Reflections on an SDN NYC event I led, hosted at Intuit
Many people have compared service design to conducting an orchestra. As I’ve been exploring journey management and what it means, this analogy has taken on new resonance.
Above is a photo I took before a recent performance at Carnegie Hall. The conductor had not yet stepped on stage, though most of the orchestra was already there. They had the instruments. They had the music. But who brings it all together—and takes care of it along the way?
Conducting a symphony requires more than keeping time. It’s about bringing disparate instruments into harmony, balancing nuance and dynamics, and shaping the entire experience in real time, from the first note to the last. Journey management, in many ways, asks the same of us.
Recently, I had the pleasure of speaking at a Service Design Network NYC chapter event hosted by Intuit. The topic? Is there a case for journey management?
By design, this wasn’t a lecture—it was an open, interactive session. I wanted to hear what the community thought. I wanted diverse perspectives.
Together, we unpacked the difference between journey mapping and journey management, and wrestled with whether the latter is a worthy investment—or a burdensome rebrand.
But before we could debate its value, we had to ask…
What even is journey management?
While the language of journey management has been circulating for a few years, each person brought their own lens. Some described it as:
- A methodology or tool that brings together journeys across personas within a product
- A living infrastructure—an internal library used to improve and implement services
- A strategic planning process to shape outcomes across products, services, and experiences
- The orchestration of multiple journeys toward a shared vision
- Something continuous. Alive. Present.
With participants coming from different industries and levels of service design maturity, it was no surprise that the definitions varied. For some, it’s about structure. For others, it’s about alignment. For a few, it signals a cultural shift in how organizations operate. And maybe, in some cases—or in some aspirations—it’s all of that.
The Case For Journey Management
Participants cited a wide range of benefits:
- A centralized view into customer experience that reduces blind spots
- Stronger governance and alignment across teams
- Tools for portfolio and work management that reflect real journeys, not internal org charts
- A way to break silos and foster systems thinking
- Support for dynamic, evolving journeys and historical context
- A path toward stability, predictability, and more intentional collaboration
- A mechanism for ensuring nothing falls through the cracks—raising awareness, catalyzing conversations, and ultimately improving services
The Case Against Journey Management
Still, the room didn’t shy away from the friction:
- The costs—time, tools, people—are high, and keeping it current is no small feat
- Skepticism around ownership, measurement, and ROI persists
- There’s concern it might become a design bottleneck or lose sight of the customer
- Some feared it might solidify boundaries rather than enable growth, or worse—shift empathy into templates
- Others questioned whether journey management is just a rebrand of service design, or too complex to be practical
Where We Landed
The session didn’t end with consensus—but that wasn’t the point. We surfaced tensions that are real and necessary. Journey management may not be a magic fix, but it could be a vital evolution of how organizations support customers and structure their teams—a shared discipline for navigating complexity and stewarding the customer experience over time.
Thanks to everyone who brought their voice to the conversation. We may not have defined journey management once and for all, but we made progress. And like the journeys we aim to manage—it’s alive, continuous, and still unfolding.
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