Lost in the maze of decisions? I can relate.

Recent work things made me reflect (as they should do) about the need for shifting gears as a service designer. Or maybe its flight levels? Or maybe its zooming in and out?

In effect, there are times in work where drawing out high level visualisations of services is helpful, and there there are times when you need to be in the weeds. This is what I wrote:

Drawing out an ideal journey based on user research is the ‘easy’ bit – the one I’d done so many times as a consultant before and then just passed it over for other people to deal with. What we’re getting into now is the sea of seemingly tiny decisions that add up to the ACTUAL service experience. Some things were facing up to currently:

– The proposed telephony system might not allow us to route calls as we want.
– The people writing guidance for internal teams might not have content design skills or be driven by user needs
– Policy teams are falling back on what they *have* to do, not what they *should do*

None of these things might appear deal breakers on their own, but it’s the sum of all these decisions that make the service. That’s why service design is a team sport, no matter how on it any one individual is – nobody can own it on their own. That’s what’s needed now, continually refocusing anyone in any conversation of the need for the service to meet community needs, not the easiest path for the organisation.

Of course, it is entirely not an original thought. In fact Sarah Drummond says it much better in ‘Full stack service design’

“From policy development to metrics & measurements, organisational structures to technical architecture, all of these components – and the decisions we make about them on a daily basis – have an impact on the services we deliver and our ability to meet user needs.”

and…

“Service design isn’t an individual role, it’s a team sport. This is about ensuring the layers of an organisation consciously recognise their role in making the right decisions that will enable an organisation or system to meet common goals, user needs and service outcomes.”

I also realised that I wrote something similar-ish whilst at Co-op. Under the guise of ‘customer experience’ but saying the same thing…

“Ultimately, a customer’s experience is the sum of all the individual decisions that colleagues make, the systems they use and the processes they follow. Thanks to everyone who has been involved in helping us learn about, understand and improve each tiny part.”

So I probably don’t need to give it a new name. But ‘doing service design in the weeds’ is my current personal preference. In short, its sticking around for when the decisions actually get made.