An action-packed day where we deep dive into the service design process and apply problem finding, creative problem-solving and ideation techniques to a live design challenge chosen by delegates.

This session will examine the who, what, why and when of service design. Exploring how services are created, delivered and experienced by your customers through a sustainability lens. Delegates will choose a live social impact design challenge to work on for the remainder of the workshop in teams.

• The origins and evolution of human-centred design and service design
• The design thinking mindset
• Introduction to circular design and regenerative approach to services
• Service methodologies (4D process and others) and applying the right one for your organisation
• Exercise: Picking a service design problem

A problem well-defined is a problem half-solved. For this session, delegates will learn key problem finding techniques and how to ‘empathise’ with consumers to solve the right service design problem. Delegates will also explore key research techniques to uncover the real ‘People Problem’ with commercial and not-for-profit case studies.

• Explore the problem space with an empathy mindset
• Stakeholder mapping
• Research processes and methods: One-on-one interviews, contextual inquiries, service safaris
• Persona and empathy map creations to unpack key behaviours: Needs, wants, motivators, barriers
• Developing behavioural profiles for the service
• Customer journeys and user stories
• Exercises: Persona creation and customer journey mapping

Building on research themes gathered, we will develop insights that unlock key opportunity spaces for innovation within the new or existing service. The development of ‘How Might We’ statements becomes the rocket fuel for your ideation stage for the service.

• Turning research themes into insights and powerful opportunity spaces for innovation
• Framing the opportunity via ‘How Might We’ point of view statements
• Exercises: 5 Whys insight generation, abstract laddering, insight clustering, “How Might We” statements

Learning from the best-in-class services and brands, we will examine varying techniques for ideation and creating new service concepts or evolving existing services. Starting with divergent idea generation and then converging ideas to land on key concept posters.

• Brainstorming and ideation best practices and principles
• Latest ideation tools and techniques from the world’s best service focused companies and organisations
• Refining ideas, service concepts and prioritisation
• Creation of concept posters and elevator pitch
• Exercises: Idea sketching techniques, Crazy 8’s, “What If” idea cards, behavioural intervention ideas, concept posters, elevator pitch

A highly collaborative day where we start putting the service design process into action around creating the service concept, prototyping and creating the front and backend delivery side of the service.

This session will explore the creation of service visions for organisations as well as governing design principles to be applied to create more regenerative services and business models. This serves as the conceptual guidelines of the experience as well as the assessment criteria for the service.

• Setting a service vision
• Rahms 10 design principles
• How to create design principles with a sustainability focus
• Exercises: Creating a service vision and design principles for your service

This session will take service ideas from concept posters into a low-tech artefact to test with potential users, an iterative process where the innovations come to life through a variety of formats.

• The makers mindset and prototyping methodologies
• Storytelling canvas
• Storyboarding and building the innovation experience
• Building your prototype
• Exercises: Storyboarding, prototype creation via role-playing/physical building and sketching

This session examines live real-time user testing of prototypes via qualitative research testing of ideas created. Delegates will learn how to conduct user research and what to look out for to ‘pivot’ an innovation based on user feedback.

• User testing research techniques
• Creating hypothesis for research
• Discussion guide creation
• Mock interviews to explore feedback on prototypes created

This session examines focuses on the pragmatic delivery side of creating and executing the service through development of the service blueprint.

• Understanding the 5Ps of service delivery
• Creation of ‘front of house’ and ‘back of house’ elements
• Exercises: Development of the mock service blueprint using 5Ps method

Delegates (in groups) will present their service concepts to the rest of the delegates and get spontaneous feedback to their concepts and approach to solving the problem.