One of the numerous joys of being an in-house service designer is the profound understanding of how your business works (or in some cases, do not work). We are challenged to become more pragmatic and collaborative — instead of just sprouting design terms, we use familiar bearings to anchor our conversations; instead of just producing design artefacts, we ask ourselves, ‘what tool is best suited to help us as an organisation to achieve our outcomes?’.
One such tool (and outcome) came to light recently. It is on service blueprinting. For an elaboration on what a Service Blueprint is, check out Service Blueprints by the Nielsen Norman Group. Service blueprints are a powerful tool for any organisation to comprehend its current state — the people, process and technology elements are all embedded in them. However, they remain as that — a design tool. To help Service Designers move from tool to outcome, here are 3 ways I’ve found that help us achieve that:
One, understand how projects and programmes are being delivered. This may raise eyebrows i.e. what does having knowledge of PM to do with me as a designer? In short, everything. As change agents, designers work on initiatives that effect change — such initiatives typically follow a project/programme management methodology (be it waterfall or agile). Which means, if I as a…
