Big strategic bets scare the crap out of organizations. The impact takes forever to show, and they suck up a ton of resources. No fun.

That’s why many companies love quick wins. They’re like little candies you can see working right away.

When you're building or improving services to be more sustainable, don’t just chase those big, scary bets that take ages to sell internally. Sprinkle on top of them some small quick wins too. They create a sense of progress and give you that sweet feeling of achievement.

People see results, get motivated, and then are more likely to keep pushing on those big strategic bets. (1)

Action question

When it comes to making your services more sustainable, what's the balance you have at the moment between quick wins and big strategic bets? Of which one do you need more?

Footnote

(1) Obviously we shouldn’t get all drunk on quick wins and then forget about the big stuff.

Daniele's notes

• This is the first shitty draft of this principle

• This principle might one day make it in the fifth book in the "Service Design Principles" series that explores how to better serve humans and the planet.

• If you're curious about service design principles, you can get the four previous books in the series, with proofread principles and less grammatical creativity.

• Written with AI help: This principle draft is based on an audio note I took while walking that was transcribed and cleaned using Audiopen. I then reviewed and improved the text by hand.