The short answer: don’t teach it. Make people do some Service Design work.

But let’s give a few more details.

Why start learning Service Design through action

I’m a big believer in the idea that the start of anything is the moment you set expectations. I’m also a big believer that instead of preaching things, just show the example, and people will learn.

As a new cohort of learners started the Master Service Design at the HSLU, Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, my mate Andy Polaine and I decided not to start the program with an introduction but rather with two workshops: one where the learners improve an existing service and one where the learners imagine a new service.

The advantages of starting learning Service Design through action

These were workshops where the learners had to make stuff without really knowing how to make it happen. The goal was to:

• Set the tone for crafts: By starting with practice and crafts, we highlight how that part of the studies is also extremely important. This is especially important as learners often get blocked later in analysis paralysis or academic procrastination.

• Build an initial experience: It’s so much richer when you have a theoretical course to have some practice on it already, because then you understand why this stuff matters, and you can ask questions based on what went wrong or right in your practice.

How to set the stage for learning Service Design through action

Okay there is a secret to make this work well. We’re not just throwing new Service Design learners in the water without them having any clue of how to swim. In fact we prepare them just enough. Here’s how we do that:

• Home reading: We gave each student access to Andy’s Introduction to Service Design course and my Service Designer Mindset course so that learners who felt uncomfortable and needed to feel prepared could prepare.

• Repeating structure for each activity: during the workshops, we used the same repeating structure to ensure that amid the chaos, there is a sense of « safety » with something that happens again and again. For this workshop, we used this structure:

  • Challenge description: what’s the goal of the upcoming activity or activities

  • Three tips: tiny general guidance to feel comfortable

  • Activity: how to do the activity

  • Debriefing: what did you learn