. LINKS ] --- https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeannie-fung-60218682/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/verovela/ --- [ 3. CIRCLE ] --- Join our alliance of and for in-house service design professionals. https://servicedesignshow.com/circle

I have a family with two small kids who are quickly growing up. The challenge many parents, including me, encountered was... how do we keep our home somewhat clean and tidy. My initial and naive strategy was to pick up everything left behind. But this strategy breaks down pretty quickly, as you can imagine. So then I tried to distribute the responsibility to everyone in the family. If everyone does their part, it should be a minor task, right? But of course, it didn't take long before I realized everyone had very different interpretations of what "clean and tidy" meant. At this point, it dawned on me that the only way to solve this challenge once and for all was by putting a clear plan in place that everyone would commit to.  Yes, I needed a "house-cleaning governance model" just with a better name of course :) And this brings us nicely to the topic of this week's episode: CX governance. Many CX initiatives start in small pockets of the organizations. This works well in the beginning, as it allows for speed and quick iteration. But at some point, you will have many CX initiatives going on at the same time. And most likely, by then, because of the lack of alignment and coordination, you're wasting a lot of time and resources. The solution is to put a CX governance model in place. But that's easier said than done... So in this episode, you'll hear the chat I had with Kirsikka Vaajakallio, where we explored questions like: What is the right time to implement a CX governance model? What are the key components of a CX governance model? What makes a CX governance model effective? And what is the role of a service design professional? All in all, a very interesting conversation about a highly underrated topic in our field from my perspective.  I know CX governance is probably not the first thing you think of when you wake up in the morning. But after this episode, you'll hopefully see how useful it is to have a common set of rules when you're playing the CX game. --- [ 1. GUIDE ] --- 00:00 Welcome to episode 166 05:00 Who is Kirsikka 06:15 Lightning round 08:30 What is governance 12:00 How did it start 16:15 When do you need this 19:45 Taking the leap 22:15 Building interest 29:30 Making it tangible 33:00 What needs to be included 35:30 Who owns the initiative 38:15 Long-term success 41:45 Selling the story 46:30 The key question 50:00 Can you start small 52:30 Asking the right questions 55:00 Closing thoughts --- [ 2. LINKS ] --- https://www.linkedin.com/in/kirsikka-vaajakallio-6265554/ --- [ 3. CIRCLE ] --- Join our alliance of and for in-house service design professionals. https://servicedesignshow.com/circle

This can transform your business strategy... That's what I thought during my recent conversation with Indi Young. Indi recently published a book titled Time to Listen. Here's my summary of the book. It teaches you how to design services that are less harmful, more accessible, and in the end, better for business through the "simple" act of listening. Basically, transforming open and honest conversations with your customers into one of your most valuable assets. But if it's that easy, why isn't everyone doing it? Well, Indi argues that we first need to become better listeners. So what does that mean, and what is the path to get there? Can anyone do it, or is it a natural-born talent? You'll get all the answers in this episode. By the way, if you fear business stakeholders will disregard qualitative research through listening as subjective and anecdotal, you're in for a surprise! Enjoy the conversation. --- [ 1. GUIDE ] --- 00:00 Welcome to episode 165 05:45 Who is Indi 07:00 Lightning round 11:15 Origin of the title 17:15 It's time for listening 20:30 Who is the book for 26:00 What do we need to do 29:45 A concrete example 33:30 The magic of listening 40:00 Why do patterns matter 43:45 Will our patterns differ 50:45 Natural language processing 54:30 Common mistakes 58:45 A shift in vocabulary 1:02:15 Book giveaway contest 1:03:45 Closing thoughts --- [ 2. LINKS ] --- https://www.linkedin.com/in/indiyoung/ https://indiyoung.com/books-time-to-listen/ Braiding Sweetgrass (book) - https://amzn.to/3VgPiVB Mismatch (book) - https://amzn.to/3PIQr72 Just enough research (book) - https://amzn.to/3jjq4sq --- [ 3. CONTEST ] --- To enter the contest, head over to the video version of this conversation on YouTube and leave a comment there to answer the question posed in the episode. https://go.servicedesignshow.com/episode165 --- [ 4. CIRCLE ] --- Join our alliance of in-house service design professionals. https://servicedesignshow.com/circle

Let's build a *system* of journey maps! Hold on there... do you know what you're getting yourself into? Journey maps are great. They help you align people, processes, and resources around your customers' needs. This leads to a more efficient organization, happier employees, and less frustrated customers. But as you might have experienced, journey maps also tend to spiral out of control pretty quickly. You start with a simple map that is adequate to get the job done. Then you slowly but surely start adding more data to the map. Your map, which was once a marvel of simplicity, now all of a sudden looks more like the manual of a nuclear power plant. So the time has come to break your giant journey map into smaller, more manageable pieces. It's time to move from a single journey map to a system of journey maps. The moment this thought goes through your mind, you've opened pandora's box. Many new questions arise... * Which parts of the system do you need to standardize? * Who will have the responsibility for keeping the smaller maps updated? * What is the right tool for the job? The last thing you want is to invest a lot of time and money in setting up a tool, structure, and process that, in the end, no one ends up using. Not good for the company and not great for your career either. In our Circle community for in-house service design professionals, many members are currently in the midst of this transition. That's why we decided to address this topic in a recent session and share the most important do's and don'ts with each other. In this episode, you're going to the highlights from that session and learn what it takes to go from a single journey map to a system of maps. It's clear to me that journey map, mapping, management, and ops is gearing up for the next evolution wave. So expect more content on these topics in the months ahead. --- [ 1. GUIDE ] --- 00:00 Welcome to the Show 03:15 Who is Romina 04:30 How did we get here 06:45 Journeys are stories 11:00 What is the system 14:30 Google Maps analogy 16:45 Circle announcement 18:00 The ideal system of maps 22:30 Where does it break down 24:45 How do you prioritize 27:00 From small to medium 28:30 Shared incentives 31:00 How important is the tool 34:30 Ownership 40:00 Bottom-up vs. top down 43:45 What is our role 47:00 Common pitfalls 51:30 Biggest question 53:00 Key takeaway 55:00 Closing thoughts --- [ 2. LINKS ] --- https://www.linkedin.com/in/romina-maidel-053a607a/ --- [ 3. CIRCLE ] --- If you'd like to be part of these conversations as they happen rather than just getting the summary on the podcast, consider joining us in the Circle. www.servicedesignshow.com/circle/

You need to fail... Yes, I said it.  Because failure is the fastest way to success when you're innovating. But it's surprisingly hard to fail. And this is a major problem. Why, you ask? Well, in our service design practice, failure is part of prototyping. You have an idea, you create something, you try it in the real world, learn from what happened, and based on that, improve your solution to repeat this process. See what I did there? You try and learn, that's the key. Trying something, you actually hope that it's going to work out differently than you planned so that you can learn. But when things don't work out as planned, this is often perceived as... failure. And failure isn't what most organizations embrace or celebrate. The truth is that they fail at, well yeah, failing. There are many reasons for this, but maybe the biggest one is a lack of psychological safety. Here's the kicker... Scientific research has proven that the best-performing teams have the highest degree of psychological safety. So how do you grow the appetite for failure in a risk-averse organization that is focused on maintaining the status quo? We explore that question in this week's episode with Stephan Wiedner. Stephan has done a lot of research on this topic and seen many examples of what works and what doesn't. So if you're interested in building a "fail-safe" environment in your organization, then you don't want to miss out on this conversation. One thing that surprised me in this episode was that you can objectively measure the levels of psychological safety. Of course, this is a great tool to show you and your CEO if you're heading in the right direction. Enjoy the conversation, and keep making a positive impact :) - Marc --- [ 1. GUIDE ] --- 00:00 Welcome to episode 164 05:30 Who is Stephan 08:30 lightning round 12:45 What is psychological safety 14:30 Why does it matter 15:15 Where is the lack coming from 21:30 The internal voices 23:30 A fail-safe environment 27:00 Strategy and tactics 31:30 Barriers to adoption 34:15 Awareness within organizations 38:00 Top-level management 42:30 What are you committed to 44:30 Measuring psychological safety 50:00 Myths and misconceptions 53:30 The results don't lie 56:45 What's next 58:30 Closing thoughts --- [ 2. LINKS ] --- https://www.linkedin.com/in/swiedner/ The Fearless Organization (book) - https://amzn.to/3hdAuZE The Culture Code (book) - https://amzn.to/3h7RH6M The Whisper on the Night Wind (book) - https://amzn.to/3iHa5UB Psychological Safety assessment - https://zarango.com/freepsi/ --- [ 3. CIRCLE ] --- Join our private community for in-house service design professionals. https://servicedesignshow.com/circle

When you asked me to play the piano, I can assure you that nothing close to music would come out. Would we, at that point, say that the piano is broken? That would be silly, right? Somehow, this is the typical approach when organizations bring in design. When design doesn't fully deliver on the expected outcomes, it's the process that is declared faulty.  Mauro Porcini is the Chief Design Officer at PepsiCo. In his career, he has seen many design-driven initiatives fail, and some succeed. This led him on the quest to find out what the differentiator is between the two. Can you guess the answer? This shouldn't surprise you by now; it's people. So if that's the case, what kind of people does it take to make design work? Well, Mauro decided to write a dedicated book about this with the inspiring title: The Human Side of Innovation. The book just got published, and I invited Mauro on the Show to share the key insights with you. This is a good one! We explored many ideas in this conversation, but one thing that stood out for me was kindness as a competitive advantage. And you know what? It makes complete business sense! Enjoy the episode, and if you do consider sharing it, someone who might as well :) --- [ 1. GUIDE ] --- 00:00 Welcome to episode 163 03:30 Who is Mauro 05:00 Lightning round 08:15 How did it start 12:30 The key message 14:30 Why now 19:00 Focus on people 22:15 What to look for 25:45 Reception by business 30:30 Unicorns 33:30 True human centricity 40:00 How to make it bigger 43:00 Design happiness 47:00 Contest announcement 48:15 Final thoughts --- [ 2. LINKS ] --- * https://www.linkedin.com/in/mauroporcini/ * The Human Side of Innovation (book) - https://amzn.to/3Opl8h2 * In Your Shoes (podcast) - https://open.spotify.com/show/6u90U1OT6mLdByL0TAYRW6 * Stage Not Age (book) - https://amzn.to/3ETZNcz --- [ 3. CONTEST ] --- To enter the contest, head over to the video version of this conversation on YouTube and leave a comment there to answer the question posed in the episode. https://go.servicedesignshow.com/episode163 --- [ 4. CIRCLE ] --- Join our private community for in-house service design professionals. https://servicedesignshow.com/circle

I'm sure you've heard this before... "You can't design for everyone." That's a fundamental principle in a good design process. In the end, design is all about making choices. And one of these choices is defining who you are designing for. But here's an interesting question: Can you design with a specific user in mind without excluding others?  This sounds a lot like a paradox, right? So why bother trying to solve it? Because if we don't, we are creating inequality and harm.  This isn't exclusive to but especially relevant when working with public services. You can't just always design for the "average" user or the one with the most money. So what can you do? Well, Lesley Ann Noel has made it her mission to help us design better futures for everyone. She has done many experiments in her role as a university professor to overcome this seeming paradox. And her findings are... pretty surprising, to say the least. She shares her story in this week's episode. After this conversation, it really resonated with me that it's okay and even beneficial to bring your whole self into the design process. Yes, including all of your biases! --- [ 1. GUIDE ] --- 00:00 Welcome to episode 162 03:15 Who is Lesley 04:45 Lightning round 08:00 Designing better futures 09:45 Who are we designing for 12:15 What does better look like 16:45 Background story 22:45 The unknown unknown 27:30 Impact on the craft 30:45 Who is open to this 34:00 Most common question 37:15 Bring your identity 41:00 The mindful designer 45:00 What makes you happy 48:30 Lesson learned 49:45 Closing thoughts --- [ 2. LINKS ] --- * https://www.linkedin.com/in/lesleyannnoel/ * The Activist Academic (book) - https://amzn.to/3tfjUep --- [ 3. CIRCLE ] --- Join our private community for in-house service design professionals. https://servicedesignshow.com/circle

Think for a moment about a hard conversation you needed to have about a topic that really mattered to you. This could be a conversation at work or just in your private life. Now, what if... that conversation went down in your memory as exciting, productive, and fun? What if it almost felt like a game? Sounds too good to be true, right?  Well, according to Fred Dust, that's exactly what's possible and even what's necessary. According to Fred, we have almost entirely lost the ability to have hard conversations about important topics. We aren't having the conversations we need to have. And that's causing us a lot of trouble. Many conversations these days have become shallow, lack connection, and don't build shared understanding. But there's hope. There is a way out of this conversation crisis. We need and can design for better conversations. In his book Making Conversation, Fred shares why and how you do that. The book has been a huge inspiration source for me lately, so I just had to get Fred on the Show to dig a bit deeper. So if you also want more human, meaningful, and productive conversations, you'll definitely enjoy this conversation. Yes, that's a bit meta :) Conversations are a creative act, make the most of them! --- [ 1. GUIDE ] --- 00:00 Welcome to episode 161 04:15 Who is Fred 05:45 Lightning round 10:30 Why do we need this book 12:30 How did we lose conversation 14:00 Why did you write this 16:00 What are we losing 17:00 Who is this book for 20:00 Key concepts 23:30 Applying the ideas 27:30 Setting the stage 31:00 Active versus creative listening 34:15 Be more human 37:30 Common response 39:30 Overcoming the biggest roadblocks 42:00 Doing not talking 46:30 Better conversations online 50:00 Lessons learned 51:30 You can get better 53:00 Remember this 54:15 Book giveaway contest 55:30 Closing thoughts --- [ 2. LINKS ] --- * https://www.linkedin.com/in/freddust/ * https://www.dustand.co * Making Conversation (book) - https://amzn.to/3N6R9Kd --- [ 3. CONTEST ] --- To enter the contest, head over to the video version of this conversation on YouTube and leave a comment there to answer the question posed in the episode. https://go.servicedesignshow.com/episode161 --- [ 4. CIRCLE ] --- Join our private community for in-house service design professionals. https://servicedesignshow.com/circle

Sustainability is the innovation frontier of the 21st century -- and if you don't get on that train, you'll be lost. This quote emerged during the recent conversation with Bhavi Patel and Heydn Ericson on the Show, where we explored the intersection between circular and service design. As it turns out, you, as a service design professional, are in a great position to push a more sustainable approach forward. Yes, even if it's currently not a priority in your organization. In this episode, you'll hear practical examples of how to do this—helping you design services that aren't just good for your customers and business but also for our planet. The conversation also reveals how you can work towards making sustainability a fundamental design principle at the start of every project, not an afterthought. Small teaser, you need to make a compelling business argument... there are plenty. All in all, an inspiring episode if you want to be more conscious about taking care of our environment in your own design practice. Enjoy, and especially this time, keep making a positive impact :) - Marc --- [ 1. GUIDE ] --- 00:00 Welcome to the Show 03:30 Who is Bhavi 04:00 Who is Heydn 05:00 How did we get here 09:30 Why us 12:45 Where are we today 15:15 What is at stake 18:00 Keep it simple 22:15 Create momentum 28:00 Sneaking it in 30:00 How does it relate to you 32:00 Common roadblocks 34:30 Accelerating adoption 38:00 Impact on services 42:00 Future perspective 45:30 Key takeaway 48:45 Closing thoughts --- [ 2. LINKS ] --- https://www.linkedin.com/in/heydn/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/bhavinipatel/ https://koosservicedesign.com https://www.sustainablebusinesscanvas.org https://www.esgtoday.com --- [ 3. CIRCLE ] --- If you'd like to be part of these conversations as they happen rather than just getting the summary on the podcast, consider joining us in the Circle. www.servicedesignshow.com/circle/

Having a seat at the table... That's what we often talk about in the service design field. And I would say rightfully so. Because when you do get involved early, you have the opportunity to influence the direction of a project. On the flip side, you could end up making the perfect solution for the wrong problem when you get involved late. But how do you get your business stakeholder to see and appreciate the strategic value you can bring early on? That was the question Karen Baker and I explored in our recent conversation. Karen has a marketing background, and she looks at the challenges in our field from a slightly different perspective. As you'll hear, our conversation started by discussing design inclusivity, but... We eventually landed upon one simple question that brings everything together. This simple question acts like your north star, compass, and light in the dark. This question is so good that it deserves its own t-shirt. So want to get a seat at the table? Want to influence projects early? Want to make your design practice more inclusive? The clue to all of this is in this episode. Enjoy the conversation, and keep making a positive impact! --- [ 1. GUIDE ] --- 00:00 Welcome to episode 160 03:45 Who is Karen 05:30 lightning round 07:30 Defining design for inclusivity 09:30 When did it start 13:00 Where do we need it 15:45 Including the community 17:30 Why now 19:45 Two examples 24:30 Guiding principles 27:00 Example from Lego 29:00 How do clients respond 32:30 What's surprising 35:00 Accelerating adoption 36:15 Getting leadership engaged 38:15 The question people aren't asking 41:00 Where is this heading 42:45 Lesson learned 45:30 Remember this one thing 46:45 Final thoughts --- [ 2. LINKS ] --- - https://www.linkedin.com/in/krbaker/ - https://www.weforum.org/press/2022/05/new-initiative-to-build-an-equitable-interoperable-and-safe-metaverse/ - https://www.marketingdive.com/news/degree-deodorant-inclusivity-metaverse-virtual-marathon/622609/ - https://designjustice.org --- [ 3. CIRCLE ] --- Join our private community for in-house service design professionals. https://servicedesignshow.com/circle