How to build service design capability, step by step
Image courtesy of Government Digital Service
Almost everything we do in our organisation affects our services in some way - from the KPIs we set, to our policies and hiring practices. For services to work well we need everyone involved in those decisions to pull in the same direction, but that’s easier said than done.
First we need a common definition of ‘services’ so that we all know what we’re working on, then we need to share an understanding of what ‘good services’ look like so that we can agree what we need to improve. Once we have that though, we need to agree on (and commit to) what’s involved in delivering those improvements; Who do we need in the team? How long do we need to do research for? What kind of research? How should a team work?
Services are only as strong as their weakest link, that means we’re only as good as the person or team who is struggling to do these things. But it's a lot to ask. Services are defined by the medium we deliver them, and the rate of change to those channels is so rapid that when we don't invest in our people regularly we quickly end up with a gap between the skills we need to deliver our services and the skills we actually have.
We work with lots of organisations to tackle this challenge in the right way. The main question we get asked is - how do I build design and user centred capability?
Where’s the right place to start, who do you deliver training to first? What’s the best way of getting everyone to get involved? How do you make the effects last?
Investing in training your team or wider organisation in service design and delivery skills is always a great idea, but there are some things we can do to make sure that this training really adds up to lasting change.
Now is a great time to be thinking about putting a plan together to do that as we approach a new financial year. So with that in mind, here are 5 steps we take to help you raise your level of service design capability, and a free tool to help you make a plan for this year
A free tool to help you plan building design capability Understand what skills you need, and who needs them
Although we usually have a pretty good idea of the skills we need as an organisation, we tend to overlook one vital question - what are people struggling to do right now?
Knowing what capability your organisation needs is just one part of the challenge, we might know that ‘people need to be user centred’ or that ‘we need to understand service design’ but in order for any skill building exercise to work we need to understand what people are struggling to do now, as well as the skills we need them to have.
People who are one step removed from service delivery for example might struggle with how user centred design is relevant to their role, those in leadership positions might struggle to understand how agile ways of working align with traditional power structures... Not everyone will have the same level of understanding or perspective, not everyone will need the same skills.
To understand this, we need to distinguish between the skills people need (like being able to write a business case for service design or conduct user research) with the perspectives and beliefs they need (like valuing user research or understanding services from a user’s perspective)
All too often we mistake beliefs for skills, hoping that if we train everyone to be a service designer they will change their perspective on users and believe that design is important. Sadly though, this is rarely effective.
This is why all School of Good services courses are tailored to tackle both changing beliefs and developing skills, with some courses focused on changing one more than the other.
So, to work out what training you might need, start with user needs and ask yourself:
What skills are needed?
What do I need people to be able to do in order to deliver the type of services our user’s needs? For example, do I need people to be able to conduct user research, negotiate with stakeholders? Be able to design a service and perform the role of service designer?
What perspectives or beliefs are needed?
What shared values or beliefs do I need for people to be able to exercise these skills? Do we need a shared understanding of ‘services? Do we need to see the value of user research or be able to empathise with our users?
Who needs these new skills and perspectives/beliefs?
Try to group the people in your organisation by the types of skills and beliefs you need them to have to enable good services. For example, do we need all of our ux designers to be able to confidently design whole services? Do we need all of our change team to share a common understanding of services and what good and bad ones look like?
What are they not understanding or struggling to do right now?
What’s stopping them from engaging with learning about this more? What beliefs, values or existing skills and perspectives might be holding them back?
2. Design your campaign
Now that you've thought about what skills we need and who needs them, we now need to think about the best way of building those skills.
Training is a fantastic way of doing this but to be most effective it should be part of a longer journey that will build someone's excitement for user centred service delivery, help them learn the things that are relevant to them, then put that learning into practice.
When we learn independently we usually start with an interest and excitement in an area, exhaust all of the available resources we can find then embark on getting help to take our skills to the next level. When we do embark on training we’re levelling up, feeling satisfied that we've achieved a new skill. Learning at work should be just as exciting and satisfying.
Think about the whole journey of learning, starting at the beginning by building the desire to learn, incorporating exciting satisfying courses with openly available resources or forums for people to learn independently. Once that person has done that training, where do they go next? How do you support a career transition into service design or further skills they might need?
Use the following steps to plan that journey for each of the groups you've identified.
3. Build the desire to learn
You can lead a horse to water…but you can't make it drink, so that saying goes.
The same is true for training. You can invite people to a course that will help them understand what good service delivery looks like but if you haven't done the work to help them understand why they need to be there, it’s going to fall flat, or worse, leave people feeling insulted or resentful at being told they don't know something that they should…
For training to really stick, the people in the room should at least see some value in being there.
If you have a long way to go to get to that point, think about things you can do to build excitement, enthusiasm and a desire to learn more about user centricity and design.
Perhaps think about organising some talks, guest speakers, or sharing material you think is inspiring. See the coming days, weeks or months as a campaign to build excitement and anticipation for the training and support participants when they’ve done it.
For successful training to happen you don't need to have participants bought in already, in fact, all Good Services courses are designed to do that, but it's always best to show the value of the commitment your participants are making before they do their training.
If you think it’s going to be hard to get any level of buy-in before delivering training (and sometimes that’ll be the case) don't worry, that’s extremely common.
Think about delivering shorter training that requires less time commitment, or breaking it down into manageable chunks that will slowly build buy-in and excitement. Equally, think about posing training as a ‘workshop’, ‘collaboration session’ design sprint or learning session so that it appears less dictatorial or critical.
We always work with organisations to make sure that training is positioned properly so that it has the maximum effect, and we work with you to plan how best to get the people you need to train into a room in the first place. If you’d like to chat about what that might look like, get in touch
4. Focus on raising the skills of specialists *AND* building service literacy across the whole organisation
When it comes to service capability there are two groups we need to consider:
People who are already involved in doing, or advocating for user centred design, and…
People who are involved in/ responsible for / implicated by service delivery who need to understand how to work with or enable those designers and change makers to do their best work
It's easy just to focus on building the skills and numbers of designers and change makers, but doing this in isolation can mean we raise them up to a glass ceiling of a lack of buy-in and resistance. Better to raise that glass ceiling and reduce the resistance at the same time as helping those service designers and change makers to build the skills to deal with that environment.
It’s important to choose the right type of training that will support these different groups.
People who are involved in / responsible for / implicated by service delivery who need to understand how to work with or enable those designers and change makers to do their best work
Learning for this group is often more focussed on understanding how to be user centred in what they do, learning about what services are, and what makes a good one.
Think about this group in different layers of distance from service delivery. People who are part of service delivery like operational staff or service teams, people who facilitate it in roles like HR and finance and people who lead the organisation will all need different types of support
At the School of Good Services we have two courses designed specifically for these groups. Designing Good services (for folks who are involved in or are facilitating service delivery) and Leading Good Organisations (for folks in a leadership role). Both building awareness and understanding of services using the 15 principles of Good Service Design.
For people who are already involved in doing, or advocating for user centred design
Service design is about 10% design, 90% creating the conditions for service design to happen.
Take a look at the designers, change makers and user centred professions in your organisation. Do they need help with the dresign part? Or do they need help making the case for their work or leading stakeholders?
Here at the School we have a growing collection of courses support people to do become service designers and to do that 90% hard work by leading stakeholders or writing business cases for service design
5. Provide ongoing support for people with new skills and and enthusiasm
When a group of people complete a training course they are usually at their most enthusiastic, and in need of support. Now is a great time to build lasting support for that newfound enthusiasm.
All Good Services courses focus on the services you provide and end with positive, tangible next steps to start working on but whatever training you do, always organise a follow up session with your group to understand what support they need to put that into action.
Now that you've built a desire and enthusiasm for building learning about service design, think about what you’re going to do to support their next move.
That might mean transitioning to become a service designer or service owner with one of our intensive courses, or it might mean coming together as a community to tackle shared challenges. Whatever the right move is, just make sure you learn what it is and make time to support it.
You can talk to us about your learning journey to build design capability by getting in touch on hello@good.services
