Sorry, but I have to say it...

We are optimizing our way to boredom.

Measure everything, test every variation, and optimize the customer journey until it’s "perfect".

That seems to be the mantra of modern business today.

But in this first episode of 2026, our guest ​Kendra Shimmell​ throws a big wrench in this machinery.

Kendra argues that while things like A/B testing validate what works right now, they often come at a steep cost.

Because if we rely solely on reacting to quantitative data to make small, incremental improvements, we eventually, you guessed it, optimize our way to mediocrity and boredom.

We lose the soul in our services.

Kendra shares a painful example of this phenomenon in action: social media algorithms.

You click on a cool backpack once, and the system thinks it has you figured out. Suddenly, your entire feed is just backpacks. A lot of backpacks.

The algorithm is "optimized," sure.

But it has stripped away all the serendipity, turning a place of discovery into a repetitive, boring experience.

As Kendra put it, just because you can keep a user clicking doesn't mean you aren't exhausting them.

So, the question is: Why do organizations default to this?

Why are we so focused on squeezing out efficiency rather than exploring new avenues?

When I asked Kendra, her answer was blunt: "Greed, Fear, and Confusion." Ouch.

The greed to squeeze out the last 1% of revenue.

The fear that if they try something new, they won't find product-market fit again. And the confusion that comes from ignoring the fact that humans are wildly irrational beings driven by feelings, not spreadsheets.

This conversation is a wake-up call to stop treating our customers like subjects in a scientific experiment and start treating them as people to co-create with.

And if your organization isn't ready to hear that? Well, Kendra has some advice on how to be a little "sneaky" to get the work done anyway!

The conversation ends with a question that pairs perfectly with a long walk, somewhere where you can let a little serendipity back into your day: "When, where, and how is it most important to be human?".

Happy New Year and keep making a positive impact!

Be well,

~ Marc

--- [ 1. GUIDE ] ---

00:00 Welcome to Episode 244

04:30 Why We Need Co-Creation Over Experimentation

08:30 The Twitch Lesson

14:30 Why Excessive Optimization Leads to "Beige"

16:03 Social Media & the Algorithm

23:45 Backpack Rabbit Hole

25:30 3 Forces of Stagnation

32:30 Funding Analogous Thinking

35:00 Creating Space for Change

38:30 The Compliance Pilot Strategy

44:15 MVW (Minimum Viable Working Model)

45:45 Permission vs. Action

48:45 Moments of irrationality: taxes vs buying

52:45 Doing Things Better vs. Doing Better Things

56:15 Living Inside the Algorithm

58:15 Why We Must Learn to be Bored Again

1:01:45 The Role of the "Human in the Loop" in the Age of AI

1:04:15 Case Study: Designing for Distance

1:06:15 Question to ponder

--- [ 2. LINKS ] ---

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/kendrashimmell/

--- [ 3. CIRCLE ] ---

Join our private community for in-house service design professionals.

⁠https://servicedesignshow.com/circle

--- [4. FIND THE SHOW ON] ---

• Youtube ~ https://go.servicedesignshow.com/244-youtube
• Spotify ~ https://go.servicedesignshow.com/244-spotify
• Apple ~ https://go.servicedesignshow.com/244-apple
• Snipd ~ https://go.servicedesignshow.com/244-snipd

We need to talk about the "intern" sitting on your desktop...

Come on, you know the one.

Sure, they are fast, very eager to please, and can process data at lightning speeds.

But they also have a bad habit of hallucinating facts and making things up just to make you happy.

Of course, I’m talking about AI.

It is fair to say that we are past the initial "wow" phase of generative AI.

Now, for us service design professionals, the real question is: How do we actually hire, train, and trust this new digital colleague?

That is the focus of this episode of our Inside Service Design series.

We sit down for a chat with two brilliant professionals: Jessica Dugan and Judith Buhmann.

They share a grounded, hype-free look at how they are integrating AI into their own existing workflows. Not as a replacement for our work, but as a "Junior Associate" who needs some (sometimes a lot) management.

To make this real, Jess walks us through the framework she uses for building her own custom AI agents. She explains how to define their "persona," scope their tasks, and curate their knowledge base so they can actually be useful (and safe).

And Judith shares a critical perspective on why we can’t fully trust AI yet. We explore why we need to treat AI as an "unreliable narrator" especially when working with vulnerable groups.

So if you are feeling a bit somewhat by the pressure to "use AI" but aren't sure how to do it responsibly, this conversation has some key insights you don't want to miss.

Here's a question: If you had to give your current AI tools a "performance" review, what rating would you give them? A) Employee of the month B) Promising intern (needs supervision) C) Chaos agent (fires random info at me).

Let me know, I’m really curious where we are all at!

Be well,

~ Marc

--- [ 1. GUIDE ] ---

00:00 Welcome to the November Round Up

04:00 Jess's journey into service desig

09:45 Judith's challenge

12:30 Designing for the employee experience and internal systems

14:00 The "Pros" of in-house service design

15:30 The necessity of patience and deep knowledge for in-house success

18:30 Judith topic

19:00 Jess topic: Building (and trusting) your own AI agent

23:00 Why we cannot fully trust any AI

27:00 Scoping the AI agent's role and understanding user need

29:00 Designing the "Human" side: Setting personality and tone for your agent

33:45 Accessibility: Is it actually hard to build your own agent?

35:30 Human-in-the-loop: Regulation and ensuring data accuracy

40:00 Why transparency matters more than just "trust"

47:00 Getting organizational buy-in for AI tools

54:45 Markers of success: How service blueprints live on after the workshop

56:30 Closing thoughts and Question to Ponder

--- [ 2. LINKS ] ---

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/judithbuhmann/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/jess-dugan/

--- [ 3. CIRCLE ] ---

Join our private community for in-house service design professionals.

⁠https://servicedesignshow.com/circle

--- [4. FIND THE SHOW ON] ---

• Youtube ~ https://go.servicedesignshow.com/inside-service-design-08-youtube
• Spotify ~ https://go.servicedesignshow.com/inside-service-design-08-spotify
• Apple ~ https://go.servicedesignshow.com/inside-service-design-08-apple
• Snipd ~ https://go.servicedesignshow.com/inside-service-design-08-snipd

Sure, design might be going through a tough period...

But as the saying goes, "never waste a good crisis."

So this moment of uncertainty, where everyone is wondering if (or rather when) AI will take over their job, might actually be our biggest opportunity to rise up.

It is a unique chance to reclaim our core focus of designing services that genuinely improve people's lives, rather than just extracting value to maximize shareholder returns.

Of course to discuss an existential topic like this we had to find someone who's been around the block for some time. And boy did we find someone!

For this episode we sit down with the legendary Dan Saffer to chat about what we can learn from the last two decades of design evolution.

We try to wrap our heads around what caused the erosion of strategic design from its heyday, which, frankly, wasn't even that long ago.

We look into how we somehow got identified with the outputs, like running workshops or creating interfaces in Figma, rather than the outcomes. And more importantly, what we can do to prevent that from happening again, whether that’s with journey management or crafting smart prompts.

And finally we also tackle the big question of why design isn't having a greater influence on the current wave of AI, and how we can change that.

So bring your cassette player for this one, because we're going back in time for some nostalgia and a healthy dose of hope.

Enjoy the conversation and keep making a positive impact!

~ Marc

--- [ 1. GUIDE ] ---

00:00 Welcome to Episode 243

03:00 Why Design Has Failed the Enterprise

07:15 Defining a 'Well-Designed Service'

11:00 4 Stages of Design Maturity

13:45 The Critical Challenge of Design at Scale

16:30 Debunking the Myth being Design as a 'Luxury'

19:30 Is Service Design an Attitude or a Practice?

20:45 Impact of Cloud & Mobile on Design Challenges

23:15 Designing for the 'Cloud Age'

29:00 Service Design vs. Interaction Design

31:45 Focus on the System, Not Just the Artifact

35:00 The Challenge of Hiring True System-Level Designers

37:30 Moving Design from Extractive to Generative

44:45 Only Way to Win Is to Not Play the Game

48:15 Driving Organizational Change Through Design Culture

52:45 Why Designers Burn Out

56:45 How to Measure the Impact of Generative Design

1:00:00 Why AI is a People Problem

1:03:15 What Makes a Great Design Leader?

1:06:15 The Essential Mindset Shift for Modern Design Leadership

1:09:15 The Great Opportunity of AI in Service Design

1:13:45 Final Takeaway

1:14:15 Question to Ponder

--- [ 2. LINKS ] ---

• LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/dansaffer/
• Blue Sky - https://blueskydirectory.com/profiles/odannyboy.bsky.social
• Medium - https://medium.com/ui-for-ai/welcome-to-ui-for-ai-eb22aef8d26c

--- [ 3. CIRCLE ] ---

Join our private community for in-house service design professionals.

⁠https://servicedesignshow.com/circle

--- [4. FIND THE SHOW ON] ---

• Youtube ~ https://go.servicedesignshow.com/243-youtube
• Spotify ~ https://go.servicedesignshow.com/243-spotify
• Apple ~ https://go.servicedesignshow.com/243-apple
• Snipd ~ https://go.servicedesignshow.com/243-snipd

Here is a hot take, empathy is becoming "theater"...

I mean, it's that feeling you get when you receive a "hyper-personalized" yet clearly automated email saying "We are so deeply sorry to see you go".

To me, it just feels insincere. Actually, it even feels manipulative.

Instead of a genuine connection, it’s a performance designed to "manage" me, not help me.

As every business out there is in a race to automate and integrate AI, the actual human connection is often the first thing to get outsourced.

And when we try to paste humanity back onto technology, we often end up in a digital uncanny valley.

So, how do we push back?

How do we remain "stubbornly human" when the systems around us only care about efficiency?

That is the battle we explore in the latest episode of our Inside Service Design series.

In this conversation, I sit down with two service design professionals from very different worlds: ​Jeff​, who works in the highly digital fintech space, and ​Emilie​, an Innovation Partner at a faith-based nonprofit.

Despite their different contexts, they share some great insights on keeping the "human" in human-centered design.

Jeff breaks down the concept of Empathy Theater and challenges us to spot when a friendly tone in a digital interface crosses the line into manipulation. And Emilie walks us through a future scenario where VR headsets are the default for education, forcing us to ask: how do we design for belonging when we are physically apart?

So, if you are tired of seeing the human element get optimized out of existence, this conversation will give you some strong arguments you need to stand your ground.

Quick question: Have you received an email recently that felt like "Empathy Theater"? If yes, send me a quick reply with "Guilty" (bonus points if you can share the example)!

I'm trying to get a sense of how widespread this is becoming.

Enjoy the conversation and keep making a positive impact.

Be well,

~ Marc

--- [ 1. GUIDE ] ---

00:00 Welcome to October Round Up

05:00 Emilie's Service Design Journey

07:30 Jeff from Interior Design to FinTech

12:30 Jeff's Biggest In-House Design Challenge

15:00 Challenges in Non-Profit Design

18:00 Emilie's True Measure of Success

20:00 How Jeff Measures Success in Long-Term Projects

25:00 Emilie's topic: Education in 2038

29:00 Jeff's topic: Keep Things 'Stubbornly Human'

33:45 The Circle Reacts to Insincere Digital Tone

36:45 How Emilie's group responded

39:00 Emilie's Hopeful Reflection on the Future of Design

40:00 The Practical Tweak Jeff Made

43:00 Emilie's #1 Hard-Won Career Lesson

45:30 Jeff's Hard-Won Lesson in Service Design

46:30 When Jeff Stopped Focusing on Deliverables

51:00 Why Beautiful Artifacts Don't Impress Executives

53:00 How to Stop the Treadmill

54:30 Emilie's Question to the Audience

55:30 Jeff Answers the Question He Wants to Ask

57:30 Emilie Answers Her Own Deep Question

59:00 Final words of wisdom

--- [ 2. LINKS ] ---

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/emilie-moravec
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffhoekwater

--- [ 3. CIRCLE ] ---

Join our private community for in-house service design professionals.

⁠https://servicedesignshow.com/circle

--- [4. FIND THE SHOW ON] ---

• Youtube ~ https://go.servicedesignshow.com/inside-service-design-07-youtube
• Spotify ~ https://go.servicedesignshow.com/inside-service-design-07-spotify
• Apple ~ https://go.servicedesignshow.com/inside-service-design-07-apple
• Snipd ~ https://go.servicedesignshow.com/inside-service-design-07-snipd

We often hear the "mantra" to move fast and break things...

But what happens when the thing that breaks is you?

For many service design professionals, this is the reality of their calendar: back-to-back meetings, a rush to deliver, and very little space to actually think.

In many organizations, there is a culture that views this busyness as a badge of honor.

But our guest in this episode, Rachael Dietkus, has quite a different -and healthier- approach.

She has a rule written on a post-it note right next to her desk: "No meetings before 10 AM".

This might sound like a luxury, doesn't it?

But Rachael, who's a licensed clinical social worker and designer, argues that rules like this are actually a professional necessity.

Rachael is the founder of Social Workers Who Design, where she is bridging the gap between the deep, ethical frameworks of social work and the often frantic pace of design.

This is an eye-opening episode where we explore why service design might be missing a "manual" that social workers have had for decades.

You'll hear about:

• Why we need to move beyond just empathy to genuine care and compassion.
• The importance of having a structured "safe space" to process your work (social workers spend at least 1 hour in supervision for every 40 hours of work!).
• Why setting hard boundaries is actually a sign of competence and professionalism, not weakness.

So, if you sometimes feel the weight of the work is getting too much and you're looking for ways to create a healthier, more sustainable work environment, this conversation offers practical clues.

As we are almost wrapping up the year, it's an important reminder that reflection on our work isn't a nice to have, but a healthy habit we should all embrace.

Enjoy the conversation and keep making a positive impact.

Be well,

~ Marc

--- [ 1. GUIDE ] ---

00:00 Welcome to Episode 242

04:00 Making Care an Integral Part of Practice

09:00 Recognizing Care (or the Lack Thereof) in Project Pacing

14:00 Difference Between 'Careless' and 'Care-full' Design

17:30 How Rachel's Path to Care Began

26:30 Human Rights and Social Work Foundation

38:45 What Design Can Learn from Social Work

46:15 Radical Act of Slowing Down

52:30 Practical Steps to Build Spaciousness & Combat Workaholism

57:45 Setting Boundaries

1:01:15 Boundaries as Professional Resistance

1:03:45 Takeaway She Hopes You Get

1:05:15 Piece of Advice

1:05:45 Question to ponder

--- [ 2. LINKS ] ---

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachaeldietkuslcsw
• Social Workers Who Design - https://www.socialworkerswho.design/

--- [ 3. CIRCLE ] ---

Join our private community for in-house service design professionals.

⁠https://servicedesignshow.com/circle

--- [4. FIND THE SHOW ON] ---

• Youtube ~ https://go.servicedesignshow.com/242-youtube
• Spotify ~ https://go.servicedesignshow.com/242-spotify
• Apple ~ https://go.servicedesignshow.com/242-apple
• Snipd ~ https://go.servicedesignshow.com/242-snipd

Okay, we are pretty good storytellers... but are we telling the right story?

As service design professionals, we nail it when it comes to what I call "Horizontal Storytelling".

We can walk anyone through the customer journey, step-by-step, building empathy for the user's pain and frustration over time.

But here is the somewhat inconvenient truth: As you might have experienced, your CEO or CFO often doesn't know what to do with that story. They are looking for something else.

They need "Vertical Storytelling".

They need to know how a specific pain point on the ground connects up to the strategic objectives of the business. They need to know the ROI. They need to know if the needle is actually moving.

In episode 8 of the Journey Management Playbook series, Tingting Lin and I are closing the loop.

We are moving from doing the work to measuring the impact.

If you’ve ever struggled to justify prove that your journey management efforts are actually influencing the bottom line, this episode is for you.

We dive into:

• How you can translate customer empathy into business language to get buy-in.

• Why you can't just rely on churn or NPS as your metrics, and how to find early warning signals that prove your work is having an effect now.
• How to connect your solutions back to the original business challenge to see if you actually solved the problem.
• And how to start measuring impact today without having to wait for perfect data integrations.

This episode provides the missing link between "making mapping a journey" and "driving business outcomes."

What is the one metric you struggle to track the most? Send me a reply or leave a comment on YouTube, we’d love to know where the biggest data hurdles are for you.

Enjoy and keep making a positive impact!

Be well,

~ Marc

--- [ 1. LINKS 🔗 ] ---

👉 Playbook Slides -

✅ Sign up for TheyDo - https://go.servicedesignshow.com/scjwb

--- [ 2. GUIDE ] ---

01:00 What's in store episode 08

03:45 Power of Vertical Storytelling

05:30 Proving Your Journey Map Worth the Investment

07:00 Biggest Mistake People Make in Journey Mapping

11:00 When a Simple Insight Changes Everything

16:30 'Horizontal' View vs. the 'Vertical'

23:00 How to Operationalize Your Journey Map

25:00 Start Small, But Map the Full Customer Story

26:00 Closing the Loop and Feedback Mechanisms

30:00 Summary: 3 Pillars of a Successful Journey Strategy

31:34 Differentiating Horizontal and Vertical Stories

33:00 Overcoming Internal Resistance to New Mapping

36:00 Stakeholders as customers

38:45 Translating Empathy into Actionable Design

39:45 Mapping an Employee Onboarding Journey

45:00 Debunking misconceptions

50:30 Software and Resources We Recommend

54:45 Second Essential Technique

58:00 Final Takeaways & Last-Minute Advice

1:00:00 5 Practical Tips You Can Implement Today

--- [ 3. FIND THE SHOW ON ] ---

• Spotify ~ https://go.servicedesignshow.com/journey-management-playbook-08-spotify
• Apple ~ https://go.servicedesignshow.com/journey-management-playbook-08-apple
• Snipd ~ https://go.servicedesignshow.com/journey-management-playbook-08-snipd
• Youtube ~ https://go.servicedesignshow.com/journey-management-playbook-08-youtube

Service design, so what...

That's a question still many people around us (rightfully) ask.

And let's be honest, they'll probably keep asking it for the foreseeable future.

It will take a very long time before our field becomes a household name, which I doubt it ever will.

Now, it’s easy to get frustrated about this, to roll our eyes every time someone questions the value of our work.

But that frustration isn't going to get us any closer to creating the impact we know we can.

A much more productive approach is to prepare for these questions, to have our answers ready before they even get asked.

This also helps us to better recognize when we end up in situations where, no matter what we say or do, our message about service design just stand a chance of resonating.

We do everyone a favor by acknowledging this. Sometimes it's just not the right place or the right time.

But where do we learn which stories to tell, when and to whom, and which stories we should avoid?

Well, we can take some clues from Mark Howell, our guest this in this episode.

Mark is a seasoned professional who's led some of the largest in-house service design teams I've heard of. This achievement becomes even more impressive when you consider he did this in industries not exactly known for their human-centered thinking.

In our conversation, we explore how Mark used tools like a "service design quality assessment" to have the right conversations with stakeholders. We talk about how he learned to identify the red flags that signal it's time to find a different project, and we dig into the key role community plays in building a successful service design practice.

I'm really excited about this episode because we just don't have many examples of people who have scaled service design teams to these kinds of numbers. And we have even fewer who are willing to share the real learnings from that journey.

So, if you have the ambition to grow service design, this is a fantastic conversation to get some best practices and hear about the pitfalls to avoid.

What stuck with me from our chat is recognizing that sometimes you need to take a step back instead of just trying to push forward (and burning out in the process).

I would love to hear from you: What's a key signal for you? What's the clue that gives away that it's time to stop pushing and find a different battle?

Enjoy and keep making a positive impact!

~ Marc

--- [ 1. GUIDE ] ---

00:00 Welcome to Episode 241

05:00 Positioning Service Designers

09:00 Cracking the Organizational Nut

13:30 the 3 disciplines to drive perspective

20:00 His Take on Journey Mapping

25:30 Lessons Learned

29:00 The Red Flags of a Failing Project

31:45 How to Spot Red Flags

34:30 The 4 Quality Indicators

40:00 Defining the Indicators

46:00 Collecting Design Quality Data

48:30 The Design Community of Practice

56:45 Aligning with Product Manager OKRs

1:02:00 Question to ponder

--- [ 2. LINKS ] ---

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/markhowell-phd

--- [ 3. CIRCLE ] ---

Join our private community for in-house service design professionals.

⁠https://servicedesignshow.com/circle

[4. FIND THE SHOW ON]

• Youtube ~ https://go.servicedesignshow.com/241-youtube
• Spotify ~ https://go.servicedesignshow.com/241-spotify
• Apple ~ https://go.servicedesignshow.com/241-apple
• Snipd ~ https://go.servicedesignshow.com/241-snipd

Have you ever thought about...

What a therapist, a grandma, and an organ donor teach you about service design?

I know, this might sound like the start of a strange joke, but it gets to the heart of a big truth about our work.

We invest a lot of time perfecting our journey maps, blueprints, and personas.

But as we know, the challenges we work on won't be solved by a deliverable.

They're solved through invisible "tools" like subtle influence, creating space for others, and building strategic relationships.

So, where do you find these tools? Well, this episode is a great start.

This episode is part of our "Inside Service Design" series, where we explore the real, unpolished practice of driving change from within organizations.

And just like in the previous episodes you get to hear two brilliant in-house professionals, share some of their most powerful, non-traditional strategies. This time we're joined by Irina Damascan and Gina Mendolia.

Gina walks us through her concept of "Setting the Trap" for engagement, and how she draws inspiration from the roles of therapists, coaches, and even grandmas to master the art of creating space and enabling teams to connect the dots themselves.

Irina introduces a powerful model for influence she calls the "Organ Donor Chain," a strategic way to build networks of reciprocity by doing "favors" that enable change across the organization, often in unexpected ways.

I have to say, it was refreshing to hear about effective mental models that go beyond design-as-usual, which aren't just theories but truly help to design better services.

Want to add some (unconventional) tools that help you drive change to your toolkit? Grab your notebook and join us for this conversation.

What's the most unconventional place you've found inspiration for your work? Maybe a different profession, a hobby, a movie? Share your inspiration in the comments on YouTube and let's continue the conversation there.

Keep making a positive impact!

~ Marc

--- [ 1. GUIDE ] ---

00:00 Welcome

04:30 Who is Ben

06:00 How Heydn got his role

07:15 What Heydn is currently doing

08:15 Ben working at a financial services firm

10:15 who Ben is reporting to

11:30 where Autodesk sits

13:15 what a good looks like for Heydn

16:30 indicators of success

17:30 what success looks like for Ben

23:30 Why Context Determines Your SD Strategy

27:00 Ben's topic: the first 90 days

30:45 Heydn's key takeaway

35:00 Making Your Map Complicated on Purpose

37:00 Ben's takeaway

43:00 the last time he has done the first 90 days

46:45 Heydn reacting

48:45 Learning things the hard way

51:00 Ben's hard lessons

55:00 what keeps him motivated

57:30 what will Heydn get back there

1:00:00 Ben to summarize

1:00:30 Heydn's final words of wisdom

--- [ 2. LINKS ] ---

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/heydn
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/benmccammon/

--- [ 3. CIRCLE ] ---

Join our private community for in-house service design professionals.

⁠https://servicedesignshow.com/circle

[4. FIND THE SHOW ON]

• Youtube ~ https://go.servicedesignshow.com/inside-service-design-06-youtube
• Spotify ~ https://go.servicedesignshow.com/inside-service-design-06-spotify
• Apple ~ https://go.servicedesignshow.com/inside-service-design-06-apple
• Snipd ~ https://go.servicedesignshow.com/inside-service-design-06-snipd

We've got a serious problem...

The "higher" you climb on the career ladder, the further removed you get from the actual discipline of design.

Unfortunately, it's a story I hear surprisingly often.

A design professionals finally gets that hard-earned seat at the table, and almost immediately, the pressure to conform kicks in.

They start to feel like they have to trade their unique perspective for a corporate persona, leaving their design identity, the very thing that got them there in the first place, at the door.

Our guest this week, Jose Coronado, shares a personal story that actually goes right to the heart of this issue.

When he first moved to the U.S. he consciously separated his professional life from his Hispanic background in an effort to belong and be seen.

The shift only came years later, after he organized a panel for Hispanic Heritage Month. The feedback he received hit him hard.

People told him, "Jose, thank you for doing this. I have never seen myself reflected in my future as a potential leader in the design field".

That experience was the moment he realized the power of bringing our "whole self" to work, and the danger of hiding parts of our identity.

So in this episode, we explore this identity crisis.

How do you evolve into a business leader without abandoning your design soul?

And I can already share that it's not about renouncing your craft, but rather enriching it with new layers.

It’s about learning to navigate the politics and negotiations of an organization while still proudly carrying the flag for design.

If you feel trapped between the design professional you are and the leader you're expected to be, this one will surely resonate.

What I loved about this conversation is the nuance it brings. I'm sure you've heard that "designers need to speak business" but what's often missing is the crucial second half of that advice, we must do it with our design expertise, identity, and skills. Business speak should enrich design, not replace it.

Enjoy the conversation and keep making a positive impact!

~ Marc

--- [ 1. GUIDE ] ---

00:00 Welcome to Episode 240

04:00 The great shift

06:00 The catalyst

08:00 Design Leadership and Why We Have to Talk About It

09:30 Design's Growing Pains

12:00 3 Levels of Leadership

13:00 Craftsmanship, Stagemanship, and Statesmanship

16:00 Mastering Stagemanship:

17:45 What we're doing wrong

20:00 Developing Business Fluency

22:00 Understanding the context

26:30 Low-Effort Ways to Gain Business Knowledge

33:00 The Challenge of Invisibility

35:00 Patience vs. Incompetence

37:45 Building Trust

39:00 The Design Measurement Problem

41:00 Tangibility of Impact

44:00 Navigating conversations like that

46:45 Finance Conversations

48:00 Connecting Process, Service Improvement, and Design

51:45 Internal Struggle and Mindset Evolution

55:00 Embracing out identity

57:30 Maintaining Connection to the Craft

59:00 Deliver in commitment

1:01:00 Question to ponder

--- [ 2. LINKS ] ---

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/josecoronado/

--- [ 3. CIRCLE ] ---

Join our private community for in-house service design professionals.

⁠https://servicedesignshow.com/circle

[4. FIND THE SHOW ON]

• Youtube ~ https://go.servicedesignshow.com/240-youtube
• Spotify ~ https://go.servicedesignshow.com/240-spotify
• Apple ~ https://go.servicedesignshow.com/240-apple
• Snipd ~ https://go.servicedesignshow.com/240-snipd

Here's the big problem with journey maps...

It's often like you've composed a masterpiece, but no one is there to actually play it.

This is what I feel when I see a carefully crafted map (our version of "music on paper"), which ultimately fails to make an impact.

Sure, we do the research, map the insights, and identify opportunities, but on Monday morning, everyone just goes back to their old routines, checking off to-do items in Jira, ClickUp, or Asana.

The map becomes an impressive visual, but it's disconnected from the way work is done.

This is the implementation gap, and it's where most journey management efforts fail.

So in episode 7 of the Journey Management Playbook series, Tingting Lin and I address this exact problem head-on.

This isn't a guide about what to map rather, it's about how to plug your insights into the operational reality of your organization.

We're moving beyond the theory and into the practical, day-to-day workflow.

I even share my own project management setup, share how things get done in my business and we discuss how to bridge the gap between my project list and the customer journey.

In this episode, you'll hear:

* Why creating a "parallel workflow" for journey management is a recipe for failure.

* How to "plug into" your organization's existing ceremonies.

* A practical way to reverse-engineer your team's current project backlog and to connect it back to the journey.

* The right way to use prioritization matrixes to spark stakeholder conversations and grow alignment.

So if you want to make your journeys the driving force behind your daily decisions, not just another document lost on a hard drive or fading away on the wall, make sure you don't miss this one.

--- [1. LINKS ] ---

• Playbook Slides - https://go.servicedesignshow.com/-sofm
• Sign up for TheyDo - https://go.servicedesignshow.com/scjwb

--- [ 2. GUIDE ] ---

00:00 Welcome to TheyDo EP 07

02:00 Implementation gap

03:00 Defining the Operational Workflow

06:00 The Practical Challenge

09:00 Connecting the Triple Diamond to the Music Metaphor

12:45 Understanding the big picture

15:30 Connecting the churn-reduction journey map

16:30 Journey Management to Project Management

19:30 Modeling initiatives in TheyDo to show a successful integration approach

21:30 How to Model Initiatives in TheyDo for Journey Linkage

24:00 Linking Initiatives to Opportunities/Journeys

25:30 Scoring Initiatives by Impact and Effort

28:00 Connecting Discovery (TheyDo) to Delivery (ClickUp/JIRA)

30:15 Context in the Journey Tool

32:00 Bi-directional Synchronization

34:00 How to set up the connectio

35:45 Understanding the Organizational Workflow

37:30 Handoffs between the Triple Diamond Workflow

39:00 How to Implement the Workflow

41:00 The needed Cultural shift

42:00 Impact driven language

44:30 How to handle non-journey work

47:00 The Workflow is not a Designer's Job Alone

49:00 Recap: The 4 steps

50:30 Journey of the Journey Manager

54:30 Journey Framework for Strategic Alignment

56:30 Ensuring Business Value

58:00 Scaling and Governance

1:02:30 Coming Up Next

--- [ 3. FIND THE SHOW ON ] ---

• Youtube ~ https://go.servicedesignshow.com/journey-management-playbook-07-youtube
• Spotify ~ https://go.servicedesignshow.com/journey-management-playbook-07-spotify
• Apple ~ https://go.servicedesignshow.com/journey-management-playbook-07-apple
• Snipd ~ https://go.servicedesignshow.com/journey-management-playbook-07-snipd