Service Design Show

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 let your career be determined by the direction of the wind you might end up drifting away from the things you love to do.

And the longer you stay in this position the harder it will be to let go of the lifestyle that comes with it.

This is exactly what happened to Alessandra Canella, our guest in this episode. Her career took a path which is similar to many service design professionals.

Starting out as a practitioner she slowly worked her way "up" to being a lead, managing a design team.

But what if you discover that you don't enjoy management, at all? What if you realize that your true passion is to stay close to the actual practice?

Are there still any growth opportunities left for you as a service design professional? This was the burning question Alessandra needed to find an answer to.

In this episode of the Show we discuss how she took a designerly career development approach and managed to reignite the fire within her.

You can't guarantee that every step in your career will work out the way you hope. But there's definitely a lot you can do to increase the likelihood.

--- [ GUIDE ] -—

00:00 Welcome to episode 139

04:20 Who is Alessandra

05:00 60 second rapid fire

07:15 Career paths in service design

09:00 Key moments

15:15 Deliberate or organic path

18:45 The expectation

24:45 A lateral move

30:15 It's not for every organisation

33:00 How to stay on track

39:15 Finding the courage

42:15 The right moment to move

47:00 Recognizing the signals

53:00 Closing thoughts

--- [ LINKS ] ---

* https://www.linkedin.com/in/alessandracanella/

--- [ HOW TO EXPLAIN SERVICE DESIGN ] ---

Learn what it takes to get your clients, colleagues, managers, CEOs and even grandmas as excited about service design as you are.

https://servicedesignshow.com/free-course

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.

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For more best practices join the upcoming cohort of our Selling Service Design with Confidence program.

https://servicedesignshow.com/selling/

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These best practices focus on how you can get buy-in and support for your work (especially from non-designers). Which, as you probably have experienced, is not a trivial task.

To understand where these best practices are coming from we also discuss the challenges these professionals were running into, the lessons they learned the hard way and of course... what they are doing differently today to be more successful.

Is it mostly about the small details? Or is a bigger mindset shift needed?

Enjoy the episode and if you have any best practices on this topic I'd love to know!

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Learn how to Sell Service Design with Confidence. Join the upcoming cohort!

https://servicedesignshow.com/selling/

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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 goods. But it's not just these tech giants. Examples are all around us.

You could say that these tech companies are going through their own analoge transformation.

Coming in as a service designer into such an environment is... well, quite an interesting experience with it's own set of challenges.

For instance you'll find that your work potentially overlaps a lot with product managers. Next to that you're often not tied to operation so it's hard to show tangible impact on customers. And as you start out embedded in the digital part of the company it means you can influence the entire journey.

So considering all this it's fair to say that the odds of you being successful are not stacked in your favor.

But there's hope.

Our guest this week Chris Risdon has made a sport out of establish service design within tech driven companies. And over the past years he learned through trail and error what works and what doesn't.

As often is the case the most important lessons boil down to a few simple things... things which are unfortunately easy to forget.

Luckily Chris does a great job of reminding us of them.

Even if you're currently not in a product driven tech company I'm confident that these lessons will help you be more impactful.

Enjoy the episode and keep making a positive impact :)

--- [ GUIDE ] -—

00:00 Welcome to episode 138

03:30 Who is Chris

04:30 60 second rapid fire

10:15 Humanizing technology

15:15 Where is this coming from

18:45 The challenges

22:30 Is service design compatible

25:45 Sharing the wins

29:30 Where to start

34:45 The overlap with product management

39:15 What does impact look like

41:30 Connecting the dots

46:00 Be a journalist

51:45 The first steps

56:00 Final thoughts

--- [ LINKS ] ---

* https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisrisdon/

BOOKS

* https://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/orchestrating-experiences/

* Artemisia Gentileschi - https://amzn.to/31Fllse

* Visualizing Black America - https://amzn.to/3EEaNZ0

--- [ HOW TO EXPLAIN SERVICE DESIGN ] ---

Learn what it takes to get your clients, colleagues, managers, CEOs and even grandmas as excited about service design as you are.

https://servicedesignshow.com/free-course

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 elements of good service design?

We'll that's exactly what Daniele Catalanotto did... and he turned the principles which he found into a book.

This book is a much needed contribution to our field. It sort of shows very directly the outcome of good service design. Without bothering you with how that outcome came to be. Very different from the books on tools and methods or the ones that describe the high level strategic perspective.

Daniele's book helps to solve one of the biggest challenges in our work... how to make tangible what service design is for.

So how do you identify these principles? What should you look for? And what is it that you actually capture? Daniele shares his entire process in this episode.

And let me tell you that something magical happens when you start noticing and collecting these principles.

Your not only building a valuable resource library which you can easily reference later when you're looking for inspiration.

Maybe the most important part is that you start training your mind to instinctively recognize the elements of a good (and bad) service design.

This is as close to a superpower as you'll get. At least I :)

Throughout the conversation we joke about having a "pinterest for services". Which actually might not be such a bad idea.

--- [ GUIDE ] -—

00:00 Welcome to episode 107

01:40 Who is Dan

03:20 60 second rapid fire

05:40 Why talking about value matters

08:30 Feeling valued

09:30 The stigma around business

11:00 Object value pricing

13:15 The basis of value pricing

15:00 Creating alignment around a goal

18:10 What is important to you

19:10 The dangerous separation between business and design

21:00 Challenger sales

24:10 Setting a benchmark

27:00 Prototyping with numbers

29:45 Giving guarantees

31:40 Pricing experiments

35:20 When do you start charging

38:00 Do this in every sales conversation

40:45 Look for win-wins

42:30 Recommended resources

43:30 Get in touch with Dan

43:55 Final thoughts

--- [ LINKS ] ---

- https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielecatalanotto/

- Episode #91 with Daniele: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=br1j61UEDnA

- The book: https://store.swissinnovation.academy/service-design-principles-101-200

- Service Design: From Insight to Implementation (book) - https://amzn.to/3cC37dn

--- [ HOW TO EXPLAIN SERVICE DESIGN ] ---

Learn what it takes to get your clients, colleagues, managers, CEOs and even grandmas as excited about service design as you are.

https://servicedesignshow.com/free-course

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 service design degree after all?

Well, Emily Winograd has had to answer this question for herself a few times.

So I've invited Emily on the Show to share her story and the lessons she learned along the way with you.

In this conversation you'll also hear about a simple framework.

This framework helps you to uncover blind spots and learn about the strengths of your team members.

If you ever had signs of imposter syndrome in your work make sure you listen to this episode as it offers some very helpful insights!

I found Emily's story really encouraging for our field and hopefully you'll do as well.

--- [ GUIDE ] -—

00:00 Welcome to the Show

03:00 Who is Emily

04:15 How to train your service designer

08:30 Stamp of approval

12:00 Imposter syndrome

14:30 The tension

17:30 The framework

22:45 Best practices

28:45 Roadblocks

32:00 Lessons learned

36:00 Closing thoughts

--- [ CIRCLE ] -—

Join our community of in-house service design professionals at the Circle.

https://www.servicedesignshow.com/circle/

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 want more influence, moving into a leadership position is almost a must.

But what does this even mean? And is it a career step that you should consider?

In this episode Todd takes us along his transformational journey from being a design practitioner to becoming a design leader.

You'll learn about the mistakes he made along the way and now is slowly recovering from.

I have to admit that this is quite a unique perspective that hasn't been shared on the Show often.

So if you're interested in having a greater influence on the decisions around you, this is an episode you definitely don't want to miss.

What I took out of our conversations was how we should hold on tightly to the things that designers do really well. Especially when we move into a different role within the organisation.

--- [ GUIDE ] -—

00:00 Welcome to episode 136

03:00 Who is Todd

04:45 60 second rapid fire

06:45 What's in store

08:45 Start of the journey

12:15 The opportunity

17:30 Making the jump

23:15 New responsibilities

28:00 Lessons learned

32:15 A better approach

39:30 Tradeoffs and compromises

42:45 What to look for

46:45 It will change you

48:15 The first step

51:15 Closing thoughts

--- [ LINKS ] ---

* https://www.linkedin.com/in/toddwilkens/

--- [ HOW TO EXPLAIN SERVICE DESIGN ] ---

Learn what it takes to get your clients, colleagues, managers, CEOs and even grandmas as excited about service design as you are.

https://servicedesignshow.com/free-course

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 potential dark side. We also discuss how you can bring rituals into your own design practice.

Curious how to make the mundane meaningful again? Make sure you don't miss this conversation!

--- [ GUIDE ] -—

00:00 Welcome to the Show

02:40 Who is Adam

04:00 What is ritual design

07:30 The opportunity

08:30 The back story

13:45 Your responsibility

17:00 The why of rituals

19:30 Key principles

24:00 Where to start

28:15 Lessons learned

31:30 Next steps

37:30 Circle reflection

40:30 Closing thoughts

--- [ CIRCLE ] -—

Join our community of in-house service design professionals at the Circle.

https://www.servicedesignshow.com/circle/

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 soon.

So this begs the question: How can you connect service design with "product people" inside an organisation and use each others strengths?

Valeria Adani who's the head of service design at Frog has been faced many times with this challenge in her career.

In this week's episode she shares her most important learnings around finding a common language, focussing on implementation and the pitfalls of oversimplification.

When you take these lessons to heart I can guarantee that you'll be more impactful and do more rewarding work. Curious? Click the link below to learn more.

Hope that you'll enjoy the conversation and get something helpful out of it!

--- [ SALARY REPORT ] -—

https://www.servicedesignjobs.com/salaryreport/

--- [ GUIDE ] -—

00:00 Welcome to episode 135

03:00 Who is Valeria

03:45 60 second rapid fire

06:00 The problem of a product centric mindset

09:15 Importance of language

11:45 Bridging the gap

17:45 Signs of success

23:00 The impact of design

26:15 Focus on implementation

33:00 We can't do it alone

36:00 Measuring the right things

37:30 Tips on getting started

41:45 Pitfalls of over simplification

46:45 The added value of service design

48:30 Final thoughts

--- [ LINKS ] ---

* https://www.linkedin.com/in/valeriaadani/

--- [ HOW TO EXPLAIN SERVICE DESIGN ] ---

Learn what it takes to get your clients, colleagues, managers, CEOs and even grandmas as excited about service design as you are.

https://servicedesignshow.com/free-course

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 offer you the opportunity to learn from others, find support and provide the space to reflect on your work.

But a community doesn't magically appear right in front of you.

So in this episode you're going to hear how and where you can find a community where you feel at home.

--- [ GUIDE ] -—

00:00 Welcome to the Show

03:00 Who is Natalie

04:15 What is a community

09:45 The limits of online

14:15 Growing through engagement

16:00 Starting a community

23:45 The importance of ownership

25:45 Longevity of communities

31:15 The catalysts

34:45 Enabling interaction

39:15 Trust and vulnerability

42:15 Deep versus wide

46:00 Closing thoughts

--- [ CIRLCE ] -—

Join our community our in-house service design professionals at the Circle.

https://www.servicedesignshow.com/circle/

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 guest in this week's episode Chris Ferguson calls these tensions double binds. And Chris has been doing some foundational research into this topic.

You're going to learn about the most common double binds that he found through his research.

If you stick around till the end of the episode you'll also walk away with some concrete examples on how you can neutralize these tensions.

And if anything, at least you'll see these tensions coming and can prepare in advance :)

--- [ GUIDE ] -—

00:00 Welcome to episode 134

02:00 Who is Chris

03:50 Question rapid fire round

06:00 Double binds

09:00 Traditional organisations

10:45 Work style tension

18:45 Transforming the organisation

23:15 Business model bind

30:15 Different cultures

35:15 Understanding belief systems

39:00 Learning from others

42:45 Finding your allies

52:30 Structuring projects

56:00 Final thoughts

--- [ LINKS ] ---

- https://www.linkedin.com/in/1christopherferguson/

- Razorblade Tears (book) - https://amzn.to/3lAXRfl

- The Hard Thing About Hard Things (book) - https://amzn.to/3ADVqN4

- Design Thinking at Work (book) - https://amzn.to/3DAYYlb

- Liminal thinking The pyramid of belief - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2G_h4mnAMJg

- The Campfire - https://www.servicedesignshow.com/campfire/

--- [ HOW TO EXPLAIN SERVICE DESIGN ] ---

Learn what it takes to get your clients, colleagues, managers, CEOs and even grandmas as excited about service design as you are.

https://servicedesignshow.com/free-course