Making service tangible: the fastest path to higher performance
Summary
As service design takes center stage, organizations change how they work. Hidden frictions transform into shared challenges; cross-team tensions spark more agile ways of working; and service orientation emerges as a catalyst for measurable impact. Drawing from today’s case studies, our panelists will draw out lessons on how service designers can confront obstacles, forge new connections, and help design become an engine for sustained performance.
Key Insights
-
•
Shifting from output-based to outcome-based performance measurement requires shared responsibility and flexible task management across an organization.
-
•
Many designers do not realize they offer services and are actually service providers themselves.
-
•
Large organizations benefit from federated analytics and interconnected journey management to make performance data actionable at different levels.
-
•
Smaller organizations must focus on feasible, meaningful performance indicators rather than imitating larger corporations.
-
•
In complex social impact services, control over outcomes is indirect; building coalitions and designing system interventions is key.
-
•
Design systems for services can create consistency and equity by ensuring similar customer journeys across multiple touchpoints.
-
•
Cross-functional collaboration and culture that emphasize generative agency and sustained responsibility improve service outcomes.
-
•
Visualizing changes in service processes can effectively demonstrate impact to stakeholder teams.
-
•
Performance measures should include qualitative dialogs and psychological safety to build trust and organizational memory.
-
•
Challenging traditional project-based thinking in favor of continuous change management enables more adaptive service design.
Notable Quotes
"Everyone, whatever your job is, is working for this service on behalf of the customer."
"Many organizations have output-based performance plans but are not incentivized to achieve outcomes."
"Designers often don’t realize they themselves are providing services and selling a promise of value."
"We design interactions and hope to influence the experience, but we don’t control the system fully."
"Design systems help us bring healthy consistency across digital and non-digital experiences for equity."
"We are all more service design facilitators, bringing the right people together to create the right outcomes."
"Younger managers are more alert and understand the importance of measuring meaningful indicators."
"Visualizing how a service was before and after a change opens the eyes of teams to redundancies and clarity."
"Building psychological safety and trust through dialogue creates organizational memory that drives change."
"We should break with the concept of projects and embrace change management over time to advance service design."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"Voice control on mobile was developed primarily to support people with disabilities."
Sam ProulxMobile Accessibility: Why Moving Accessibility Beyond the Desktop is Critical in a Mobile-first World
September 8, 2022
"Maybe the ambiguity and frequent changes in SAFe could actually be an opportunity, not just a headache."
Erin HauberDesign is Not the Frosting on the Scaled Agile Layer Cake
October 24, 2019
"Strategy as a service: you just type in a URL and it will generate a strategy based on nothing whatsoever."
Simon WardleyMaps and Topographical Intelligence
January 31, 2019
"Black women playing mobile games use them as a welcome distraction during moments of boredom or physical immobility."
Yolanda RankinBlack Feminist Epistemology as a Critical Framework for Equitable Design
March 11, 2021
"Analytics and research should work closely to explain what is happening and why it is."
Renee BouwensLanding Product Impact: Aligning Research as a Foundational Driver for Delivering the World’s Best Products
December 15, 2023
"Cybernetics is the discipline of systems with purpose, looking at how a system acts to achieve its goals."
Paul Pangaro, PhDSystems Disciplines: Table Stakes for 21st Century Organizations
June 6, 2023
"What is your theory of change? How are you actually going to achieve the outcome you’re aiming for?"
Max Gadney Andrea Petrucci Joshua Stehr Hannah WickesAssessing UX jobs for impact in climate
August 14, 2024
"DPMs can get overwhelmed quickly because they want to say yes to everything; managers must help say no."
Courtney KaplanTaking it to the next level: Career paths in DesignOps
November 8, 2018
"Often you can tell people just don’t talk, and design systems need that interpersonal stuff to work."
Dan DonaldDesign Systems as a Vehicle for Systemic Change
June 1, 2023
