Avainsana: service design
Thick Customer Research Reduces Failures in Services and Businesses
The success or failure of a business or service depends on many factors. Some of them you will have no control over and some will be things that you can mitigate with your preparation and actions. Thorough customer research is one of those things that can help you to reduce your chances of being unsuccessful. For the purpose of this article, a customer is defined as a person who is the one who pays or not. Not all users will be the payer of the products or services that you sell but understanding them is vital. It doesn’t matter if you are involved with public services or a private company; doing customer research will help to avoid service and product failures. This will help you to avoid most of the early pitfalls in development and design phases because it allows you to understand what customers and users are expecting before you have even built anything. If you have already built something and it isn’t getting the traction that it should, there are many issues that could be at fault and without doing the research, you can only guess which one (or combination of them) it is. This takes time and money and will give you a much shorter runway to fix the problem. What is Customer Research? Customer research, when done thoroughly and intentionally, is a combination of asking, listening, and learning. Direct and indirect customer research can consist of: interviews surveys observations shadowing internet searches reading articles blogs academic journals, etc. There are a lot of ways to do this research and it is important to include different methods to get a good overview of the market and the customers themselves. One very good resource for understanding different methods for customer research is the website This Is Service Design Doing. There are both qualitative and quantitative methods of customer research listed on this website. Both are needed to create an in-depth context to gain actionable insights for your service or product. What is Thick Customer Research? When doing research of any kind, you have the choice of doing quantitative or qualitative data. Both of these have their pros and cons. Quantitative research allows you to reach far more people than you would be able to get with qualitative; this research can tell you whatis happening. While the depth of insights and understanding of human experiences that you can get from qualitative research will tell you why it is happening when compared to quantitative research. There is no context to the what. In combination, these two create what is called “thick data”. Tricia Wang gives a greatly informative TEDxTalk on the value of thick data. Looking at the photo of this article, using quantitative data, we can ascertain that there is 1 Santa Clause under the pier, there are two people talking to the Santa character, they are potentially half way along the pier and stood in between the pillars. What we cannot know is the why of any of this situation. Without doing some quantitative research, we cannot find out: Why Santa is there? What the people are talking about? How often Santa is present under the pier? If Santa will return tomorrow. What does Santa hope to achieve by being there? Is Santa achieving what he set out to do? Like mentioned above, even if we gather the answers to the quantitative research, we still have no context or actionable insights into what is really happening. Why Do Customer Research? There are a few main uses for customer research Knowing who you need to focus on Understanding how to communicate with your customer Follow different shifts and trends in your customer base Understanding what is important to your users You need to identify who your customers are or are going to be, you need to interview some of them and find out how they are currently fixing the issue(s) that your service or product will fix (or should fix). When you research why companies fail, as mentioned above, there will be a mix of reasons. An article promoted on a US Chamber of Commerce website lists three main causes of small business failure: Cash flow problems No demand for product of service Poor management From these three, the easiest one to help with customer research is the no demand for the product or service. If you are doing good research, you will find out early in the process whether your idea is useful or sellable. Long before you invest in full development, you should be out there asking questions and testing your idea before you have built it with a simple prototype. Doing this should also help with problem number one because it will let you put off bigger financial investments and reduce the amount of time it takes to get a sellable product. It can cost a lot of money and time to get your first fully functioning product or service. These steps should not be taken until you have a proven prototype that has shown that people are interested and willing to pay for it. Outside of validating a prototype, customer research is valuable to learn how to communicate and sell to your customer, figure out how they would use your product or service (it may not be how you think), and see if there are any specific elements or competitors that you are missing. It is also important to figure out how people are currently solving the problem right now without your product on the market. Understanding this will help you understand what may be a competitive edge in the future. Which Services and Businesses Need to Do Research? Understanding your customers/users is vital whether you deliver a specific service in a larger organisation or if you are a business that serves B2B or B2C customers. Customer research is so important for most people to learn because most people will need to use it in their work. It does not matter where you are in an organisation, most people have some kind of customer that they are creating services for. But many may not use that perspective in their work. For example, people working in HR functions or the finance office of an organisation can have both internal and external customers depending on their specific role. Many will likely have both. Human Resources will have responsibility for professional development opportunities but also recruitment. Professional development roles are creating services that will be used by internal customers [how staff or their managers can access or request certain training] and external customers [how training providers can submit proposals to collaborations, etc.]. In recruitment, hiring managers need use the processes that are in place to open a role to the public, but also the recruiter needs to field questions from outside the organisation and the external stakeholder needs to be able to easily navigate the application process. Not A ‘One and Done’ The purposeful design of services and products is what will make sure that you have the best chance of becoming essential to your customers and users. Purposeful design begins with research. Deep, methodical research that can be refined, replicated and impactful. Research is also not something that you can do once or become complacent about. It is important to make sure that you are always gathering some feedback in order to refine and respond to new trends and needs. This valuable edge will give you the understanding of what it will take to continually be solving your customer’s problems. And solving a real problem is the reason you will be successful. Author Pamela Spokes works as a Service Designer in Metropolia’s RDI team. Originally from Canada, Pamela has years of experience in university admin focusing on international recruitment, marketing, and the international student/staff experience. With a Bachelor’s from Canada, a Master’s degree from Sweden, an MBA in Service Innovation & Design from Laurea, and her AmO from Haaga-Helia, she is interested in purposefully designed experiences that are centred around the user. Don’t be surprised if she knocks on your door to talk about learning co-creation methods through intensive learning experiences.
Using Prototyping to Develop Services in Small or Medium Businesses
When we think about prototyping, we may imagine Tesla’s first autonomous vehicle out on the roads or a robot that you want to teach to walk. But these are just the versions of prototyping that make the news. Everyday prototypes are being carried out in small ways. What is Prototyping? Dictionaries rely heavily on a mechanical definition of prototyping. Meaning that they mostly define prototyping of the things mentioned above. But prototyping has grown to encompass many different types of products and services. Not everyone is ignoring its expansion. The Merriam-Webster online dictionary expands on the word by adding this context: The prefix prot-, or proto-, comes from Greek and has the basic meaning "first in time" or "first formed." A prototype is someone or something that serves as a model or inspiration for those that come later. A successful fund-raising campaign can serve as a prototype for future campaigns. When you prototype something in your business, you are testing something’s viability. You are asking yourself: Does this make sense for my customers? Does this make sense for me and my company’s ability? Does this make sense financially? Is this option sustainable? Why Prototype? When you are prototyping something in your business, you are answering questions for yourself, your customers and your business. The answers to your questions will allow you to move forward more quickly and more confidently that whatever it is you are trying to do will work. The most important reason to make a prototype is to find all your inconsistencies and fix them. Because you will not succeed if your customers do not think your solution is sustainable, usable, or desirable. Unlike finished products ready for purchase, prototypes are imperfect and impermanent by design (Willhoft, 2022) It is also very important to note that creating a prototype is not just about the thing itself. It is about how your product or service serves the customer and your business. When launching a new product, service or even whole business, there should be a balance between company health and customer usefulness. Additionally, it should also be done in the most sustainable way possible in economical, social and ecological perspectives. This will also serve your business and your customers. General Prototyping There are many ways to prototype. Each of these will give you insights to help you move onto the next iteration of your offering. You do not need to do all of these; you just need to do those that make sense for what you are creating. The most usual are: Roleplay Cardboard recreation/staging Lego Stuff/Proximity prototyping Paper ‘digital’ mockups Digital mockups (Marvel app, etc) 3D printing Roleplay This means acting out your service or product. It could be acting out how a person will buy or use your product. Cardboard recreation/staging You may need quite a bit of cardboard or any kind of larger objects (tables, etc) to design the space you need. This allows you to move around your space to see if it works. Lego Lego is a great way to represent many different kinds of interactions through building them in miniature form and walking through it. Or maybe you are using Lego as a way to represent an actual product. Stuff/Proximity prototyping This just means that you are using found objects (whatever if around you) to create prototypes of what you are talking about. You can tape paper and bits of anything together to represent a size proximation, etc. 3D printing It is not becoming a very real option that you can 3D print a version of a product before you commission anything real. Paper ‘digital’ mockups These are representations of digital experiences without ever needing to code anything. There are services available online that allow you to draw on paper a wireframe of an app or computer interface and then photograph it, upload it to their service and then add on “hot spots” or places that you can tap to move to the next screen. It is really amazing how low-fidelity you can make something to see how it looks and feels. Digital mockups One step further on from paper digital mockups are digital mockups. These are able to look much sleeker than the first-round paper ones and can start to begin to really feel like a real product (all while not at all needing the intense amount of time and skill to create a real version). Prototyping a Business Model There are many things with a business that can be prototyped. One very important one is your business model. This means how your business will make money. You need to see what customers want in terms of how and when they pay you and what they are willing to pay for. This really depends on so many variables that doing your customer research before you launch is really important. Once you have some insights from your potential or actual customers (this can depend on if you have already started your business or not), you can begin to ‘try on’ different business models. BMI Lab has a great tool for this called Business Model Navigator where you can check out the 55 business model patterns that they have identified to see which might work best for the product/service you have and the customers you will be serving. These pattern cards explain the business model, how it works, and which companies you may know that are currently using it. With this detail, you can begin to imagine how your customers would interact with your company depending on the business model. Prototyping a Service Very similar to any other kind of prototyping, you need to figure out what it is that you are testing. Are you testing how someone accesses the service, how they interact online with the service, how they interact in person with the service, how they pay for the service, etc.? This need will determine the best way to prototype it. Services can be either physical or digital, or they can even be either or both. For example, going to your local health service can be prototyped by doing a walk through - How easy is it to get to by public transport? Is there enough parking for personal vehicles? What is it like to access the place to register? Is it obvious where the customer needs to go and what they can do there? When they get there, the customer may be able to register in person or digitally. Are these obvious? Are they easy to understand? Where does the person need to wait? How will you tell them where to wait or how they will be called into the medical office - is it a number on a screen or will someone call by name? Each of these is part of the service that the health service is offering. Within this example, you can see that there is also an opportunity to prototype the digital screens that are used. These can first be done with paper prototyping and then with more sophisticated digital mockups. These can be tested with potential or current customers. The most important thing you can do with your prototype is to show it to people. The Value in Prototyping The value in prototyping comes only when you show them to others. As the designer of the service or product, you and your team will always have an inherent advantage in knowing what you were trying to achieve. This can blind you to what you to the reality if what was created. Show it to those who will most benefit from it. Not your friends or your team members. By doing quick and easy prototypes, you are giving yourself permission to not get everything right the first time. It shouldn’t be right the first time. Prototyping is about quickly putting something together and then seeing what needs to be fixed. Then fixing it and testing again. There can be a few rounds and the time that you spent on getting it incrementally better will save you money, time, and effort. You will be making cheap and easy fixes on a prototype rather than expensive and lengthy changes to a finalised product or service. Author Pamela Spokes works as a Service Designer in Metropolia’s RDI team. Originally from Canada, Pamela has years of experience in university admin focusing on international recruitment, marketing, and the international student/staff experience. With a Bachelor’s from Canada, a Master’s degree from Sweden, an MBA in Service Innovation & Design from Laurea, and her AmO from Haaga-Helia, she is interested in purposefully designed experiences that are centred around the user. Don’t be surprised if she knocks on your door to talk about learning co-creation methods through intensive learning experiences. Reference Willhoft, Scott. (2022). This Is a Prototype: The Curious Craft of Exploring New Ideas, Ten Speed Press.
Tikissä-blogin vuosi 2023
Tikissä-blogi julkaisee yleistajuisia asiantuntijakirjoituksia Metropolia ammattikorkeakoulun tutkimus-, kehittämis- ja innovaatiotoimintaan (TKI) kytkeytyvistä aiheista. Vuonna 2023 Tikissä julkaistiin yhteensä 92 toimitettua blogikirjoitusta, joista 13 on englanninkielisiä. Kirjoittajina on kymmeniä eri alojen asiantuntijoita Metropolian TKI- ja oppimistoiminnan sekä hanketyön parista. Blogikirjoitukset on ryhmitelty teemoittain. Jaottelussa on haavoittuvuutensa, sillä osa kirjoituksista sopisi useamman teeman alle. Toivomme uuden tiedon löytämisen iloa! Tutkimus, kehittäminen ja innovaatiot TKI-työ tuo ihmiset yhteen kompleksisten haasteiden ratkaisemiseksi Suomalaisen tieteen pelisäännöt varmistetaan tutkimusyhteisön itsesääntelyllä Yhdenvertaisuuden edistäminen TKI-toiminnassa Merkityksellinen yhteistoiminta osallistuvassa TKI-kumppanuudessa Osallistuvaa TKI-kumppanuutta uudessa eurooppalaisessa Bauhausissa Kulttuuriset sillat ja kielelliset kohtaamiset innovaatioiksi Kampus yritysyhteistyön raja-alueena Ammattikorkeakoulun rooli ekosysteemissä on edistää osaamisen ja teknologian siirtymää Mitä hubin rakentaminen vaatii? Keksijän muistilista Keksintö Hollywoodin säihkeestä: taajuushyppely Hankkeen arvioinnista on moneksi Vuoroin vieraissa - vertaisista vauhtia hankearviointiin Voiko hankkeen arvioinnissa hyödyntää taiteellisia menetelmiä? Hanketyön sivuvirrat hyötykäyttöön Taide rakentamassa tulevaisuuden vaihtoehtoja Koulutus, osaaminen ja oppiminen Muuttuva korkeakoulu ja näkökulman vaihtamisen taito Edelläkävijäorganisaatioissa keskitytään toimivan oppimiskulttuurin luomiseen Projektiopinnot ovat joustava tapa uuden oppimiseen Virtuaalitodellisuuden tarinat terävöittävät transversaaleja taitoja Kaksikielinen koulutus avaa eettisesti kestävän tien sairaanhoitajaksi Onko mikrokursseista hyötyä yrittäjälle? Onnistuneen opinnäytetyön resepti Monialaisuus innovaatiokyvykkyyden vahvistajana Yhteisö oppimisen tukena Digitaalisen muotoilun eettiset haasteet - opiskelijat ja työelämä yhteiskehittäjinä Sosiaalialan ohjauspalveluiden kehittäminen vaatii tilanteen rakentamista Aineenopettajat kohtaavat kriisimaista tulevia maahanmuuttajataustaisia oppilaita yläkoulussa Musiikin osallisuuden portaat Työelämä ja johtaminen Valmentava johtajuus hanketyössä Psykologinen turvallisuus ja sen vahvistaminen työssä Tunteet työelämässä psykologista turvallisuutta edistämässä Resilienssiä vahvistavat hyväksymisen taito, työn merkityksellisyys ja autenttisuus Moninaisuuden ja inklusiivisuuden johtaminen vahvistaa organisaatioiden sosiaalista kestävyyttä Muuttuvalla urapolulla tarvitaan toivoa ja myötätuntoa Työntekijöiden kytkeminen organisaation kehittämiseen kestävyyden vahvistamiseksi Henkilöstötuottavuus ja sen kehittämisen mahdollisuudet Kolme vinkkiä, joiden avulla tarjoat ja vastaanotat tukea paremmin hajautetussa tiimissä Työn kehittämisellä ja muokkaamisella kohti hyvää henkilöstöpolitiikkaa sekä työuria Mitkä tekijät houkuttavat työntekijäkonkareita jatkamaan Ikääntyneen yksilöllisyys korostuu työelämään liittyvissä valinnoissa Ennakoivalla henkilöstövoimavarojen johtamisella kestävää kehitystä rakentamassa Työllisyystilanteen nopeat vaihtelut vaikuttavat AV-alan opiskelijoiden verkostoitumiseen Rakennusalan menestys vaatii monialaista yhteistyötä ja uusia toimintatapoja Pidetään ääntä hiljaisesta tiedosta! Suuret päätökset, ennakoimattomat seuraukset Yrittäjyyden ja yritystoiminnan kehittäminen Strategialähtöinen osaamisen kehittäminen Mitä yrittäjyyskeskukset voivat tuoda lisää korkeakoulujen toimintaan? Seniorien vaikuttajaryhmät - uusi tapa vaikuttaa yksityisiin palveluihin, asiakkaita ja yrittäjiä hyödyttäen Yrityksen kasvuhalukkuus, kasvun keinot ja esteet - Pitääkö aina kasvaa? Voiko taide juurtua yrityksiin? Korkeakoulujen yritysyhdistyksistä ponnistetaan tulevaisuuteen Monenlaista yritystoimintaa kohtaamassa Hypätäänkö jo lentävän auton kyytiin? Katsaus älyliikenteen markkinaympäristöön ja tulevaisuuteen Liiketoimintaa Lean Startupilla - Ikääntyneiden liikunta- ja hyvinvointipalveluihin Yrittäjänaisten ryhmätoiminnasta vahvuutta omaan yrittäjyyteen Yrittäjänaisten digitaidot vauhdittavat kasvua Tekoäly yritystoiminnan tukiälynä Female Entrepreneurs Without Borders Ympäristö ja kestävyys Tiedolla johtamisen ja teknologisten megatrendien mahdollisuudet, haasteet sekä vaikuttavuus Suomen vihreässä siirtymässä Ympäristöystävällinen tapahtumatuotanto - hanketapahtumat suunnannäyttäjnä Elämä kierrätystaloudessa matkalla kohti kiertotaloutta Vihertävää työmatkailua Euroopassa Terveys ja hyvinvointi Liikkuminen ja ravinto seniorien hyvinvointipalveluiden ytimessä Inkontinenssihanke yhteistyössä kokemustoimijoiden, ammattilaisten ja tutkijoiden kanssa Korkeakouluopiskelijoiden hyvinvoinnin haasteet näkyvät tutkimuksissa Vuorovaikutus ja viestintä Tuumasta toimeen Brysselissä - miten aktivoitua EU-vaikuttamiseen? Hanketulokset voi koota yhteen Thinglinkillä Onko mikki auki? Onnistuuko empaattinen vuorovaikutus etänä? Verkostoitumisen mahdollisuudet hybriditapahtumissa Tekoäly asiantuntija-artikkelin kirjoittamisen tukena Innovaatiopodcasteja tekemässä Tekoäly asiantuntija-artikkelin kirjoittamisen tukena Viestintäyhteistyö hankekumppanin kanssa - 10 vinkkiä Eettisyys asiantuntijaviestinnän kulmakivenä Timanttinen hankeseminaari Blogi on yksi kanava asiantuntijatiedon levittämisessä 3 oivallusta, jotka opin hankeviestinnän kouluttajana Tekoälyn vaikutuksista tekijänoikeuksiin Vetovoimaprojekti paljasti ammattikorkeakouluopiskelijoiden mielikuvat huolinta- ja logistiikka-alasta Communications is a universal profession – staff exchange helps to broaden networks Research, development and innovations The critical role of research managers and associates in securing the future of RDI Slowing down to speed up - from first idea to prototype Using Open Innovation to Support Local Companies Focusing on Innovators Instead of Innovations 7 Reasons Why Creativity at Work is Essential Service Design The Importance of Service Design in Organisations Avoiding Service Design Theatre When Developing Projects 6 startup failures service design can help avoid The Harmful Nature of Informed Assumptions Be the guide not the hero How to create an engaging MOOC Tikissä-blogin toimituskunta kiittää kaikkia lukijoita ja kirjoittajia.
6 Startup Failures Service Design Can Help Avoid
Service design has a strong emphasis on deep customer research. And in the service design context, customer research means that you actively find out how your service would fit into someone’s life and what problems it solves for them. In addition, you will find out what kind of business model would be acceptable and probably even the pricing level. There is a lot of data that you can get using ethnographic or qualitative research. Startup Post-Mortems: Identifying Gaps In 2018, CB Insights released its top 12 reasons startups fail report and it included this one visual below. Using the information of 111 startup “post-mortems” they were able to ascertain what critical failures they had. Startups are coached generally using the Lean Startup methodology which does little and very shallow customer research and prioritises building and launching. Looking at this data (and these outcomes) with a service design lens allows us to see where service design can help to mitigate at least 6 of these fatal issues. 3 Common Failure Themes Analysing the graphic by CB Insights, the 12 reasons can be categorised into 3 failure themes Timing Money Market Whether it took too long to get to market, they burned through their cash, there was no market need for the “solution”, or there were pricing issues or business model issues, the lean methodology says launch fast, fail fast, regroup. It also does cursory customer research like setting up a “dummy” web page to collect interested parties' email addresses to gauge interest. But with limited information available, it is hard to understand what people are signing up for or what they expect. Service design’s focus on deep customer research combined with prototyping will make some of these reasons for failure much less likely. It can help to address some of each of the three areas of problems. 6 Issues Where Service Design Can Help Service design can help if you want to limit wasted time and/or money on these 6 top issues: No market need Got outcompeted Failed Business model Pricing/ cost issues Product mis-timed Poor product As you can guess, some of these failure points cross over and are part of two of the three problem themes. With Timing, service design can help determine early on if the product or service is mis-timed. With Money, service design research can help determine early on if you are using the right business model (how do customers expect/are willing to pay for this service?) what people are willing to pay for With Market, service design tools and methods can help determine early on how they feel the solution will fit into their life, what real problems they are trying to solve how they currently solve the same or similar problems (this will also give you insights into why they purchase from competitors, etc.) These insights will help you make the right investments and decisions at the right times. Understanding that the right decision might be when it is time to pack up and go home. If the market is not ready for your solution or your technology, you can save a lot of time and money by figuring that out early in the process. The same research may also tell you that this solution won’t work or that the technology is not a fit for something but may reveal other opportunities. Start Research at the Beginning of the Development Process The pre-launch or idea phase is where research starts, but it does not stop here. Once the customer research is done and a low fidelity prototype is done, then it is time to “hit the streets” again and do some testing and research. Using research along the way will help to alleviate most of these 6 customer/product related problems and help to reach the elusive product-market fit earlier. When you prototype your ideas and concepts early enough, you have not made huge investments into their development yet and this means that the time you invest is less, the learning timeline is shortened, and you get a tested concept onto the market much faster with fewer problems. This saves time and money. And it also makes sure that the market is ready for what you are offering, because you have already asked and tested it. The Problem of Sunk Cost Unfortunately, many times, businesses continue down development routes that aren’t looking promising because of the concept of sunk cost. Identified in the late 1970s and early 1980s by Behavioural Scientist Richard Thaler, sunk cost explains why some people make irrational decisions and have “a greater tendency to continue an endeavour once an investment in money, effort, or time has been made”. When very little preparatory research is done before spending a lot of time, money, or effort on a project, it leads down avenues that may not be successful in the long run. Being able to mitigate these failure points as much as possible, is the aim of service design and deep customer research. Your research may end your dream of that project in the short term, but it will help negate much bigger losses in the medium-to-long term. If you want to learn more about how to conduct good quality, early research for your idea, you can check out Metropolia’s free Service Design Sprint MOOC (Massive Open Online Course). Author Pamela Spokes works as a Service Designer in Metropolia’s RDI team. Originally from Canada, Pamela has years of experience in university admin focusing on international recruitment, marketing, and the international student/staff experience. With a Bachelor’s from Canada, a Master’s degree from Sweden, an MBA in Service Innovation & Design from Laurea, and her AmO from Haaga-Helia, she is interested in purposefully designed experiences that are centred around the user. Don’t be surprised if she knocks on your door to talk about learning co-creation methods through intensive learning experiences. Sources https://theleanstartup.com/principles https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/the-sunk-cost-fallacy
Avoiding Service Design Theatre When Developing Projects
Can you do some service design in this project? We have some money left in this project; can we do some service design? We have money allocated for service design, but we forgot to do it. Can we do it now? These are just a few misconceptions of service design in the higher education context. Service design is a way of thinking as well as a process that will span the whole project. Service design is a process and mindset Service design does not start a project with an outcome in mind. This is why it can be difficult to use it properly and effectively in a funded project. Service design is a way of working and a specific mindset: grounded in qualitative research co-creating with the end-users and other stakeholders being comfortable with not knowing the outcome willingness to be wrong embracing failure as learning understanding that there are no quick fixes testing early and iteration When should service design be considered? When a project plan gets started, it is important to consider whether service design is the method that you can or want to use. Service design is as much about how you plan the process as it is how you execute the plan once funded. Service design is a process that needs to be baked in from the very first days of the planning process. Determining how you will engage with the stakeholders and end users and what role that they play in the process will determine if you are using service design in an impactful way or if it is just service design theatre. What is service design theatre? This term service design theatre should not be confused with using theatre in service design. Especially in prototyping, there is a place for acting out your service in a way that you convey the experience or expected experience of your user to test your ideas. This is not the theatre we are talking about. We are talking about theatre in the sense of the idiom ‘going through the motions’. This is defined by Merriam-Webster as “to do something without making much effort to do it well”. Going through the motions service design theatre is about ticking boxes on a checklist, using the term because it is trendy, and trying to push things through that are not actually focused on the user and their experience. This kind of theatre helps nobody, wastes money and time, and eventually gives service design a bad reputation. When is it too late to consider service design If the project has been designed and submitted, that is a pretty good clue that it is too late to consider using service design. Unless, of course, you are willing and able (per the funding rules and regulations) to re-consider the basis of the project and have the funding for an experienced service designer. If the project has already started and plan has been made, then it is definitely too late to consider using service design. As mentioned earlier, service design, in addition to a mindset, is also a defined process. With the process consisting of phases of research problem definition ideation prototyping testing With this in mind, trying to retrofit a project with service design tools and methods is all but impossible to do in a meaningful way. And just adding it to the end, is just plain theatre. Conflicts in funding and using service design One of the foundations of service design is that we do not know the outcomes of the process before they reveal themselves in the research phase. To start with an outcome means that you are inherently not using the service design process. The fuzzy front-end concept in service design is all about not knowing and trusting in the process that will lead you to an answer. When it comes to funding applications in higher education, or even in projects in the private sector, the most used process is to start with an outcome and then move backwards to create a project plan. This is because the project funders don’t fund problems, they fund solutions. But there is a reason that the saying “Love the Problem, Not the Solution” is at the heart of the work that service designers do. It is because the fundamental understanding of the problem and co-creating with the people who have the problem, will lead to an appropriate solution. But a solution before the research is done is only guessing. This conflict easily leads to Service Design Theatre. Service design needs to be embedded Just like in an organisation, the aim should always be to embed service design into the project. This means that when an opportunity for funding comes along, the underlying foundation of the planning phase needs to use a service design approach from the very first days. To do this, seek out a service designer in your organisation or someone who is very familiar with the methodology, to participate from the early stages of planning. They can provide a perspective on the process and financial needs of using service design in your project. This need for embeddedness is why it would be important for all kinds of people in an organisation to learn about service design. Most people are in the “business” of designing services in some form, whether this is IT department HR student admission library innovation services. Everyone is creating something that someone else will need to use to accomplish some task. These are all services. Author Pamela Spokes works as a Service Designer in Metropolia’s RDI team. Originally from Canada, Pamela has years of experience in university admin focusing on international recruitment, marketing, and the international student/staff experience. With a Bachelor’s from Canada, a Master’s degree from Sweden, an MBA in Service Innovation & Design from Laurea, and her AmO from Haaga-Helia, she is interested in purposefully designed experiences that are centred around the user. Don’t be surprised if she knocks on your door to talk about learning co-creation methods through intensive learning experiences.
The Importance of Service Design in Organisations
In short, service design is a method of purposefully designing services through a set process that emphasises co-creation with users and other stakeholders through customer research, prototyping, testing, and iteration. It is this iterative process, while putting the user(s) at the centre at each stage, that allows the service to evolve to the needs of the customer. This is a shift in not only mindset but procedure of how an organisation works. So how does an organisation begin to shift how it designs services and solves problems? It is not the process in and of itself that makes it important, but it is the outcomes of the process that does. There are four major outcomes that will help to make a shift to service design for your organisation impactful: inclusion a solid solution efficiencies business viability. It prioritises inclusion Determining who the stakeholders are in a service is important. Making sure that representatives of those stakeholders participate in the process is also important. If users and other stakeholders are not a part of the process, then the outcome will not be valid. One of the main issues with other kinds of service development processes is that they prioritise ‘knowing’ over ‘following the research to find out’. This can be seen when solutions are the first thing that groups or individuals begin to explore. Often this means the loudest voice gets heard or the highest rank gets to decide. This does not give any voice to the user or to those who are less extroverted. When you start with the solution, you usually only have the perspective of those who are delivering the service. Excluding real users, their lived experiences, and any kind of diversity from the development of concepts. It focuses on the problem and not the solution The mantra of almost every designer is Love the Problem, Not the Solution. As GM’s former Head of research Charles Kettering is attributed as saying: “A problem well stated is a problem half solved”. A lot of time in the service design process is used for learning about the users, their lives, and what the real problem is. It is only once the real problem is correctly identified that any solution ideation should be started. A great deal of effort by service designers is spent on holding participants back from trying to create solutions too early in the process. By delaying the ideation and solution part of the service design process, the problem gets thoroughly explored and identified. This will either confirm previous predictions or refute them. Both are acceptable outcomes of this beginning part of the process. Many times, service deliverers will know where the problem is, but are not at all sure as to the why. Without proper research, the why is only ever a guess. It is the why that is mainly explored during the research phase using qualitative research. Spending a lot of time on the solution without understanding the problem doesn’t really help anyone. It leads to efficiencies When a service design process is properly engaged, it will inevitably lead to efficiencies. This is because it should not include elements that are not necessary. Those should naturally be eliminated with proper research, prototyping, and testing. It will also not be solving the wrong problem – and therefore not solving the real problem. When you solve the wrong problem, you create a great amount of waste. Even with the most efficient or paired back bad service, will always have waste because it does not solve the underlying problem. As Professor John Seddon says 1 ":doing the wrong thing righter”. The goal is to have a service that helps the user to get the job done, not to make a less useful service more efficient. It is firmly about organisational balance Service design "aims at designing services that are useful, usable and desirable from the user perspective, and efficient, effective and different from the provider perspective”. - Birgit Mager, Professor of Service Design and Co-Founder of the international Service Design Network. This means that when done right, it insists that the end user and the business perspective is in balance. This means, whatever kind of organisation you have, it is vital to secure its future viability as well as desirability. Without a balance between what customers need and what an organisation can do profitably or within budget, there is no organisational viability. It is through service design that these two sides of the same coin can be optimised. It is a mindset shift At its very heart, service design is a mindset. This mindset, the way in which we approach problems from the moment they are seen, is so important in the success rate of solutions. This mindset shift, moving the focus from solutions to problem from organisation to user from failure to learning and from efficiency to impact, is so fundamental that it needs to be organisation-wide. If only a few people are shifting their mindset in the long run, this new way of working cannot solidly take hold. Resulting in developments within the organisation being uneven and disjointed. Service design needs to work holistically; using the mindset, the process, and the toolkit. This is important for organisations to design a future where they are being inclusive, their business objectives are being met, and the right problems are being solved. Everyone in the organisation has a part to play in it. Author Pamela Spokes works as a Service Designer in Metropolia’s RDI team. Originally from Canada, Pamela has years of experience in university admin focusing on international recruitment, marketing, and the international student/staff experience. With a Bachelor’s from Canada, a Master’s degree from Sweden, an MBA in Service Innovation & Design from Laurea, and her AmO from Haaga-Helia, she is interested in purposefully designed experiences that are centred around the user. Don’t be surprised if she knocks on your door to talk about learning co-creation methods through intensive learning experiences. References Seddon, John: Keynote speech. 12th Annual Health Conference. 2016, Dublin, Ireland (beyondcommandandcontrol.com)
Finding Real Problems to Solve All Around Us
We can spot service fails, gaps and different business problems all around us. Your and my everyday problems are someone else's business problems. This also includes us not being able to figure out how to engage with different organisations. Understanding design thinking and service design certainly helps identify and unpack variety of problems. Proactively acknowledging and pursuing societal problems is the role that the higher education sector should be playing. And it, of course, isn't only about creating long, drawn-out processes; it is about using our immediate expertise to facilitate moving forward. It isn't necessarily about doing something for somebody but with them or next to them as they do the work. So, this is also important capacity-building work. Lack of humanity or something else? I read an article on Yle News about the Finnish Blood Services and their challenge of a shortage of young men willing to donate various forms of human biological matter on October 18th 2021 . I was concerned by the assumptions used in the article, ”today's young people do not have the same enthusiasm for helping as those who have already retired”. This article sparked a visceral reaction in me because I knew that there was an actual process and method that I could rely on to find out the real reasons why young men are donating less than in the past. Assumptions on the demographic will drive all kinds of internal decisions to reach the preferred audience. These include marketing messages and channels, expectations or Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), and so on. There is any number of reasons why the demographic mentioned in the news article might not be donating. As a service designer, I know that the reasons could be a range of issues such as: not knowing there is a need for donations not knowing where such donations take place a fear of the biological matter donation process that the donation centers are not in any of the locations that these people frequent or any other issue we have not identified Basing decisions on insufficient assumptions is never a good strategy for success. They will only complicate the process and make it difficult to reach the target. Which, in this case, can be life-threatening. A need to go deeper The first part of any design approach must contain identifying the real problem, which is the only way to have a successful outcome. Service design, which is characteristic of deep customer research co-creation prototyping and testing can find the real problem in this situation. Assuming you know what the problem is (in this case, a lack of enthusiasm for helping), will make you only address this problem. But what if this isn't the real problem? When deep customer research is conducted, you will find out the real problem, not the assumed problem. This paragraph in the article proves my point, "Attempts have been made in recent years to increase the enthusiasm of more young men to donate blood, stem cells and sperm. The issue has been brought to the fore at various public events, trade fairs and educational institutions, including the use of celebrity influencers and even a heavy metal band.” By making assumptions about the problem before investigating it, they can be setting themselves up to be disappointed when any actions they conduct do not work. Role of higher education institutions This is the kind of problem in society that we, as a higher education institution, can help with. We have the knowledge, the tools, and the methods to help create real and lasting (and possibly life-changing) change. This is our role. In this case, I felt that I needed to figure out how I might help in this situation in a professional capacity. So I reached out to other institutions' experts to see how we might approach Blood Services (and possibly the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare, THL) to propose a process that would help them identify the more profound issues. From this, we reached out and started a dialogue about how we might work together to tackle this significant local problem. This, I believe, is what we are here for - deepening connections between education, research and the wider society. Author Pamela Spokes works as a Service Designer in Metropolia’s RDI team. Originally from Canada, Pamela has years of experience in university admin focusing on international recruitment, marketing, and the international student/staff experience. With a Bachelor’s from Canada, a Master’s degree from Sweden, an MBA in Service Innovation & Design from Laurea, and her AmO from Haaga-Helia, she is interested in purposefully designed experiences that are centred around the user. Don’t be surprised if she knocks on your door to talk about learning co-creation methods through intensive learning experiences.
Why you need to learn Service Design
Service design is about deep customer research, inclusion, prototyping, testing, and iteration. These are skills that almost everyone needs in almost every job. Everyone needs to think about the customer/user when creating something. Even a construction worker when building a part of a house should be able to think about how it will be used. Asking themselves ‘does this make sense?’ and flag things that maybe don’t. I use this as an example as I have just moved into a brand-new apartment and wonder what went into some of the decisions made that make no logical sense when it comes to actually using some things. In my opinion, everyone should learn these skills. These skills and tools are fairly industry and profession agnostic. How did we get here? Manufacturing was the basis of the economy for almost 300 years- since the industrial revolution. Underpinned by a vast knowledge gap between the producer and the consumer. The customer did not have access to quality comparisons, technical information of products, understand the process of creation/manufacturing, etc. There was a severe imbalance of knowledge that the producers and sellers could hide behind and take advantage of customers. But post-1950 you see a slow shift in how business is done. The shift from the power being in making things and selling them to being able to selling them in vast quantities to new markets. More products came onto the market and there was more choice - the seeds of needing differentiation were being planted. Between the 1950s and the 1980s, there was the drive of mass production and cheap prices as well as a still existing substantial knowledge gap between producer and consumer. The 1980s saw the beginning of a huge shift in how economies work. It was the time when technology began to play a bigger role in the economy - making goods more accessible to more people. This movement began to enable many new ways of working and how we consumed. Needing to differentiate the plethora of products, co2mpanies began to focus on the customer and differentiating through services. The 90s and beyond embraced ever-evolving technology - the internet, email, etc…this created access to information and the knowledge gap began to shrink rapidly. And so, heading into the 2000s, there is really a new way of organising the economy- a profound shift from value being exchanged from the producer to the buyer (with the value being in the product itself) to value-in-use. The value is in what you can do with the product rather than the product itself. A computer or a smartphone are only valuable if it has useful software on it and if you know how to use it. Services are E.V.E.R.Y.W.H.E.R.E. So, services in the 2020s are EVERYWHERE. The value is now in what you can do with the products that we buy. Our products are now, in general, much more complex and much more a result of an ecosystem creating them than one manufacturer in one place. Your electricity is a service. Public transport isn’t only a vehicle, it is about where it can take you and how you access the information about where it can take you. Grocery stores are a service…in fact they are many services. Services really are everywhere. And understanding this is vital to being included in the discussion and the design of what comes next. It matters who is included Because services are everywhere, it matters who is included in creating them. Whose perspective are they taking into consideration when they design something (whether it is a product or a service)? It matters if one or more group of people are left out. It can be a life or death matter in fact. In car crashes, because the body of ‘Reference Man’ (based on white men aged 25-30 and 70kg in the 1970s) is used, it is a fact that “although men are more likely to crash, women involved in collisions are nearly 50% more likely to be seriously hurt.” A similar situation is known in mobile phone sizes (they are referenced on male hands, speech recognition uses mostly men’s voices, etc) and for people of colour, face recognition technology can have a hard time recognising those with darker skin tones which leads to a higher ‘false match rate’ when identifying criminals at a much higher rate. Even for everyday things, it can make opening your phone harder. This list goes on. So, it really matters who is involved in creating services and technology that the services rely on. It matters who leads Just as it matters who is included, it matters who leads. Leaders set the goals and targets in many cases and those matter to the work that teams do. How they see the value in co-creation and how they set KPIs matters. As one form of the saying goes “we measure what we value”. And it becomes more difficult when what we value cannot be measured in traditional terms. Can we measure the joy our service brings to someone? Maybe if you can dilute that into a happiness score or a return user score. But is it really measuring joy? How about inclusion? Can we measure that? We can measure who was there. We can even dig down and measure how often different people spoke if we really want to. But can we really measure inclusion with the tools we now use? Not really. Maybe this is more about how we value things or who has designed the tools that we have at our disposal. A good leader will value things that cannot be measured in traditional tools and maybe they will build new tools. So, it definitely matters what leaders know and how they use it. Our future depends on it Futures studies teaches that the future has the potential to unfold in many different ways. The depiction of this is shown in strange sounding “Cone of Possibilities” or “Futures Cone”. We all know that decisions and plans that we make today will determine the future that comes. But is there a way to design the future that comes more purposefully? Sure, there is. With the Futures Cone there are multiple potential futures. All with different probabilities depending on the decisions that are made from individuals, communities, and whole societies in time. From the Futures Cone in the image, you will see that there are many options. It is also noted that these are shifting and flexible. Here we are shown futures that range from the preposterous to the preferable with many ‘P’ stops inbetween. And how we get to our preferable requires us to specifically design it. Through backcasting and designing the changes we want to see, we can plan the steps needed to take to get to that preferred future state. We all need to be a part of this process otherwise we will be left only with someone else’s preferred state. Someone who has the skills, knowledge, and determination to forge a future that suits them. You can be absolutely certain that Zuckerberg, Bezos, and Musk are all involved deeply in designing the future they want to see. It is time that the rest of us started insisting on purposefully designing a future that includes us and those around us also. Author Pamela Spokes works as a Service Designer in Metropolia’s RDI team. Originally from Canada, Pamela has years of experience in university admin focusing on international recruitment, marketing, and the international student/staff experience. With a Bachelor’s from Canada, a Master’s degree from Sweden, an MBA in Service Innovation & Design from Laurea, and her AmO from Haaga-Helia, she is interested in purposefully designed experiences that are centred around the user. Don’t be surprised if she knocks on your door to talk about learning co-creation methods through intensive learning experiences.
Embedding Service Design in Higher Education
Shortly, service design is a method of purposefully designing services through a set process that emphasises co-creation through deep customer research, prototyping, and testing. It is an iterative process that puts the user(s) at the centre at each stage of the process. This is a shift in not only mindset but procedure of how an organisation works. So how does an organisation begin to shift how it designs services and solves problems. In order for service design to really help an organisation, it must be embedded which, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, means “functioning as part of a larger device rather than as an independent unit or system”. That means that there must be a shared understanding, language, and ability throughout the organisation. This allows people and units to come together when they need to tackle challenges. But how do you get this critical mass of people working and talking in the same direction? A core team to start First, an organisation needs to start with a dedicated core team whose job it is to be experts in the process of service design. Ideally, this is more than one service design experts although this is, depending on the size of the organisation, where many start. The core team’s role is to disseminate through facilitating, training, and consulting about service design t22ls and processes throughout the organisation. This does not mean that this core group of people will be “service designing” or participating in the content of the work. This means that when a challenge arises, they can either help by facilitating the process or to advise on how the process should look. This is a guiding role and those people who are involved in the content of the problem, would lead and work through the service challenge using the tools, methods, and expertise available. Discover who the champions are After the core team is in place, their role, in addition to facilitating, training, and consulting, is to look for champions. Within any organisation there will be people here and there that have an understanding and an interest in service design and human-centered design. Many times, higher education institutions are big and unwieldy organisations. This can lead to people feeling alone or unable to pursue meaningful change through these methods alone. Part of the role of the core team is to identify people throughout the organisation that are interested to understand more and to practice the method more in their everyday work. Once you start looking, it will probably be a surprise as to how many and where you find them! Training is the key Training throughout the organisation is also a key feature of embedding service design. There is a need for service design capacity building within all organisations and within all units. What would this look like? It would be internal training on how to use service design to move challenges forward. It would show how to do customer/user research in a more qualitative way, as well as how to properly ideate, prototype, and test various solutions. The aim is to have a critical mass of employees understand the process involved in problem-solving with service design. This means that no matter where the problem lies, there is the interest and understanding of how to move from point A to point B then to point C, etc. Where different people can come together from different areas to work on one project using the same, familiar, process. Bespoke project groups The situation of having a core team, champions, and wider training allows project groups to come together and understand how to work together to solve problems. Each problem will require a distinct group of people to gather – a bespoke approach. But once you have built the capacity of enough people in the organisation to work in a similar way, it will not matter who is needed for the project as they will all be using the same method to move forward. The appropriate tools to be chosen by the group on an ad hoc basis. These bespoke teams for projects are exactly the kind of flexibility that will make an organisation more efficient and, ultimately, more successful. Simple but not easy The process set out above is fairly simple in its structure but this does not mean that it is an easy task at all. What we are talking about is wide organisational change. A change that requires a shift in many parts of a complex structure. But it is also worth it. Using user-centred methods and common processes while including more people in the process, helps everyone to work in an understandable way. It also makes a complex organisation a better place to work by being more flexible and proactive with changes. But most importantly, it allows organisation to be more impactful for both the staff and the students. One example of deep change that would need to take place is that of how Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are created. Currently, in most organisations in the world, KPIs are set for individuals or units. But this can lead to conflicting outcomes between teams and even colleagues. Whereby one team meeting their KPIs actually leads to another team not meeting theirs or making it difficult to meet theirs. This is because many services are not bound by team boundaries. Usually, many teams are involved in the lifecycle of a service. If you use, as an example, a student starting to study at a higher education institution, that person (even before arriving on campus) touches many different services – marketing, admissions, teaching, etc. So, some of this change would include creating KPIs that go across units rather than within one unit. Embedding service design methods and mindset is necessary in the pursuit of excellence in service provision in higher education institutions and other organisations alike. Author Pamela Spokes works as a Service Designer in Metropolia’s RDI team. Originally from Canada, Pamela has years of experience in university admin focusing on international recruitment, marketing, and the international student/staff experience. With a Bachelor’s from Canada, a Master’s degree from Sweden, an MBA in Service Innovation & Design from Laurea, and her AmO from Haaga-Helia, she is interested in purposefully designed experiences that are centred around the user. Don’t be surprised if she knocks on your door to talk about learning co-creation methods through intensive learning experiences.
Tikissä on Metropolian tutkimus-, kehittämis- ja innovaatiotoiminnan (TKI) blogi. Bloggaajat ovat ammattikorkeakoulun henkilöstöä sekä muita TKI-toiminnan asiantuntijoita. Jos haluat kirjoittaa blogiin, ota yhteyttä toimituskuntaan.
Milla Åman Kyyrö, päätoimittaja
Viestinnän asiantuntija, TKI-hankkeet ja kehittäminen
p. 050 342 0341
milla.amankyyro@metropolia.fi
Päivi Keränen
Projektipäällikkö, Muotoilu
p. 040 184 1952
paivi.keranen@metropolia.fi
Jussi Linkola
Projektisuunnittelija, Hankeviestintä- ja julkaisupalvelut
p. 040 184 2448
jussi.linkola@metropolia.fi
Toimituskunta toimittaa Tikissä-blogin sisällöt ennen julkaisua.
3AMK ammattikorkeakoulu asiantuntija Dallaten FUTU hanke hankeviestintä hankkeet hyvinvointi innovaatio innovaatio-opinnot innovaatiot Innovation johtaminen Katse tulevaisuuteen kehittäminen keksintö kestävä kehitys koulutus metropolia minno nuoret Oona-hanke opiskelijat oppiminen osaaminen osaamisen kehittäminen resilienssi service design sosiaali- ja terveysala tekoäly tki TKI-toiminta tulevaisuus tuottavuus tutkimus työelämä työhyvinvointi työllistyminen viestintä vuorovaikutus yhteiskehittäminen yrittäjyys yritystoiminta yritysyhteistyö
Ideoimme, rikastamme ja kehitämme käytäntöön uusia ratkaisuja yhteistyössä yritysten, julkisen sektorin, järjestöjen ja asukkaiden kanssa.