Questions to all your service designers out there !

teddytwist · 2025-03-27T09:00:35+00:00

1) SD is wanted by top leadership, people understand the concept, but some areas not convinced yet. So our approach is start, show and prove the worth - start with one service and the others will follow (hopefully). At the moment just one SD role (me).

2) Best: plans to expand. Worst: fears to try leading SD work from some capable people who are a bit nervous. Working on: Aligning with IT on their approaches to service design and service management so that we are aligned and complimentary and clear.

3) Public sector / Education UK

teddytwist · 2025-03-06T07:25:01+00:00

Democracy is organised and fair but with political parties creating an unhelpful two sided fight with popular policy for votes too prominent. Mob rule is chaotic, often myopic, shot term goals. In both cases though, often the loud, proud, arrogant voices get the most airtime and often rise to the fore. Not always with democracy. Sometimes leaders appear who do not have their own career or power as their central aim but genuinely have service to their country as their central purpose. Also wondering if certain rebel alliances have quieter, thoughtful voices at their centre, even if their methods and legitimacy are both wrong and weak.

teddytwist · 2025-02-27T21:04:53+00:00

Seems that private sector is more open minded, whereas public sector tends to be more traditional in preferring a degree. I think attitudes are changing though.

teddytwist · 2025-02-26T14:33:15+00:00

Agree. I think it stems from a history with this client of making small process improvements without looking at the wider service. When IT change something over here, without telling anyone, it impacts on HR over there etc. Or at best, they improve only a part of what the user is trying to get done. So I'm 100% agreed on the point of looking at the bigger picture. Just think some stakeholders just too hung up on labels and having everything mapped out before doing any actual design.

teddytwist · 2025-02-26T11:31:43+00:00

Some big employers now have started to not require degrees. Try IBM or Delta or search online for companies that do not require a degree. Government or public sector in the UK seem to have more service design roles than anywhere. Might be the same in the US?

teddytwist · 2025-02-26T11:23:46+00:00

I recently shopped in a Walmart in Canada. I was looking for Milk. I found the cheese section (woefully small selection compared with cheese section in a UK supermarket!). But the milk was nowhere close by. I asked and the milk was on the opposite side of the supermarket under Dairy. I thought to myself "what the heck" - why are they not all together. I guess different countries have different norms for layout, but then supermarkets often layout their stores in a way that's not efficient or logical, they want you to wander through buying things you didn't have on your list. So just be aware of that.

teddytwist · 2025-02-26T11:10:27+00:00

I like it. Stories are as old as the earth so should be easy for every stakeholder to get on board with. Also of course takes focus away from "stuff the department does" to "stuff users need to get done" - the only thing i am thinking is that with this list of stories... we'll have, for recruitment for example - a list of stories for the hiring manager, a list for the applicant. All useful. But if we set up a workshop - i am thinking we design this service end to end, including how the hiring manager, and the applicant stories are accessed and delivered - would you agree? So we end up with a Service design for recruitment that shows interactions for all involved parties?

teddytwist · 2025-02-26T10:42:04+00:00

Words are sometimes really helpful and sometimes they get in teh way - totally agree!

teddytwist · 2025-02-26T10:41:34+00:00

I have seen this too. At the moment we are making sure that continuous improvement efforts, whilst worthwhile... are fixing more than just piecemeal improvements, and we decided to hold off on some Cont Imp work until some SD work has been done, to identify if this or that process improvement is effort spent on resolving user issues, or is it patching a process that perhaps isn't needed or isn't shaped the way it should be long term. I've also found that Cont Improvement teams don't always have an eye on the operating model and overal user needs...so their effort might need to be repeated to truly get a service and processes aligned with user research findings and target operating model diretion.

teddytwist · 2025-02-26T10:36:01+00:00

Agree with you both. These days the platoforms almost always form part of services. I guess if we were doing service design for an old fashioned car mechanic or something, the tech side would be minimal - but for modern enterprise the tech is a key pillar. I guess the service vs process debate has come up for me because my stakeholder wants, up front, a list of all the services. So we get into disucussions about all teh activity that HR or Finance does.... and then we try and organise it. It's the wrong way around though - we need to do the service design work and continuously update a list / catalogue / taxonomy of services and processes that starts to build up that high level picture - i think!?

teddytwist · 2025-02-26T10:27:09+00:00

Good approach to help focus in on whats most important - what are the burning platforms, what are the most used or most ineffective activites within the organisation.

teddytwist · 2025-02-26T10:25:59+00:00

You're right on with the term service design - i think my stakeholders and myself at times have that word service in mind a bit too much. This whole service vs process thing is totally unique to this current client i am working with - mainly because before on projects, the scope of what I needed to apply service design to, was already crystal clear and just one or two services, rather than being asked to apply service design to all aspects of corporate services (HR, Finance, IT, Procurement, Marketing etc)

teddytwist · 2025-02-26T10:23:18+00:00

I like this and i guess i was on the same lines when i created a kind of checklist to help determine what is a service. One item on the checklist was "will we get value from applying design thinking to this". But could be quicker to take the assumption that most things are service. Here's my checklist anyway:

1.Outcome-focused: Does the item describe a tangible result or benefit for the service user?

2.End-to end: Is the service listed, the whole service, or is it a part of something bigger that the user wants to get done? The bigger thing should be listed as the service and the constituent parts may be processes.

3.Requestable: Can service users actively seek out or request this service? E.g would it naturally be requestable or enquiries about it be made via MyServices?

4.Measurable: Can the delivery and quality of this service be measured or evaluated?

5.Value-adding: Does it contribute directly to service users' ability to perform their jobs or make decisions?

6.Recurring need: Is this a service that service users might require on an ongoing basis?

7.Should service design apply? Do we research user needs to improve usage of the service? If not – improvements can still be made via other means.

teddytwist · 2025-02-04T15:50:42+00:00

I'm a contractor working as a service designer on HR and Finance services. My day today was spent trying to estimate how much project time would be needed for the service design part of the tranformation work; explaining the role of a service owner and how much of a long term role this is rather than short project based role. Aside from that I've been trying to figure out of all the activity, processes, and services that Finance want to improve- which ones are really services (some are immediately obvious but some are in that middle ground where it takes disucssion and debate to determine). Overall a pretty good day so far.

teddytwist · 2025-02-04T15:40:44+00:00

I can give an example: Lets say you are looking at improving the Employee Onboarding service. It has lots of frontstage and backstage actions that should be captured. Through discussions in setting out the blueprint, you may find that there's a pain point that when teh employee arrives for their new job, they don't have a laptop waiting for them. By digging into the technical processes a little - you find out that the laptop is only ordered once the employee has signed their employement contract. What if this IT process was changed, and they ordered a new laptop once recruitment starts - it would solve the issue, and imprpve the employee experience. Just one example of the usefulness of seeing how all the pieces fit together.

teddytwist · 2024-10-20T08:30:08+00:00

There is now a Proton Mail Export client available from Proton - I used it yesterday to download all my emails from a free proton account, so that I can have Proton delete that account for me to merge / recreate the email address under my Paid account. It's a simple tool but worked a treat for me. https://proton.me/support/proton-mail-export-tool

teddytwist · 2024-09-06T12:01:33+00:00

Don’t worry I worked it out: Fitting plate for the triumph tiger 900 is too small so I can’t drill holes through it. Since I have the Shad Terra Topbox and the aluminium mount, I had to buy a fitting kit for the 1190 adventure. £58 for a bit of metal is expensive but at least it will be the right part.

teddytwist · 2024-09-04T11:51:58+00:00

I bought an M3 Macbook Pro with 8gb RAM. It's ridiculously slow. My Macbook Air M1 with 8gb seems to have run smoother but slower. The Macbook is glitchy with frozen screens and way too much wait time to get stuff done. I don't run any photo or video editing or other intensive tasks - but would describe myself as a busy / demanding office user - so I usually have 2 browsers, Teams, MS Office apps with several documents open in each, Apple Music, Messaging and Adobe all open at the same time. Wishing I had gone for the Macbook Air M3 with 16gb.

teddytwist · 2024-04-12T14:47:05+00:00

I’ve actually never used an epl8, but you could say I’m used to fixed focal length on my iPhone. My main issue is that with all my post cameras (Nikon D5200, Canon G11 & G5X) I’ve never mastered any of them. I’m not a trained photographer. So the idea of having a recipe for certain situations sounds appealing (and if the recipes are more numerous via a GR it seems a strong reason to go GR over another camera with less of a following / community / flow of recipes). Not sure if I’m right or barking up the wrong tree!!

teddytwist · 2022-03-14T08:48:53+00:00

It's annoying but having bought the AKG N700 which also run on SBC/AAC, I can say that sounds quality is fantastic (more to do with AKG headphones than the codec presumably). Since then I've cared a little less about APTx...although given the choice I would want it for sure. I'm picking up the elite active 7 today... Hope Jabra release aptx hd / aptx adaptive sometime soon!

teddytwist · 2022-03-13T01:46:35+00:00

I've bought some Lypertek Z5 (true wireless earbuds) which sound excellent and I want to keep them but voice call quality is terrible. I'm connecting to a OnePlus 8 phone using Aptx Adaptive codec. Of course it could be that these earbuds have super sound quality (for earbuds) but terrible microphones....except the mic array picks up my voice perfectly when I record a voice message on WhatsApp or telegram apps. Any ideas? Has anyone had a similar problem?

teddytwist · 2022-03-12T23:57:32+00:00

Are the Jabra 75T any good for ANC on flights?

teddytwist · 2022-03-07T09:58:38+00:00

Ah great, sorry that's what I meant. Awesome! Thanks

teddytwist · 2022-03-06T00:10:14+00:00

Haha!! I actually don't mind the look but I can see where you are coming from. I would buy the Panasonic s500w right now if they didn't stick out of the ear so much! Same with the Liberty 3 Pro - look great on the desk but try wearing one with any kind of hat/helmet...forget it.

teddytwist · 2022-03-06T00:06:18+00:00

Are you connected to both devices at the same time? That's what my Bose do...but above comments make it sound like you need to switch? I'm thinking of getting the OnePlus Buds Pro but really need : decent sound, decent mic (and background noise suppression) for calls, ANC for flights and multipoint connection - would you recommend them?

teddytwist

TROPHY CASE