Panel Discussion
Summary
Key Insights
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Service design is evolving from delivering user-focused experiences to becoming embedded within organizations to influence systemic change.
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Trust underpins successful collaboration in service design but is rarely explicitly acknowledged.
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Facilitation skills are essential life skills for service designers to navigate complex group dynamics and build influence.
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Complex problems in service design require embracing emergence and constant adaptation, unlike simpler complicated problems which have fixed causal paths.
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Connecting dots in organizations includes not only user journeys but also relationships and value flows across diverse actors and disciplines.
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Leadership in service design is less about formal titles and more about unlocking potential and creating conditions for collaboration.
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Service designers benefit from adopting multiple perspectives, including customers, managers, and change agents, to overcome organizational silos.
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Using rough, provisional artifacts invites co-creation and encourages stakeholders to contribute to shaping solutions.
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Language and jargon can be both barriers and enablers; designers should explicitly negotiate and adapt vocabulary to build shared understanding.
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Long-term engagement with a context builds deeper trust and cultural blending, increasing the potential for meaningful impact.
Notable Quotes
"It was the first time I’ve actually seen this work all put together like this."
"Maybe we cannot orchestrate everything, but we can dance with the system."
"People will say, I’m not totally sure what they do, but I know we need it."
"Facilitation is a life skill we can’t possibly do wrong to keep improving at."
"The design is how you show up in response to probing the system day in, day out."
"Service designers are not over here anymore, they’re in the organization."
"Language is very important; sometimes new vocabulary helps because people didn’t have a word before."
"Leadership is unlocking potential and taking responsibility, far beyond the title or executive level."
"If you want to be bringing dots closer together, you’re constantly looking at how things are changing in the moment."
"Go to someone you don’t know well and just tell them you want to learn about their work as a normal human being."
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