▶️ Can a service designer survive a recession?

My two cents

In summary

Yes, if you can also provide a lean and low-hanging fruit approach that is focused on the present
No, if you are "only" focused on long-term strategic work

The service designers who struggle during recessions

Let's first explore the no answer.

When the economic situation is hard, people tend to stop looking at the future and are just focused on the now.

So they stop making big plans for the five and ten next years.

And instead, they want to find places where they can save money and make more with less to go through the tough times.

So in tough economic times, like a recession, we stop thinking strategically and go into tactical mode.

So for service designers in very strategic positions, working on very strategic projects, a recession might be an alarm signal.

The service designers who thrive during recessions

But obviously, not all services are the same or do the same type of job. There are service designers who are pretty much focused on improving services as they already are today.

These are the service designers who look at the backstage of a service to find places where we can do more with less.

These service designers take out the pain points of employees so that they can be more productive.

Skills needed during a recession

So what skills can help a service designer go through a recession?

Skill 1: Low-hanging fruit

A get-the-shit-done approach, where you are focused on the good enough and very practical stuff. If you can find the simple things that you can change that have a big impact on the finances or the processes of the company. Then you are someone your organisation will want to keep.

Skill 2: Business understanding

A good understanding of organisational design and business design can help you when the time of restructurations will come.

You might be in the team of people redesigning and reorganising the workplace.

Skill 3: Lean approaches to design

In tough economic times, a lean approach is something that is especially loved. Therefore get curious about lean research, lean Service Design, and all the approaches where we do more with less, like Jugaad innovation.

Going further

If you want to go further on this topic, I'd recommend watching the Service Design Show episode 179 with Patrick Quattlebaum from the Service Design agency harmonic.

In this episode, Patrick reflects on the evolution of Service Design, the tough times of COVID and recessions in the US.

Service Design Questions and Answers