Whitespace's Enterprise Service Design Process
A bit of context
Whitespace is a consultancy focused on what they call "Enterprise User Experience". In an article called Enterprise Service Design: orchestrating systemic change" the team explores in details four ways to drive transformation and create sustainable value through service design.
To me, this model isn't per se a service design process, but rather a view of what ingredients are needed to make a service design project happen and what you can achieve with these different ingredients. Still I find it very interesting in our exploration of the question "What is the service design process?".
To me, this model isn't per se a service design process, but rather a view of what ingredients are needed to make a service design project happen and what you can achieve with these different ingredients. Still I find it very interesting in our exploration of the question "What is the service design process?".
What I like about it
The first thing I really appreciate about this diagram is where Service Design can have an impact. The model recognizes five possible impacts:
- Experience enhancement
- Workplace transformation
- Business model innovation
- Good corporate citizenship
- From industry to arena
This is inspiring to me as it makes me realize that for every service design process we could also show the areas of impact. For example, for a typical service design process I could ask myself:
Is the stuff we do in a research phase kept only for management is it also something that we share to a wider group in order to have a wider impact?
A second thing which I particularly like in this diagram is that it shows which stakeholder has the lead on what. For example, it clearly shows that if you want to improve the employees happiness you'll have to involve the IT guys at some point. I find this pretty inspiring. Service designers recognize that they are not the smartest person in the room and that they need people from different teams or departments to make change happen. In this diagram this is made visible.
The third thing I particularly like is how the team at Whitespace explains the story of this model. Instead of overwhelming you and showing you the whole diagram from the start, in their article they build slowly the whole thing step after step. I think this is a valuable lesson for anyone who shows a service design process.
Don't show the whole picture from the start but use the process as a story that slowly gets more complex as people understand you better.
Go deeper
Sources:
This process is part of an article called "Enterprise Service Design: orchestrating systemic change" written by Peter Horvath, with contributions from Jesse Anton and Nathalie Raux-Copin on Whitespace's website.
This process is part of an article called "Enterprise Service Design: orchestrating systemic change" written by Peter Horvath, with contributions from Jesse Anton and Nathalie Raux-Copin on Whitespace's website.