Service Design Show

I'm sure you've seen the news... At the outset, the recent announcement of the "America by Design" initiative and the new "National Design Studio" is quite exciting. It’s a huge spotlight on our field. But it also feels a bit strange, doesn't it? Because it wasn’t so long ago that the US government had 18F, an entire organization dedicated to improving the user expe...

All you want to do is run away… Okay, so you’re standing in a boardroom overlooking a beautiful vineyard, leading a workshop for a major client, and the only thing that's going through your mind is: How do I get out of there? This was a real moment for this episode's guest, Ben Rennie. And it's a feeling that I think many of us can relate to, even if the setting is different (vineyards...

What makes time go fast for you, and what makes it go slow... It's a powerful question that might just help you find more meaning and heck, yes even more joy in your work. We see a brighter future, but the system moves slowly. This mismatch can lead to frustration and burnout. What if the secret to creating change wasn't about the system, but about you? In this conversation with Martha Edw...

What if we’ve been led down the wrong path… When it comes to service design, we’re often told the main goal is to break down silos. And that makes sense, right? Our organizations are structured vertically, but the experiences we design flow horizontally. This clash creates friction, so the natural instinct is to declare war on silos. But what if that’s sending us in the wrong direction? Silos exis...

I have to admit, even I got stuck... Recently, I was working on the onboarding journey for my Circle community. What started as a flexible journey inside a Miro board very quickly became a complex map that became impossible to use. With every new insight we wanted to add came questions about where it should go and how it should be defined. Due to these meta-level questions, we lost momentum, and t...

Everyone wants change, just not for themselves… I remember a great experiment we used to do back in my agency days. At the start of a workshop, we'd ask everyone to put on a prop. It could be a hat, a pair of oversized glasses, or even a superhero cape. After some initial laughter, everyone usually played along. But the interesting part wasn't putting the props on. It was what happened in the minu...

As a service design professional, what is your primary role...!? Are you the host who sets the table for collaboration and creates a safe space for everyone? Or are you maybe a trusted advisor, working quietly behind the scenes to help stakeholders make better decisions? Well, what if the answer is... both? This tension between hosting and advising is at the heart of the latest Inside Service Desi...

What's the last time you did something you didn't know how to do... For me, it was last week when I took up the idea of building custom Cornhole boards (fun and addictive sport, look it up) with my kids. My woodworking skills are limited, at best. And that's one of the reasons I decided to take on this project. I can tell you, now in the midst of the process, that I've already made...

What does it take to spend more of your time creating real impact... That's the central question we're exploring in our Journey Management Playbook series. In the last episode, we did something pretty amazing: we took a pile of raw data and, with a click of a button, watched AI generate a structured journey map in a matter of minutes. I'll admit even though I was a bit skeptical to sta...

Let's be honest, unfortunately not many business truly cares about sustainable services... The energy debate around AI is finally highlighting digital services' environmental impact. But every service, digital or physical, consumes resources: energy, materials, and even our time. As service designers, we have a moral obligation to design with sustainability at the core. This episode tackle...

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 sol...

Ever feel like your most crucial work goes unnoticed? Just like the essential "cooling fluid" of a car, much of service design's impact—making teams efficient and processes smooth—operates in the background. But when it's missing, chaos erupts. In this episode, our guest Kat Thackray dive into the invisible, yet vital, work that drives true change in service design. We'll exp...

It's time to continue our journey... In episode 1 of the Journey Management Playbook we pinpointed a key business challenge that we want to tackle. The focus of episode 2 was all about gathering qualitative and quantitative data to understand the 'what' and the 'why'. But now comes the big question: How do you transform all that valuable material into clear insights and identif...

Why does doing good service design often feel like an uphill battle... Okay, I'm on a mission this year to find the best recipe for BBQ Chicken Wings (recommendations are welcome, by the way). Over the weekend, I was experimenting with a new one (I'd give it an 8.5/10), and then it struck me. I can have the most delicious recipe, but if my guests turn out to be vegetarian, we spontaneously...

Are they lying to us... You often hear people say that driving change as an in-house service design professional often feels less like a sprint and more like a marathon, right? But let's be honest, that's not quite true. In reality, it's more like running an ultra-marathon (and some more). We all know that "tangible" progress in service design can sometimes feel slow and far removed. Often, the re...

Have we, as the design field, contributed to the erosion of our social fabric over the last years... I had a big week recently. My daughter received the news about which high school she'll be attending next year. In the Netherlands, we have a lottery system for high schools; you list multiple options and hope fortune smiles upon you for your first choice. The second option on my daughter’s lis...

Who pours their heart and soul into journey maps that end up gathering dust... Exactly no one of course! Sure, we all want our journey work to have more impact, faster. But the question is how? That's exactly what we're exploring in the Journey Management Playbook series in collaboration with TheyDo. What makes this series different is that it's built on the real-world lessons learned...

What is the secret to consistently delivering high-quality work, day in and day out... Recently, I was chatting with my neighbours who run a bespoke interior design and manufacturing business. They make truly stunning, customised pieces for the upper market. It's easy to think their success hinges on exceptional craftsmanship, which is surely part of it. But what really keeps their business runnin...

Who are they... I know there are many out there and you could very well be one of them. I'm talking about the unsung heroes who do the hard work of making the services around us a little bit better each and every day. It might sound a little bit silly, but I feel that we don't know enough what it's like to do service design on a day to day basis. Sure, we often hear about inspiring theories, usefu...

I'm sure you recognize this... A stakeholders comes up with a new idea they want to explore, which you are highly skeptical about. Or take the opposite scenario where you see value in pursuing an opportunity but have a hard time getting your business stakeholders on board. The underlaying question in both situation is really how do you know which opportunities to pursue and which one are just a wa...

Ever feel like you're pushing a boulder uphill with journey management... Yeah, we've all been there. But guess what? There's a smarter way! That's why we're launching a brand new deep dive series on the Service Design Show. In this series, we're pulling back the curtain on how you can get tangible business results faster through journey management. Helping to grow trust wi...

It's just not designed for me... That thought hits me every time I'm in the kitchen, wrestling, trying to prepare a healthy meal for the family. Reading recipes six times over, scrambling for ingredients, juggling the chaos of parallel cooking... yeah, it's a mess. And then, there's my wife, a natural chef, gliding through it all with effortless grace. Watching her is like watching...

I try to avoid conflict... most of the time. It creates tension that I usually find counter-productive. But what if this tension is actually the catalyst for growth? Have I been missing out? Our guest Tash Willcocks thinks so. She's a self-proclaimed former conflict avoider who now champions the idea of "running towards the conflict" to unlock its potential for positive change. Yes,...

When advice goes wrong... My daughter is an avid soccer player. On a recent cold and dark Saturday morning, I was standing on the sideline cheering her on at a match - the priceless perks of being a dad. At some point, the opposing team coach was shouting to their players, "You need to defend better!" And all I could think to myself at that moment was, "That's terrible advice.&q...

AI won't take over your job... An 8-year-old girl with AI will! Don't believe me? Check ou this video which was making the rounds on LinkedIn a while ago. In the video a young girl coding a Harry Potter quiz game with the help of AI. In a matter of minutes. It's a funny and striking example of where things are heading – or should I say, where they already are. It'd be naive to thin...