Service Design Show

What is the secret to consistently delivering high-quality work, day in and day out...

Recently, I was chatting with my neighbours who run a bespoke interior design and manufacturing business.

They make truly stunning, customised pieces for the upper market.

It's easy to think their success hinges on exceptional craftsmanship, which is surely part of it.

But what really keeps their business running smoothly is something far more fundamental.

In my conversation with them, we agreed that most of it comes down to things like having the right supplies available, making sure everything in its place so it can be found quickly, that tools in tip-top shape, and even something as simple as having lunch prepared so you don't have to worry about it.

These basic and somewhat "boring" conditions, are what enable them to deliver consistently high-quality work. Without them, production would be a slog, quality would be all over the map, and let's face it, they probably wouldn't be in business for very long.

We often take these kinds of conditions for granted. When things are running like a well-oiled machine, we assume that's just how it's supposed to be.

But you, as a service design professional, know that the conditions for delivering your best work are often far from guaranteed.

In fact, it can often feel like your organization is actively making your job harder, not easier.

This brings us to the question: What would it take to create the ideal conditions for service design to achieve its maximum impact? And how can we actually put those conditions in place?

Well, as you might have guessed already, that's where Design Operations (aka DesignOps) comes in.

Getting started with DesignOps (or scaling it) can be a real challenge, especially in organizations that don't have a strong design heritage.

But the good news is that John Calhoun and Rachel Posman have done the heavy lifting for us.

They've gathered best practices from experienced DesignOps professionals and compiled them into a brand-new book "The Design Conductors".

This book promises to help you kickstart or scale your DesignOps efforts more effectively, make a bigger impact, and sidestep common pitfalls.

The result? Making your life as a service design professional a whole lot easier!

So, with this foresight, we of course need to know more about this book.

And you guessed it, that's exactly what this episode is all about.

Here's already one key insight from the conversation: Every organization is already doing design operations. Most are just doing it unconsciously and missing out on the benefits. Yeah, there's a lot of low-hanging fruit waiting to be picked...

--- [ 1. GUIDE ] ---

00:00 Welcome to Episode 226

04:00 Book Title Revealed

05:00 Defining DesignOps

06:30 Starting the DesignOps Journey

08:30 Realizing it's DesignOps

10:30 Inside Design Operations

13:00 DesignOps IS Design

16:00 Honing the Craft (Iteration)

21:30 Ideal Book Audience & Origins

26:00 Book Feedback

28:00 Why Write the Book Now?

31:45 Book Structure Evolution

40:00 Favorite Writing Part

42:30 Deciding Book Content

45:30 Defining Success & Measurement

50:30 Knowing You're on Track

53:00 Current State of DesignOps

56:00 AI as a Roadblock

57:30 AI as an Opportunity

59:30 Questions While Writing

1:02:30 What Was Left Out

1:04:30 A Question to Ponder

1:06:30 Get the Book

1:07:30 Discount & Giveaway

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Who are they...

I know there are many out there and you could very well be one of them.

I'm talking about the unsung heroes who do the hard work of making the services around us a little bit better each and every day.

It might sound a little bit silly, but I feel that we don't know enough what it's like to do service design on a day to day basis.

Sure, we often hear about inspiring theories, useful frameworks and great case studies.

But somehow we rarely get to see the honest, unpolished and messy side of our work.

Well, that's about to change!

We're starting an new series here on the Show. A series where we dive deep into the actual practice of service design. About time, right? ;)

You'll hear two guests, both experienced in-house service design professionals, talk about their hard-won lessons, how they measure success, the indispensable skills to do their work well and much more.

In this first episode, I'm joined by Shelby Bower and Nicole Bennett who both, as you'll quickly hear, bring a wealth of experience and practical wisdom to the conversation.

So if you want compare if you're doing service design in a way that aligns with your fellow practitioners, and maybe learn a thing or two from their approach, this series is for you.

Which question would you ask a fellow service design professional? Let me know and maybe I'll be able to weave it in into the next episode.

~ Marc

--- [ 1. GUIDE ] ---

00:00 Welcome to this episode

01:30 Introducing Shelby

05:00 Introducing Nicole

11:00 Nicole Definition of Success

13:30 Shelby's Success Metrics

17:30 Tracking Progress

21:45 Nicole's Dinner Table Session

23:30 Topic Choice (Nicole)

24:30 Shelby's Session Topic

26:00 Topic Choice (Shelby)

27:45 Nicole's Key Takeaways

30:45 Shelby's Key Moments

34:45 Shelby's Written Takeaway

36:00 Nicole's Post-Session Impact

38:30 In-House Design Misconceptions

43:30 Nicole's In-House Design Truth

46:30 In-House vs. Agency

50:30 Becoming Indispensable In-House

54:30 Shelby's Motivation (Burnout)

57:30 Nicole's Motivation

59:30 Nicole's Advice

59:45 Shelby's Advice

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I'm sure you recognize this...

A stakeholders comes up with a new idea they want to explore, which you are highly skeptical about.

Or take the opposite scenario where you see value in pursuing an opportunity but have a hard time getting your business stakeholders on board.

The underlaying question in both situation is really how do you know which opportunities to pursue and which one are just a waste of time?

Once we have the ability to predict the future this question will become irrelevant... but up to that point we have to rely on tools and frameworks that help us make educated guesses about the future.

There's already many, many frameworks out there already that try to help you navigate theses kinds of strategic questions.

All of these frameworks come with their pros and cons and should be used in different situations.

But I'm pretty sure that you haven't yet come across the PRFAQ framework, at least I hadn't until I met Marcelo Calbucci, who recently wrote a book about it.

So, why should you care about another framework?

Well, for one PRFAQ has been used internally heavily inside Amazon for over 20 years already, helping them decide which projects to focus their resources on. And I think we can agree that Amazon has had a few success over the last years.

So why didn't this framework get out sooner and find broader adoption outside of Amazon, that's one of the questions I had for Marcello as well.

When I got more familiar with the framework, what fascinated me is that it has a strong emphasises writing.

Yeah, I know the idea of having to write instead of visualising might scare off a few people at first but trust me, you don't have to be novelist in order to leverage the power of this framework.

As you'll hear, Marcelo explains in this episode that writing has deeper and more important purpose than putting words on paper.

Does this mean it's less suited for the design community? The opposite couldn't be more than true, this framework should be a natural fit for us, and you'll learn why in the conversation.

So if you want to make important strategic decisions faster and with more confidence the PRFAQ framework is absolutely one of the tools you should consider.

And this episode will help you get up to speed about it in no time.

In a world where many people around us are more comfortable with the written word (and spreadsheets), having a framework like this can make the difference between finding the connection with them and not.

Enjoy and keep making a positive impact!

~ Marc

--- [ 1. GUIDE ] ---

00:00 Welcome to episode 225

04:13 What is PRFAQ?

06:30 The problem PRFAQ solves

08:30 PRFAQ's Origin

10:00 Structure of a PRAFQ

13:00 When to Use

14:30 PRFAQ Power / Use

17:30 Thinking about PRFAQ

19:00 An Example

21:30 Strategic writing elements

24:00 Avoiding Nitpicking

25:00 Who Struggles / Benefits

26:45 Biggest misconceptions

29:00 AI Influence on PRFAQ

31:30 When to be careful using AI

33:30 How to Start using PRAFQ

35:00 Using Marc as an example

37:30 How to express the problem

39:15 Sustainability

41:00 Retention

44:30 Strategy: Can vs Should

45:45 The Spark

46:00 Marcelo's Next Steps

47:30 Does PRFAQ Take Long?

49:00 PRFAQ Superpowers / Importance

52:00 Writing Challenges

54:00 Possible Book Sequel

55:30 Question to ponder

56:15 Learn More about PRAFQ

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Ever feel like you're pushing a boulder uphill with journey management... Yeah, we've all been there. But guess what? There's a smarter way!

That's why we're launching a brand new deep dive series on the Service Design Show. In this series, we're pulling back the curtain on how you can get tangible business results faster through journey management.

Helping to grow trust with stakeholders, and finally getting the green light to do (more of) the work that truly matters.

For this series, I've brought in Tingting Lin from the TheyDo team. Tingting has pretty much seen it all. The wins, the stumbles, and everything in between. She's guided countless teams and knows precisely what separates the journey management champions from the rest. And over the coming weeks, she's sharing all the secrets with us.

In episode one, we're tackling a step that's often overlooked - a step that can derail your whole project later on. So, if you want to set yourself up for long-term success, this episode shows you the first key step on that journey.

P.S. Got questions? Share them in the comments on YouTube or Spotify and we might just answer yours in a future episode.

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It's just not designed for me...

That thought hits me every time I'm in the kitchen, wrestling, trying to prepare a healthy meal for the family.

Reading recipes six times over, scrambling for ingredients, juggling the chaos of parallel cooking... yeah, it's a mess.

And then, there's my wife, a natural chef, gliding through it all with effortless grace. Watching her is like watching poetry in motion.

This stark contrast reinforces that the kitchen and everything in it feels utterly alien to me.

Now, as a white, middle-aged, English-speaking, physically able male, I'll be the first to admit this feeling of alienation is rare for me when dealing with most products and services. And yes, cooking is a trivial example.

But countless people who face do face this daily in situations far more critical.

Imagine navigating healthcare, financial services, or public services, feeling like they weren't designed for you. Now that's a serious problem.

Unfortunately, this is the reality for more services than we'd maybe like to admit.

Sure, from a service design (and business perspective), it's easy to justify focusing on the majority.

Time and resources are limited, so we design for the "center of the bell curve," the biggest group or the most profitable users. If that means excluding some, well, that's just business, right?

But our guest, Jess Kessin, argues that good design does not exclude.

She proposes an alternative approach: inclusive design that's both effective and cost-efficient. In fact, she insists it pays for itself.

So, how do we bring more inclusive practices into our design process? How do we make the business case? And what are some practical starting points?

We dive into all of that and much more in this episode.

As I've often said on the Show, making our services inclusive is our responsibility as a design community.

Even (especially) when no one is asking, it should be our own professional standard for good design.

Enjoy the conversation, and as always, keep making a positive impact.

~ Marc

--- [ 1. GUIDE ] ---

00:00Welcome to Episode 224

03:30 Meet Jess

05:15 Discussion of D-School

06:30 Barriers to Implementing Inclusive Design

08:30 The Business Case

11:00 Addressing Stakeholder Profit Concerns

13:30 Prototyping Inclusive Design

15:00 Identifying Key Focus Areas

17:00 Living up to design standard

22:00 Engaging "Edge Users"

25:00 Designing for Extreme Users

29:00 Expanding Design to "All" of Humanity

32:00 Community-Driven Design

33:00 Untapped Market Potential

35:30 Misconceptions Among Design Students

41:00 Blind Spots in Design Education

44:30 Learning from Users with Disabilities

45:00 Discovering Insights from Outliers

46:00 Importance of Good Design

49:00 Practical tips for designer

51:30 The Future of Inclusive Design

55:00 AI as a Tool for Inclusive Design

58:00 Taking Leadership in Inclusive Design

1:00:00 Food for Thought

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