A landscape analysis of my service design bookshelf
One of my favorite research methods is called a “landscape analysis.”
You might also hear it referred to as a “comparative analysis” or even a
“competitive analysis”, depending on the context. You document and
analyze similar services, applications, programs, or features within a
certain domain or even across domains, to identify trends, draw
inspiration, and make decisions as your organization designs something
similar. Where are the gaps? What are the patterns? What’s working well
that you should consider replicating? What might set your version
apart?
For example, let’s imagine you are a state standing up a paid family and
medical leave program. You decide to review the paid family and medical
leave applications of other states. What questions do they ask in their
application? How are they asked? What channels exist to fill out this
application —mail, online, or even by phone? You might compile all of
this information in a spreadsheet and document insights that can inform
your own application.
So what does a landscape analysis have to do with my bookshelf? As I
have brainstormed topics for this blog, I have been contemplating what
great service design resources already exist so I don’t write about
anything redundant and can offer up a different perspective. I’m not
necessarily aiming to write a book (though that has been a lifelong
dream), but instead develop a strong point of view around different
service design topics — almost like a value proposition. I thought I
would use this post to compile some high-level themes regarding what is
already out there, and where this blog might fit in.
This is by no means a rigorous landscape analysis — it’s meant to be
lightweight and fun!
I have a lot of methods-focused books.
As I was starting out as a service designer, I wanted to understand
approaches and frameworks that I would use in my day-to-day design work
— which is why they are on my bookshelf. Some were also assigned reading
for service design or user research-related coursework when I was in
grad school. I find myself reaching for these books less frequently
these days as a more experienced designer. As I scope a project, I
already have a strong sense of what methods could be applied in which
contexts to help an organization or team reach a specific goal.
These books are explicitly about service design in how they are titled
and structured. They set a foundation for what service design is and
give examples of service design activities that you might use throughout
the design process (discovery, evaluation, implementation, etc.).
Examples on my bookshelf include:
This is Service Design Methods by Mark Stickdorn, Adam Lawrence, Markus Hormess and Jakob Schenider
Convivial Toolbox: Generative Research for the Front End of Design by Elizabeth B.-N. Sanders and Pieter Jan Stappers
Service Innovation Handbook: Action-Oriented Creative Thinking Toolkit for Service Organizations by Lucy Kimbell
Service Design: From Insights to Implementation by Andy Polaine, Lavrans Løvlie, and Ben Reason
Orchestrating Experiences: Collaborative Design for Complexity by Chris Risdon and Patrick Quattlebaum
One book stood out by focusing on service principles rather than methods.
Good Services: How to Design Services That Work by Lou Downe takes a different approach than the other books on my shelf: It lays out a series of design principles that make up a good service. It makes a strong case for why we need good services, with some tips for applying each principle within your own context.
I also have learned a lot from books that aren’t really about service design.
At least not explicitly! These are books focused on broader skillsets or domains that could be relevant to all sorts of contexts, but that have ultimately helped me make an impact as a service designer.
Strategy
Good Strategy/Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters by Richard Rumelt
Managing Priorities: How to Make Better Plans and Smarter Decisions by Harry Max
Facilitation
Resonate: Present Visual Stories That Transform Audiences by Nancy Duarte
Meeting Design: For Managers, Makers, and Everyone by Kevin M. Hoffman
Organizational Design
Org Design for Design Orgs by Peter Merholz and Kristin Skinner
So what’s missing?
I see my bookshelf categorized like a venn diagram: there are explicit service design books that provide a foundation for what good services are and methods for designing them. Then there are books about disparate skillsets that could be applicable to a variety of professions. I see an opportunity for that missing middle of the venn diagram: more writing on how to create alignment, communicate effectively, and scale your impact, but for a service design audience.
Maybe that’s where this blog comes in.
Want to Grow as a Service Designer?
Here are 3 skills you can practice
When I realized I wanted to be a service designer, there were a million
articles and books on creating a service blueprint that I could choose
from, and conference talks gave me a sense of how service designers
contributed to teams.
However, as I progressed in my service design career, I found fewer
resources for growing into a more senior-level designer and ultimately
having more impact across an organization. What I expected was
uncovering more concrete methods and tools, but what I realized is that
a lot of the things that helped me level up are intangible and hard to
find in a methods book. In fact, creating service blueprints is the
least valuable part of what I do now. It is also the part I spend the
least amount of time on.
I’m going to walk through three skills that I’ve developed as I have
progressed in my service design career and share some resources for
further learning.
Facilitation toward alignment
Facilitation can take many different forms: facilitating meetings and
workshops, facilitating process improvements with multiple stakeholders,
or facilitating the creation of different artifacts based on user
research, like journey maps or archetypes. At the heart of all of these
is a need to create shared understanding and alignment among
stakeholders.
How to be effective at this skill
Being explicit: The more explicit we can be about what the goal is, the decisions that need to be made, and who is in agreement, the more likely we are to remove assumptions.
Active listening: One way I practice active listening is to replay what I’ve heard back to the people in the room. Not only does this help others feel heard, but it also prevents myself from misunderstanding or making assumptions.
Making sense of different perspectives: If you are helping a group of stakeholders reach alignment, you are likely dealing with a variety of business needs, user needs, and motivations. An effective facilitator can synthesize these perspectives, consider tradeoffs, and figure out the best path forward for reaching your goals, especially in real-time.
What is challenging about this skill
As service designers, we often interact with multiple stakeholders responsible for different parts of the service journey, so there may be a lot of different motivations at play. This balancing act can be draining.
Aligning on clear roles and responsibilities with involved stakeholders can help. For example, your job as a service designer may be to synthesize and present these different perspectives, but you shouldn’t have to be the decision-maker. You should also create space for yourself to process information or decompress in ways that work for you (especially if you are an introvert like I am).
Practicing this skill
Start with low stakes: Practice facilitating in low-stakes, “safe” spaces, like within your internal service design team. It might take a while to feel comfortable as a facilitator, but don’t let your inner critic get in the way of practice.
Remember the goal: Speaking of which, keep the goal in mind as you approach a facilitation opportunity, and make sure everyone involved shares that goal. This is where being explicit can come in handy — I like to communicate that goal everywhere! In your calendar invite, at the top of a meeting, on an artifact. Ask if everyone agrees with that goal, or if they envision it differently.
Visualize: Use visuals to support facilitation. Slides, an activity on a virtual whiteboard, or a blueprint can help anchor the conversation and give stakeholders something tangible to react and respond to.
Stretch yourself into different facilitation formats: It can make sense to start with facilitating a workshop because they often have a lot of structure baked in. As I’ve become more comfortable with facilitation, I’ve been able to lead more unstructured facilitation opportunities, like decision-making meetings that go in less predictable directions, because I can navigate ambiguity.
Resources for further learning
Laura Hogan’s management resources: You don’t have to be a manager for these resources to resonate! She has a lot of topics on communication, influence, and running productive meetings, which all play into effective facilitation.
Being strategic
What is this skill
I love what Faster Than 20 founder Eugene Kim says about being strategic: “The goal of a strategy isn’t to have a strategy; it’s to act strategically.”
As service designers, we work cross-functionally and connect the dots across multiple service layers and moving parts. In order to be effective, we can help teams navigate ambiguity and move toward a shared understanding.
How to be effective at this skill
Tie service design work to organizational values and goals: As you approach your work, make connections between the different layers of context in which your team is operating: the team’s goals and values, the service’s goals and values, and any organization-wide priorities.
Look two steps ahead and two steps back: Consider what has worked recently and what has gotten in the way of meeting your project’s goals. Use that information to inform next steps.
Weigh trade-offs based on how they could impact your goals: Inherent in every decision is a series of trade-offs that you are willing to make. Let’s say you are deciding on a certain user research method — how will the different options impact your ability to accomplish your goal, especially when you are facing certain constraints like timeline and budget?
What is challenging about this skill
Being strategic boils down to having a strong point of view, communicating that point of view, and, as Eugene Kim notes in the video I linked above, “constantly revisiting, refining, and making meaning”. But developing a point of view requires a lot of courage, confidence, and practice!
Practicing this skill
Have a shared understanding of success: How does the scope of work frame project success? Does everyone agree on this definition of project success, and continue to agree on it throughout the project?
Look 1–2 sprints ahead on the timeline: Where do we need to be by then, and what do we need to do or change in order to get there? Which teams or stakeholders need to be involved?
Consider the variables at play: What variables have changed in the last sprint (e.g. staffing, budget, research learnings) that could impact our direction?
Build in moments of reflection: How can you carve out time in your calendar at a regular cadence to ensure you continue to reflect on these questions over time? How can we do that as a team?
Resources for further learning
“Acting Strategically”, a video by Eugene Kim of Faster Than 20
Good Strategy/Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters by Richard Rumelt
Dark Matter and Trojan Horses: A Strategic Design Vocabulary by Dan Hill
Building effective organizational partnerships
What is this skill
Because our work functions across a service journey, service designers are often not executing the design work themselves. Instead, we create recommendations to improve a service based on user research, get buy-in to implement them, and hand off those recommendations to frontline or UX teams to implement them. Even better, we are involving frontline and UX teams in the co-creation of recommendations.
How to be effective at this skill
Get familiar with the organization: The organization is the context in which this service operates. To successfully partner within the organization, it is important to understand how it is structured, how decisions are made, and how work is delivered and measured.
Get skilled at handoffs: Consider transitional moments when information flows from one team, person, or channel to another. Within these moments, the service is more likely to break down because teams or processes often exist in siloes. We can leverage our ability to identify and streamline these handoffs, ideally in close collaboration with the teams in question by shifting from work done in isolation and thrown over the fence, toward more partnership opportunities.
Align on and document processes: The most effective service design teams I’ve been on have had detailed documentation on both the service journey at a high level, who was responsible for what at each step of the way, and mechanisms for keeping this documentation updated over time. Everyone involved in service delivery knew what was expected of them and how they were working toward a certain outcome.
Prioritize research-based service improvements: Service designers can work upstream in the product development process by partnering with product managers to incorporate research recommendations when scoping new work. This can look like involving product managers in user research share-outs, pairing with them to make the case for certain improvements, and shaping new work.
What is challenging about this skill
An organization has a lot of moving parts. Depending on the organization’s familiarity with service design, it can also take time for people to figure out how to collaborate with service designers. So much of this skill is not just showing up, but making the case for our value add, weaving our capabilities into the process, and showing how we can help teams make a difference in service delivery.
Practicing this skill
Study the org chart: Org charts can reveal a lot about influence and communication flow.
Shadow different teams involved in your service: Observing meetings and processes can help you understand how these teams operate. They might also be excited to have someone who cares about their day-to-day work! I’ve found that frontline team members to be incredibly valuable partners because they know process and policies inside and out, and are especially attuned to user needs. Over time, you can form trusted relationships and create a foundation for collaboration.
Identify areas in a service blueprint where handoffs occur: Visualizing these handoffs through an icon can be a helpful start. From there, you can conduct user research with the teams involved to dive deeper into how these handoffs are currently working, and if there are any areas for improvement.
Resources for further learning
Beyond the blueprint: methods for service design implementation: I wrote this post a few years ago to document some methods for effective collaboration and service delivery.
Are you ready to try out these skills?
In the spirit of “constantly revisiting, refining, and making meaning”, like I mentioned above, I would love to learn what you glean from this post, how you apply these skills in your own work, and if there are any skills or ways of practicing these skills that you’d like to add. Let me know!
This week’s post brought to you by 3 consecutive days of daycare closures due to snow. I didn’t have time to write something original, so instead, I am re-publishing my Medium post. Next week, let’s hope I’ll get to writing sooner!
Welcome to Strategic Service Design
Starting a writing practice
Happy 2025! It’s been a goal of mine to write more about service design.
For a while, I lacked the confidence to put myself out there. I worried
I didn’t have enough to say, or that people wouldn’t read my work. I was
often too exhausted from working and parenting to dedicate time and
energy to writing.
Then, last year, I used my professional development budget to work with
Linn Vizard of Made Manifest
to encourage my writing practice on service design. Linn publishes a
regular newsletter called “Ask a Service Designer.” While working with
Linn, I realized I do have a point of view. And I might surprise myself
— there could be at least one person who would get something from my
work. So why not give it a try? The resulting piece was a post on Medium
called “Want
to grow as a service designer? Here are 3 skills you can
practice.”
Why Strategic Service Design
Linn gave me some great advice — write about what you want to read
about. I noticed a gap in service design resources, which focused more
on methods and less on how to apply them within the specific constraints
and affordances of an organization, which to me, signals the strategic
thinking of a more senior service designer. My Medium post touched on
this:
“However, as I progressed in my service design career, I found fewer
resources for growing into a more senior-level designer and ultimately
having more impact across an organization. I expected was uncovering
more concrete methods and tools, but what I realized is that a lot of
the things that helped me level up are intangible and hard to find in a
methods book. In fact, creating service blueprints is the least valuable
part of what I do now.”
I would love to use this blog to help fill that gap for other
practitioners.
What to expect
I decided to start this blog as part of the Wiggle Work
Winter Writing Workshop. Wiggle
Work is a Discord community for remote tech and tech-adjacent
workers to connect with each other. Folks in the Wiggle Work community
who are participating in the Winter Writing Workshop will each publish a
blog post every Wednesday in January. I have been a pretty quiet member
of the Discord but decided to get out of my comfort zone and use this
workshop as a way to get to know others in the community and encourage
myself to write more.
When I am developing a habit or setting a goal, I am more likely to
commit when I have external accountability. For example, I am much more
likely to work out if I have signed up for a group fitness class or a
5K. (Not sure how likely I can commit to a half marathon again these
days with kids, but we’ll see.) When I set out to start a writing habit,
I had more success with exploring ideas, following through with a first
draft, and eventually pressing publish because I had someone to keep me
accountable like Linn. Now, what better way to continue to develop my
writing practice than with a friendly community of folks who are doing
the same thing?
What might or might not come next
I’m not sure where this blog will go once January is over, if anywhere,
and I’m perfectly okay with that. In the past, whenever I tried to write
something, my desire to get it right got in the way of
publishing it. I talked myself out of even exploring certain topics out
of fear they wouldn’t resonate, and if I did start a draft, it
languished from over-editing. Now, I am content to just see what
happens.This space feels like a low-pressure and fun way to see how my
writing takes shape.
I am all about low barriers to entry when developing a habit, so set up
this website in a matter of minutes via Blot.im. which auto-publishes
text files that I upload to a Dropbox folder. It can’t get much easier
than that!
I hope you can follow along! Thanks for reading.