Service Design Show

What is strategy... A plan for how you intend to achieve your goals? That's how a lot of people define strategy. But there's a problem with this rigid approach...

As Mike Tyson wisely said once: "Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face." Most strategies are too prescriptive about how the goal needs to be achieved.

But we live in a VUCA world where it's getting harder and harder to predict what will happen, even just weeks ahead. The sphere of what an organization can control is shrinking (and control is an illusion anyway).

What seemed like a wise action last week might be irrelevant today, thanks to new technology, a sudden global crisis, or a certain election outcome...

Following your strategy in this scenario might mean you're executing what you agreed to, but it could very well lead you away from your intended goal.

So, when there is so little we can control and predict, does that mean we shouldn't do any strategizing at all? Certainly not. We just need to adopt a more emergent approach.

We still need a plan to align everyone, but one that allows for more flexibility and deciding in the moment what the right next step is.

What does this type of strategy look like, and how do we get there? That's something ​Peter Compo​ has written ​a great book​ about, and I've invited him on the Show to share his learnings with us.

We talk about:

I know this episode will resonate with many service design professionals. It ties strongly to our mantra of "doing the right things" and not just focusing on "doing things right."

Strategy can be a very abstract term without much substance. But what I appreciated in our conversation is that Peter makes things super practical. It's time to roll up your sleeves and get to work on your strategy.

Enjoy and keep making a positive impact.

~ Marc

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00:00 Welcome to Episode 215

03:30 Music and emergence

06:00 How he got into writing the book

10:30 Pete's perspective in strategy

16:00 The theory of emergence

20:00 constraints & trust

26:30 Bridging the gap of uncertainty

30:30 Letting Go of Control

36:30 Examples of good metrics

41:00 False learning organization

46:30 Trusting your team

50:30 Aspiration-bottleneck triad

57:00 another recommendation

59:00 Strategy matrix

01:04:00 Personal Impact on writing

01:09:00 Resources

1:11:00 Question to ponder

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An exciting new conference is just around the corner, ​Advancing Service Design 2024​. We ​recently had a chat​ with Lou Rosenfeld, the conference organizer, about key ideas behind the conference.

Now, we're doing a deep dive into the two-day conference program with ​Sylvie Abookire​, who's part of the curation team. In this episode, you'll hear about the main themes, the inspiring (and somewhat surprising) speakers, and of course how it all ties together to advance our field.

Sure, you can also get some of this info on the conference website, but I promise this conversation is much more fun 🙂

I'll be presenting at the conference about the latest insights from the Salary Report and lessons learned from building the Circle community. Want to join one of my sessions? Send me an email or reach out on LinkedIn, and I'll let you know how you can attend even without a conference ticket.

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🎟️ Want to attend Advancing Service Design? Well, you're in luck!

💰 Answer the simple question over here at ⁠https://www.servicedesignshow.com/asdc2024-survey⁠ to get a 10% discount on your ticket. But that's not all!

🏆 When you sign up using this code, you'll automatically enter a contest where you can win sweet prizes.

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00:00 A Special Episode with Sylvie

02:45 Sylvie's role in the conference

04:30 Conference schedule & format

06:00 Biggest conference challenge

07:30 The final 8 speakers

10:00 What the conference means to Sylvie

12:00 Day 1: Designing in the system

14:30 Day 1: format

16:00 Day 1: The panel

17:00 Audience interaction

19:00 Day 2: Designing with the system

22:30 How we hope the conference impacts

24:00 Sylvie's workshops after the conference

27:00 The most fun part of the conference

28:00 Key Takeaways

28:00 Visibility & Impact

32:00 Conference Details & Tickets

32:30 Giveaway

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I remember being subscribed to this email newsletter from a guy named Josh, all about email marketing (kind of meta)...

Every single day, a new email from Josh would pop up in my inbox, and I'd open it right away.

These emails were different, a bit weird even, but in the best way possible. Each one would start with something that felt totally random, a story about something Josh experienced. No mention of email marketing whatsoever.

But every time I was hooked. I just had to know how the story ended.

And then, bam, right at the end, with just two or three lines he'd tie it all back to email marketing in a way that just clicked.

Those emails weren't just informative; they were actually enjoyable, to the point that I looked forward to them.

Now being able to hold someone's attention like that always seemed like a magic superpower to me... but I learned that it's not.

In this episode, Gabrielle Dolan, who's been teaching the craft of storytelling for over 20 years, reveals how you can grow your storytelling skills and use them to communicate your message in a way that stick and, most of all inspires action.

And as service design professionals, we know that getting people to take action is critical for change but also very challenging.

So whether you consider yourself a natural storyteller or not, this episode is packed with practical wisdom you won't want to miss.

Josh, by the way, stopped sending his daily emails a while ago, but as you've noticed his lessons have stuck with me.

Enjoy the episode and keep making a positive impact!

Take care,

~ Marc

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00:00 Welcome to Episode 214

03:30 Power of stories

06:00 Why stories make communication better

08:00 Dealing with skepticism

13:00 Why Organizations seek facts over stories

14:30 Story-Resistant Culture

18:00 Practical tips in becoming better storytellers

23:00 Finding your stories

24:00 Using spreadsheets

28:00 How to be comfortable using them

31:30 How to see if it's working (Tracking progress

34:00 Indicators of Success

37:00 Potential of backfiring

39:00 Gauging level of emotion

42:00 Advise from Ral

44:00 How Ral's storytelling evolved

45:30 How to use AI in storytelling

48:30 Storytelling vs acting

49:30 What's next in her storytelling journey

51:30 What kept her going

52:30 Resources

55:30 Question to ponder

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I'm excited... There's a brand new conference just around the corner – ​Advancing Service Design​ – and it's organized by none other than Rosenfeld Media, the publisher behind some of the most iconic books in our field.

Now you might be thinking... another conference? But trust me, this one is different. That's why I invited ​Lou Rosenfeld​ himself onto the Show to give us the inside scoop.

In this episode, you'll learn:

* Why Lou decided to launch a brand new conference.

* Who is Advancing Service Design for?

And what makes the conference different.

So if you're curious about what all the excitement is about, make sure to tune in to this conversation.

And as you can guess by the title there will be a part 2 where we'll dive deep into the full conference lineup and speakers.

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Want to attend Advancing Service Design? Well, you're in luck!

Answer the simple question over here https://www.servicedesignshow.com/asdc2024-survey to get a 10% discount on your ticket. But that's not all!

When you sign up using the provided code, you'll automatically enter a contest where you can win sweet prizes.

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00:00 Welcome to a Special Episode

01:30 Q&A with Lou

03:30 Long-Awaited Service Design Conference

06:00 Why Service Design Now?

08:45 Conference Program

12:00 Target Audience

14:00 Conference Success Secrets

19:00 Benefit in Time, Support, and Labor prep

20:00 Why Ben Reason and Patrick Quattlebaum

23:00 Speaker Insights

26:00 Speaker highlights

30:00 What to expect

33:00 What Lou looks forward to

36:30 How to get tickets

39:15 Topics to stay tuned to

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

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Sure, everyone's talking about Journey Management, but few are actually doing it well... It's one thing to map out customer journeys, but quite another to truly manage them.

The frameworks and models look great on paper, but reality is often far messier. Most organizations struggle to get a handle on even one journey, let alone a dozen!

So I'm excited that Florian Vollmer, a true pioneer in this field, returns to the Service Design Show to share his hard-won wisdom. You might remember him from his previous appearance on the Show where he talked about managing 100+ journeys at NCR.

What's fascinating is that Florian got a rare opportunity when starting his new role at Autodesk – a chance to rebuild a Journey Management practice from the ground up, applying all the lessons from his previous experience.

This is your classic "I wish I knew everything I know now at the start of this project. It would have been completed twice as fast and at half the cost."This time, we dive deep into the nitty-gritty of Journey Management, tackling tough questions like:

And the million-dollar question: how do you get buy-in and funding when you're just starting out?

So if you're already knee-deep in Journey Management or just starting to explore it, I'm sure you'll appreciate Florian's honest perspective from the trenches.

One of my biggest takeaways from this conversation was that, as Florian explains in detail, this is really hard work. So you have to have patience and be kind to yourself. Amen to that!

Enjoy the conversation and keep making a positive impact.

Take care,

~ Marc

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00:00 Welcome to Episode 213

04:00 Looking back EP 168

05:15 Who is Florian

07:00 What is Journey Management

08:30 the momentum of journey management right now

13:00 How to manage customers

17:00 Balancing context switching

21:00 Evolving Role Perceptions

23:30 good quality vs great quality

26:00 Organic conversations vs Priorities

35:30 Who owns the journey?

39:30 Building momentum for change

42:30 Biggest key lessons

46:00 Journey management vs collaborations

48:30 Understanding journey management

55:15 Stay tuned for another episode with Florian

56:30 Resources

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This might be the most profound conversation I've recorded this year...

What if I told you that the puzzle of how to measure and quantify the value of design has already been solved?

I know, it sounds too good to be true, right? But hear me out.

We all struggle to express the value of design in metrics that businesses understand. The result?

We often cut ourselves short because we can't present the impact of our work in a neat spreadsheet. It's frustrating, especially when we see decisions being made that make no sense to us based on "our data".

There are many reasons why it's hard to quantify the return on investment of (service) design. We're creating value on a systemic level. We're doing it in co-creation, so attribution is a nightmare. The effects of our work sometimes take a long time to materialize. And the list goes on.

So, is all hope lost? Do we throw our hands up in the air? Of course not.

Recently, while researching better alternatives to hierarchical goal structures (which are inherently broken), I stumbled upon an article by Stacey Barr. I had never heard of Stacey or her work before. This discovery led me down a massive rabbit hole.

Stacey is a leading expert on performance measurement. Over the last 20 years, she has developed and refined a methodology to measure, track, and improve performance that's being used in over 40 countries.

The more I read about this methodology, the more I felt that this could be the breakthrough we've been looking for in the design field. I have to be careful not to raise expectations too high, but...

Stacey is an unusual guest for the Show. Someone who's completely outside of our design bubble. And that's why this turned out to be such an interesting and eye-opening conversation.

In this episode, you'll learn that there is a systemic and reliable approach to figuring out what and how you can measure the impact of design. You can take this approach and apply it to your work today! And best of all, as you'll hear, the approach builds upon a lot of the elements that we as a design community are already familiar with.

I hope this episode will show you that we can actually get to measuring the things that matter, not just the things that are easy to measure.

And maybe, even maybe, get you a little bit excited about measurement (yes, that's actually possible)!

A part that I really liked in our conversation is when we rolled up our sleeves, took an abstract goal like "increasing the sense of belonging," and went step-by-step on how to break this down into more concrete and quantifiable metrics. This exercise really brought things home for me.

Keep making a positive impact!

~ Marc

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00:00: Welcome to Episode 212

04:00: Marc's rant on KPIs

05:30: Who is Stacy

08:00: Measuring service design

09:30: Evidence and numbers

13:00: Circle example

16:00: Measuring qualitative aspects

18:00: Quantifying "sense of belonging"

21:00: Circle buddies and belonging

27:00: If you can't experiment...

29:30: Client's vague goals & measurement

34:00: Handling vague ideas & measurement

38:30: Showing value and impact

39:00: Individual vs. team effort

43:00: Qualitative approach

44:00: Significant change method

48:00: Circle community tension

52:00: Measuring systemic impact

58:00: Perfection and systemic impact

1:00:30: Importance of the whole story

1:02:30: Compassion and starting small

1:04:00: Starting small with systemic thinking

1:06:30: Resources for systemic design

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Let's start with an "easy" question today... Is design a force for good, or just another cog in the capitalist machine?

I know many design professionals are grappling with this question. We see design's potential to have a positive impact but often find ourselves frustrated by its misuse as a tool for profit at any cost.

The overflowing landfills, the disposable products... These are reminders of design's unintended consequences. And while we yearn to challenge the status quo, to advocate for sustainable and ethical solutions, we often face resistance from those prioritizing short-term gains. Yeah, it's a delicate balance.

So how can we raise our voices as activists without jeopardizing our livelihoods? How do we ensure that our work benefits not only our (internal) clients but also society and the planet?

Our guest, ​Jennifer Rittner​, has dedicated her career to exploring these questions. In the conversation, we delve into the complex relationship between design, ethics, and culture.

If anything, this episode invites you to step back from your daily tasks and reflect on the bigger picture.

It's an opportunity to clarify your purpose as a professional and think about how you can align your work to that. So if that sparks your interest, join us for an inspiring chat.

Let's be honest, in a world obsessed with instant gratification, it's crucial to pause every now and than to consider the long-term consequences of our actions. We owe it to generations to come.

Enjoy and keep making a positive impact.

~ Marc

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00:00 Welcome to Episode 211

03:30 Recalibrating Social Dynamics

05:00 Design and Social Dynamics

10:00 Is there an alternative?

17:30 How her approach changed

19:00 Marc's background

24:00 Solution before building

25:00 Designer reflection

26:30 Accountability in design

32:00 The landfill problem example

38:00 What's holding us back?

43:00 How to be better humans

47:15 How we label success

51:30 Her thoughts on designers

58:00 Balancing what to make

1:00:00 "The Lab culture"

1:03:30 Power to change

1:06:30 Resources

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Ever feel like the weight of the world on your shoulders as a service design professional...

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00:00 Welcome to Episode 210

04:00 Her credibility for this topic

07:00 Mental shift in Design Ops

13:00 Hard conversations

16:30 Recalibrating expectations

19:00 Living up to promises

24:00 advertising model) vs subscriber model

27:30 Building those relationships

29:30 Make or Break in Design Ops

33:15 Slow consistent progress vs immediate results

37:00 Clients confusion about our role

41:15 Judging your success

45:00 Community building expectations

48:00 Our hope for the community

50:00 How we can help realize that wish

51:30 Resources

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Sure, AI is pretty cool, but have you heard of something called Retrieval-Augmented-Generation (RAG)... We don't often spotlight specific tech on the Show, but RAG?

I firmly believe that RAG has the potential to shake up service design in a big way.

Imagine having a super-powered teammate on every project. This teammate has the ability to recall every meeting, every workshop, and every sticky note, not just yours but your entire team's, even from years ago. Not just yours but your whole team's.

Ask them a question, and a few seconds later, they've got the answer. It's like being able to have a conversation with your entire project history. Just think about the impact of this for a moment.

Now, we all know about those fancy Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT. Amazing, right? But they're not trained on your data. Ask them about your project, and you'll get... well, something made up. But what if you could combine the conversational magic of LLMs with the deep knowledge of your own data?

In a nutshell, this is RAG's promise. It lets those powerful LLMs tap into your world, giving you answers that are not only smart, but relevant.

I've been tinkering with RAG to unlock the wisdom hidden in our Circle community discussions. But I'm far from an expert, so I brought in someone who is: Kirk Marple, founder of GraphLit, a startup using RAG to make your knowledge AI-friendly.

In our conversation we dove deep. How do we even start with RAG? Do you need to be a coder? How do we make sure the answers you get are any good? What about privacy when AI sees your data? And that's just the start to be honest.

What struck me was Kirk's idea that using AI is more art than science. It's about 'prompt sculpting', not (just) engineering. There's a lot of gray area, and that's where we as a design community shine.

We should be all over this AI thing... What do you think?

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00:00 Welcome to Episode 209

05:00 What Kirk does in life

10:00 AI for content discovery

14:00 AI and service design

16:00 Data retrieval with AI

19:00 Tracking unstructured data

22:00 Podcast metadata example

24:30 Vector search explained

30:00 AI vs human experience

35:00 Privacy concerns with AI

37:30 Large language models and understanding

41:00 Importance of graphs in AI

44:30 AI: art or science?

48:00 AI's growth and data processing

51:30 AI agents

56:00 Kirk's AI roadmap

57:30 Tips for AI beginners

59:00 Common AI terms

1:01:00 AI resources

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How can we leave the world in a better place than we inherited it... And what's design's role in all of this?

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00:00 Welcome to Episode 208

04:00 Who is Steve

07:00 Better Planet for Our Kids

09:30 Design's Role

13:00 The Landfill Problem

14:30 Why Haven't We Solved It?

17:00 Old Ways, New Challenges

18:00 Potential Changes

21:45 Decision-Making for Longevity

24:30 Designer's Dilemma

27:30 Staying Positive

30:34 Measuring Success

33:00 Products vs. Services

37:00 Reconnecting People and Nature

41:00 Accelerating Change

44:00 Government Intervention

45:30 What to Do?

48:30 Good Design Defined

51:00 Designing Standards

53:00 Final Thoughts

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