Going for gold • 1
Inspired by an article in Harvard Business Review about the underlying quests for corporate transformation (Anand & Barsoux, 2017), I have identified seven strategic arenas where the power of service design can transform organizations, teams, and people.
While not strictly MECE, this quest-based classification reveals intriguing differences in terms of purpose, project types, project sponsors, methodologies, and desired outcomes – and stands in sharp contrast to the one-size-fits-all approach often promoted in toolkits for innovation management, new product development, design thinking, and service design.
The seven arenas are:
Service Design for Disruption & Growth
Service Design for Customer Excellence
Service Design for Employee Engagement
Service Design for Operational Excellence
Service Design for Ethical Circularity
Service Design for Organizational Change
Service Design for Equitable Experiences [spanning across the other six arenas]
In the descriptions that follow, I am presuming that many (if not most) service design projects would benefit from an insights-driven, solution-agnostic approach. See my blog post Lean & mean innovation machine • 2 for a deep dive into the differences between upstream and downstream work.
Note: The categories listed above are chosen based on the 80–20 principle. Additional quest or outcome-based categories, such as Service Design for Social Change or Service Design for Community Engagement, may be addressed at a later date. I have intentionally left out sector-specific categories, such as Service Design for Public Services, Service Design for Healthcare, or Service Design for Financial Services, and technology-first categories, such as Service Design for Digital Transformation or Service Design for Medtech.
1. Service Design for Disruption & Growth
Purpose: Crafting purpose-driven, people-centric scenarios, strategies, and concepts to help organisational leaders place strategic bets on the future and invest in transformational endeavours with confidence. In this context, strategic bets are ‘big ideas’ that uncover new sources of value by either reinventing the core business or by creating new, ‘never-seen-before’ businesses.
Note: Compared to the unimaginative product-centric approach that pays lip service to services, a genuine service design mindset brings product-service systems, value co-creation, end-to-end experiences, and a multi-actor perspective to the table. See also my blog posts Get the balance right! • 1 and Get the balance right! • 5.
Common themes: Strategic foresight. Weak signals. Speculation and provocation. Scenario planning. Alternative futures. White spaces and opportunity areas. Strategic bets and ‘big ideas’ to shape the future. MAYA. New sources of value. Purpose-driven, people-centric North Stars. Strategic bets. Business model innovation. Value proposition design. Crowdsourcing. Innovation uncertainty/risk. Innovation portfolio management. Backcasting. Roadmaps. Corporate storytelling. Etc.
Project archetypes:
Designing for reinvention (of the core business). Identifying and exploiting opportunities to reinvent, revitalize, and reposition the core/legacy business or businesses. This means rethinking and redesigning business models, strategies, processes, and services to improve relevance, differentiation, and competitiveness.
Examples: Rolls-Royce’s ‘Power by the Hour’ model in 1962; Starbucks’ ‘third place experience’ in 1987; Netflix’s streaming service in 2007; and Allstate’s Drivewise program in 2010.
Designing for adjacent innovation. Identifying and exploiting opportunities to create adjacent, ‘close-to-the-core’ businesses. This means leveraging existing capabilities, assets, data, technologies, and market knowledge to create new products, services, and revenue streams.
Examples: Virgin Direct in 1995; easyCar in 2000; Amazon FBA in 2006; Facebook Marketplace in 2016; ING’s Yolt Technology Services in 2019; and Homes & Villas by Marriott International in 2019.
Designing for organizational disruption. Identifying and exploiting opportunities to envision ‘new-to-the-core’ businesses. This approach leverages novel insights, processes, or technologies to create business models and value propositions that mark a significant departure from historical offerings.
Examples: IBM Watson in 2011; Adobe Creative Cloud in 2013; and Amazon Fresh stores in 2020.
Designing for market disruption. Identifying and exploiting opportunities to create uncontested markets or reshape existing ones. Market disruptions often displace established industry boundaries, business models, products, and services, affecting not just a single organization but the entire ecosystem. (See, e.g., Kim & Mauborgne, 2005; Christensen, 1997.)
Examples: Outsiders disrupting industry structures and dynamics include Cirque du Soleil in 1984, Airbnb in 2008, and Uber in 2009. Solid service-based examples from established companies include Google AdWords in 2000 and Amazon Web Services in 2006.
Fostering a culture of innovation and change. Building and nurturing a culture of continuous innovation and change throughout the organization. This involves crafting employee-centric spaces, services, playbooks, toolkits, tools, workflows, rituals, and incentives to help leaders and teams navigate change, build resilience, foster x-capability collaboration, build creative confidence, encourage experimentation, seek continuous feedback, and capture lessons learned.
Note: For more information about top-down and bottom-up initiatives to drive innovation and change, please see my blog posts Comparing & contrasting innovation & change roles and Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes.
Competing/complementary methodologies & toolkits: Strategic foresight and futuring (environmental scanning, trend analysis, speculative thinking, scenario planning, etc.). Technology roadmapping. Design fiction and design provocation. Lateral thinking. Blue Ocean Strategy. Business model innovation. Outcome-based innovation (jobs-to-done theory). Sinek’s Golden Circle. Open innovation. Doblin’s Ten Types of Innovation framework. Value proposition design. Lean startup. Strategic thinking. Design thinking. Product & service design. Innovation portfolio management. Etc.
Supplementary methodologies & toolkits: Systems thinking. Strategic management. TRIZ. Vertical and horizontal brand extensions. Agile development. Change management. Etc.
Exploring the problem space: Understanding industry and market dynamics. Understanding organisational strategies, operating models, cultures, and change needs. Analysing current solution portfolio (products/services/experiences). Exploring alternative futures and defining plausible scenarios. Crafting tentative North Star and BHAGs. Determining innovation ambition levels. Visualising and analysing current innovation portfolio/pipeline. Identifying white spaces and opportunity areas for innovation. Designing provocations to challenge assumptions, provoke reactions, and stimulate discussions. Framing or reframing challenges/problems. Etc.
Exploring the solution space: Crafting and prototyping ‘big ideas’ for the future (imagine alternative business models, strategies, value props, production & delivery systems, etc., to either reinvent the core business or create new businesses). Continuously testing tentative solutions through storytelling, rapid prototyping, experimentation, and piloting. Continuously adapting, downselecting, and prioritising tentative solutions. Defining stakeholder and business impact. Crafting compelling stories and value cases for change. Identifying roadblocks, creating roadmaps, defining requirements, and mobilising resources for implementation and sustained success. Etc.
Project sponsors: Chief Innovation Officer, Chief Brand Officer, Chief Strategy Officer, CEO, or equivalent
Desired outcomes: ↓ innovation risk, ↑ clarity/focus, ↑ agility and responsiveness, ↑ organizational learning, ↑ engagement, ↑ organisational learning, ↑ business growth (new sources of value and revenue streams), ↑ long-term differentiation and competitiveness, ↑ business growth (new sources of value and revenue streams), ↑ brand reputation
Power tip: The first four project archetypes can be visualized as a maturity ladder, with each step representing an increasing degree of departure from the core/legacy business. The ladder also indicates the corresponding level of risk, ranging from relatively low to relatively high. Throughout this innovation journey, let the North Star (see blog post Going for gold • 3) serve as your lighthouse to guide your innovation efforts and strategic decision-making.
Service Design for Customer Excellence will be covered in the next blog post.
References
Anand, N. & Barsoux, J-L. (2017, Nov–Dec). What everyone gets wrong about change management. Poor execution is only part of the problem. Harvard Business Review.
Christensen, C.M. (1997). The innovator's dilemma: When new technologies cause great firms to fail. Harvard Business Review Press.
Cone, C. (2022). What does a purpose-driven company look like? 5 ways brands with a purpose make positive impact. The 360 Blog. Salesforce.
Kim, W. C., & Mauborgne, R. (2005). Blue Ocean Strategy: How to create uncontested market space and make the competition irrelevant. Harvard Business Review Press.
Norman, D. A. (2023). Design for a better world: Meaningful, sustainable, humanity-centered. MIT Press.
Mau, B. (2004). Massive change. Phaidon Press.
Sinek, S. (2009). Start with Why: How great leaders Inspire everyone to take action. Portfolio.
