In short: Use three introduction slides to onboard everyone before presenting your Service Design work, to make sure nobody fucks your project by questioning why it exists and why it’s done like this.

• Remind the brief: Show who gave it and highlight the three most important elements.

• Share research findings: Present what you learned with direct quotes and evidence.

• Present the updated brief: Explain how you adjusted the scope based on your research.

Why this matters

In Service Design presentations, there's always a mix of people. Some know everything about the project. Others have no clue. And even if you think everyone is aware, assume there's at least one person in the room who isn't.

That clueless guy can fuck your whole project. He might start questioning why this is even a project or he might question the project scope.

The three-slide framework

Slide 1: Remind the brief

This is where you remind people of the key elements of the brief you received and who gave it.

Be specific. Don't say "we received this from you" in a general way. Instead say: "Bob and Julia shared this briefing with us, and here are the three most important elements that came from their briefing."

This avoids someone getting pissed off and saying "I never said that. I was never part of that decision." By making it clear that specific people gave you this challenge, you avoid that problem.

You won't fit the entire brief on one slide, but you can get the most important elements across.

Slide 2: Present research findings

Share what you learned during the early work after receiving the brief.

If there's repeating feedback, show that it's a repeating feedback. Show the voice of the experts, the customers, the employees. A good old direct quote often is much stronger than you speaking for hours.

This slide is important because it shows you've been busy at work even if people didn’t see it. It shows that what you're presenting isn't based just on your own thoughts, but on hard evidence.

Slide 3: Present the updated brief

This is where you share how you updated the brief after the initial research. How you reduced its scope. How you made the challenge feasible with the resources you have and the goals that were shared.

Hopefully, the rebriefing already happened with your key stakeholder or decision maker. This slide serves as a reminder for them of the new “deal” you have and brings others up to speed.

This is especially important for stakeholders who might have heard about the project in a corridor conversation, but only knew about the early briefing. This fills the gap of what has happened after.

It’s an inspiration not a hard rule

These three slides aren’t an absolute rule to follow, but rather a bit of inspiration.

You might prefer to start with a storytelling element. For example you could show some of the end results as a teaser before getting into the proper presentation. Like in movies that start somewhere in the middle and then show "four months earlier."

These three elements don't need to be absolutely up front. They can be at another place as long as they help bring everybody up to speed and contextualize your work.

Three slides is a pretty compact way, but depending on how much time you have with your stakeholders you could fit it all in one slide with three columns or expand it further.

The most important bit

The most important bit here for me is:

Don't assume everybody who has been invited knows anything about the project.

Start with the basics. What was your task? What did you find out? How did you negotiate a rebriefing and reduce scope?

Do that before sharing your work.

Written with AI help: This article is based on an audio note I took that was transcribed and cleaned using Notion AI. I then reviewed and improved the text by hand.