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While only in its second year, I was really impressed with the Productized conference in Lisbon. I was there to run a four-hour Service Design Crash Course workshop and give the closing keynote, titled So You Want to be a Service Designer. I have run 14 conferences, so I know what it takes to pull off a good one. From the organization to the production to the quality of workshops and speakers, everything was top notch. I highly recommend it.

Teaching Service Design

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During the 40-person workshop, I provided a quick overview of service design, and then led participants through three hands-on activities: journey mapping, service storming (an acting as prototyping method), and service blueprinting.

Activity 1 – Journey Mapping

Journey maps are becoming quite ubiquitous, even outside of the design world. Though many of my participants had not created one yet. I gave an overview of what a journey map does and some good times to use it in the design process. Then participants created one in small groups.

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Activity 2 – Service Storming

A few years ago, Jared Cole and I created this activity based on an acting as prototyping method. We created some particular constraints, and I have been using it since as a method and workshop tool. Participants have 30 minutes to develop a 90-second skit to perform. This becomes the base for the next activity. Most people have never done this before, so it’s always good fun.

Activity 3 – Service Blueprinting

Service blueprints describe how a series of interactions are supported by different touchpoints, people, and processes. After providing an overview of the basic service blueprint elements, participants created a blueprint version of their service storming skit.

Talking Service Design

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The talks were all great. Notably, there was an emphasis on understanding the vision you’re trying to achieve and why it matters, with a big emphasis on storytelling. Design is as much about defining the vision as it is making it real.

I gave the closing keynote (after Bruce Nussbaum, author of Creative Intelligence). I really loved that a service guy like myself was invited to speak at a product conference. I took the opportunity to structure content around the title of So You Want to be a Service Designer, which was inspired by Robert Reimann’s So You Want to be an Interaction Designer. I read that piece in graduate school a decade ago. It was originally written in 2001, I believe. It’s still relevant today. You should read it.

I’ll write more about the content of the talk in another post. Until then, you can view the slides.