A Customer Journey Map is not a ****ing deliverable / Marc Stickdorn / Episode #1

I’M Marc Stickdorn, and this is the Service Design Show In the Service Design, Show we talk to people that are shaping the service design field about the current state of the industry and the exciting new developments. Today our guest is Marc. Stickdorn, Probably a lot of you already know Marc, because hes, the editor and co-author of this book called this is service design, thinking Marc is also doing two service design related startups called Smaply and Experience. Fellow
And some of you may already have seen him during a presentation or a talk he gives all around the world was that a good introduction was that sort of correct was great short and snappy. I like that Marc, I’m going to ask this question to all of my guests.

What was your first memory of services design? What was the first moment you got in touch with service design. I was working in the tourism industry, doing innovation projects and I was struggling with the way I was teached. I was educated about innovation in my classic management education because I studied strategic management, which was pretty linear thinking, linear tools and stuff. Like you have an idea.

First, you have to write a business plan and execute and I failed really hard again and again doing that when I then heard first time about design thinking service design. I got really intrigued and it felt to me like a boy opening a box of toys, because suddenly I had names for stuff I was doing, but I called it differently and I realized that the way I sneaked through a project actually wasn’t sneaking through project. It was just iterating, but I didn’t know that I was iterating at that time. I was thinking about failing all the time and then I got really intrigued in that and I learned more and more and can you actually recall the speaker or the article, the book that you touched and the found the subject? I can’t recall really, it was 2007.

That’S for sure, and it was related to tourism, because I was working tourism industry and I don’t know where I read an article about design thinking and I got really interest in that. I moved to Austria, where I started working at MCI Business School, where one of my projects was actually teaching service design having a research project in that, and that was the moment when I really started researching in depth about that. So not only practicing it. Even though calling it differently, but then really digging into to the heritage, you became a service design. Professor I’m still like a junk professor at the University for a few days, Marc, let’s go on the topics you pointed me to.

We have found a format to actually make this into a co-creation session, because in service design we love, co-creation and believe in the power of co-creation. So we’re also going to co-create the show sort of, let us explain the format of how it works right. I have a topic right here and I’ll hold it up and you have a different stack of papers right, that’s right! So you have a different stack of papers and your papers start with a questions. Starter I’ll, give you a topic.

You’Ll pick a questions starter and then you can ramble on the topic whatever you like and then we’ll continue from that Perfect Easy right. Okay, so let’s just jump right in and I will pick this one because this is probably a topic. A lot of service designers can relate to you. This is service, design, design, thinking, UX, customer experience, interaction, design and a lot of other design disciplines yeah. How do you counter that?

I pick that one. I pick why why the heck do we have so many names for doing more or less the same thing, which is design? I think its really strange because we’re having so many discussions right now going on defining what exactly is designed thinking compared to service design compared to UX design and so on, and so fort we’re in practice. What we’re trying to do in organizations is, we are trying to break down silos. We try to connect different department to connect with trying to co-create, like you said, were doing this show, but then, at the same time, in our little bubbles of design thinking service design, we are building up silos again by saying oh, no.

This is not part of service design. This is part of design thinking. This is part of UX, or this is part of CX. What the heck? I don’t understand, I don’t get it.

I don’t know why the heck we’re building up new silos when we all follow a similar iterative process, maybe with slightly different tools, sets but its already mixed anyway. Well, my question would be who is creating these silos? Is it the designers or the outside world trying to understand design and put it into something they can put in a box? I think it’s both. Of course.

If people like to learn about that and they hear different phrases, they like to understand whats the difference, And it doesn’t really make sense if youre new, to something why you have different labels, which appear very similar thing. And then, of course, you have to practitioners. The agencies in house departments and I see two different approaches there. On the one hand, you have the agencies who say we don’t care, how you call it this, because, basically all our clients are calling it differently anyway, depending on the organization culture, and so we don’t give a damn which label you out on it. But then, of course, you have other agencies and in house department who already build up a reputation in this specific field and they like to defend their own field, saying oh, no, this is service design or this is UX and not design thinking.

I can understand both sides, but I think, as a community we would really grow much easier. We can learn much easier from one another when we get rid of this language barriers. Final question about this, because what do you think needs to happen to break down the silos within design? I dont know i mean, on the one hand it will be always buzzwords right and and design thinking and service design nowadays is a buzzword and now that bold statement Well, it is like that, if you take a look at all the the business consultancy they’re all Saying they are doing it now doing it, so definitely it is buzzword and if the Harvard Business Review, titled design thinking comes out of age, yet I mean its getting a lot of attention. We agree on that yeah.

I think we have to look beyond the buzzwords to understand. Rather, what is a process? What is a tool set that? How do we work? What is the culture, and that is more important than just the label of it, and if we agreed on that, it doesn’t really matter which label you put in there.

But look beyond that to understand what is the process and how do we work together? Then? We can really proceed. We need more collaborations instead of more definitions. Exactly exactly, I think, having a good discussion on how we work is much more valuable than having a discussion, how we call what we do it.

Let us use this show for that to discuss how we work, because I agree with you, Marc. Let’S move on to the second topic: Allright I’ll pick this one. It’S called research in practice, yeah! Well, as I have so many question starters here. Let me try to pick one randomly, So I dont know what the questions is going to be.

I just take this one and see what it is. When will we finally do really good research in practice? What do you mean? Well often, I see so my background is partly academic and partly in practice, so I really try to connect both world And then my background is also in management. I got trained a lot in quantitative tools before I moved into design and learn more and more about qualitative, ethnographic approaches, and what I see is that many companies nowadays use service design.

However, you call that I call it service design and some time as an excuse to do bad research because they say we just need some qualitative research, so they go out. Do a few interviews. They come back and say that is what it is And thats not really valuable. You can then base design decisions on really wrong assumptions, because they only come back to prove their assumptions what they already had. They just do a little bit of research heavily biased, and then they develop products which suits their own needs and not the need of the customer because they really didnt understand.

So it like only like using research for checking a box rather than actually doing proper research. Exactly I say just as an example, even if the large organization tries really hard to do that, they sometimes plan design research with a gantt chart. I’Ve been in a project where they had a huge whiteboard. Every morning they had a meeting with the team of almost 15 researchers where they said. Ok, we need 500 interviews, we need 300 in house visits, we need and so on and they just tick boxes say: ok, let’s try to get 10 more today, so we are done without even looking at the data.

So, for a few months they were only collecting data without looking at the data and at some point they started to drown in data and they were looking for an approach for how can we actually analyze it? Now that we have like 500 interviews, 300 in house visits, and if you have an academic approach in there, you that this approach is useless because in qualitative research, what you’re looking for is theoretical saturation. You want to find, for example, the five biggest bugs in your customer experience. If your are talking about an existing experience and once you got and further interviews and observations only prove what you already know, there’s no need in doing further interviews. So I really recognize what you’re saying, and I think it has a lot to deal with people actually going into the design research with a validating mindset, rather than a explorative mindset.

Is that something you recognize too Absolutely absolutely and I think also in design. There is a place to validate moments if we think of prototyping. The whole idea of prototyping is, of course, to test things, so we have a list of topics we need to validate. We have hypotheses assumptions that we need to test, and then it make sense, but the beginning of a project where you rather need explorative stuff. It doesn’t make sense.

So I think there is often a culture clash in people sometimes use an excuse to do less research, and sometimes they still use the same mindset the same framework. They use from quantitative field, just applying it to qualitative field, and I think we need a better education. Yeah, this is really a hard topic, because it’s really requires a different culture, different mindset and it’s about embracing uncertainty, which is really hard if you are in a surrounding that is about this about Gantt charts and predicting how many interviews well do so any any ideas On how we can move a step beyond the current research methods? Well, what I think, what I see in business and academia right now is that there is actually trend away from only focussing on the quantative stuff to mixed method, approaches where you mix quan and qual, or really to do two different qualitative approaches. And now, with increasing technology, it becomes also much more accessible for companies, because you, if you have videos from snippets from users, for example, if you have videos of observations in house visits and so on, it’s often much more powerful to see a customer failing using your Product or service than having statistics about how customers are failing, and I think we both need, we need to prove yes, this is a real issue, but then we need the qualitative bits and pieces proving or showing why actually they fail, and I think these mixed method Approaches industry is getting that and I think education is moving along with that and it will just a matter of time.

I think it will be a very good step if organizations be would just a little bit more patient in their research and not jumping on the assumptions from the head start. Just patience would be a good cure. I think, for better design. Research. Well time is money.

Yeah well go slow to go fast, I’m not sure who said that, but go slow to go fast, Exactly exactly Marc already. You already hinted about something using new technology and new tools. Let’S move on to the final topic and its called tools and software Tools and software. Let me Let me pick

I like that, How much How much Iam not going to answer how much that costs but Im going to answer how much technology software do we actually need in service design? And you mentioned that in the beginning, with our company, we moved away from doing projects and we really focus on developing tools and software for service design and thats.

What we are doing with both our startups smaply and experience. Fellow and we are totally aware, there won’t be a software who can solve everything, but i think there are a few problems. Companies always struggle with where specific software make sense. So how much do we need? Definitely we don’t need any technology when we do workshops, because I think hands on workshop hands on prototyping sessions journey mapping session with pen and paper.

This is absolutely gold and there won’t be an exchange for that. Of course, collaboration tools. Help, if you don’t get a team in one room so before you don’t do anything, do it virtually fair enough, but i think face to face workshop is still the way to go. However, there are these moments. After a workshop, where you have your wall plastered with paper templates and posters, we all know those situations Exactly so that is what we try to tackle then, with smaply with the software to quickly process afterwards, where you can print it out again, but then it should Always connect the hands on pen and paper work with digital digital, the digital should always be a level on top which helps to which makes your life easier.

That’S the whole idea of it. I think we shouldn’t try to get rid of the hands on work. Really do you think designers are a bit scared to use technology? No, I don’t. They are scared.

I think we love technology, but one of the key things in service design or the key skills for me is actually facillitation. So how do you work? How do you moderate a workshop? How do you setup the workshop? How do you create an experience that people within their room feel safe and are open enough to share and try out things and technology won’t help you there that’s a human skill and we don’t need to be scared of technology there.

We need to use in a moment where it make sense, we’ll put some links to your tools in the description of this video, because I hope a lot of people will just give it a go and give it a try and see how it enriches their process. I think thats really valuable. I don’t want to make the sales pitch here. Well Ill, do it, for you well put the links in the description. What is the biggest challenge, developing tools and software for service designers?

I thinks its the same as every startup. We got the same issues, I mean financials, so one startup we financed, we bootstrapped. We, we funded it out of our own pocket. We financed it through our projects and just developing part of it at some point needs more attention which again means you can do less projects. You really need to focus them and that’s what we’re doing now, so we stopped doing service design projects.

I still do my talk, my workshop train, the trainer and stuff, but I don’t do service design projects anymore, because we really want to focus on developing the tools and then you have all the classic issues. You have a small team, a limited budget. You have huge roadmap of features you want to put in there and you want to create a great experience. You don’t have the time and money to do everything right from the beginning. So definitely we are failing, but I think we are pretty open about that.

We communicate that so we really live the service design spirit of co-creating with our customers having usability sessions. We talk a lot of with them incorporate that back. So I think agile development process merges perfectly with the service design process. So we talk about customer experience, sprints, where we do research we put into the development we launch it. We start all over again every two weeks.

Basically, Is there a way the viewers of this video can help out in any way creating better software. Can you repeat the question so if you said you are involving users and actually practitioners in the development? Is there a way people that are watching this video right now can participate? Well sure, basically everybody can participate. You can sign up for free for 14 days days and even just in the trial period.

Try it out and give us feedback so either schedule a call with us schedule a usability session with us where you share you screen and we watch you working with that schedule, a session where we talk through how you used it in a workshop and after workshop And what worked and didn’t work, and through that? We are developing it further and we are doing that a couple a times a week. Actually having these sessions good to know and final thing about software. Is I’m really curious to see new software and tools coming up and experience in which phase of the design process it will be? Like you already said it probably won’t be in the workshop for facilitation?

Will it be in the research phase? Will it be the analysis phase, probably in both, but I’m really curious to see what happens in that field? I think it’s a great development, because we can see that already there is more and more different software coming up very specialized to very specialized topics, and for me it is also the interesting becuase. I think we, as the service design community, can use that to get us to get a foot in the door to companies. Research companies like forester, for example, put out report for available software for Customer Journey Mapping.

What we realized is that companies start out don’t care. They just buy the software, they start using it at some point. They realize this is a software. Ok, I can do a journey map, but how do I get to the data to it? Suddenly they reach out to us and ask us: how does it work and we say: maybe you should actually work with one of your local service design agency and get some training in that and maybe do a project because its just a piece of software like Excel Or Word doesn’t help you to write a book.

You still need to do it interesting thought and I think you are spot on there. It makes it really easier for companies to jump on the bandwagon of customer experience, customer journeys, research and then they opened Pandora’s box. They don’t know what they’ve started Absolutely. When I talk at conference, I speak a lot at UX management conferences. In a few weeks, I will be speaking at a leadership conference at Harvard business school, which is crazy, that they invite somebody to talk about service design and what am telling there always is stuff like a customer journey map is not a fucking deliverable and because that’s What many think we buy this software?

We do a journey map and then youre done no youre not and that they should base their journey map on research and not just assumptions. So a lot of my talk, I try to educate them. Well, not educate, but at least give them the hint that create awareness. I think Working just assumption based is not the right way to do that and they going to fail by doing that, and I hope that through that we would grow the whole service design community. Even more, thank you for your contribution to the service design community.

So far, many Marc. We are sort of heading into their final phase. Of our talk, the question I want to ask you: is people that want to get into service design people that want to start with service design? What is the single, most valuable tip you would give them? Don’T try to learn it out of a book I’m guilty with that myself with the book I did was Jacob, but we design a textbook not as a go to resource, so my single most valuable tip for that is, if you really want to learn about service Design join one of your local global service jams, because I think that is a worldwide non for profit event.

Where you can learn how to you can experience in a kind of pressure, cooking format, 48 hours, how this process works, you learn new people. I think thats one best ways to get into service design Awesome is there are a question you would like to ask the audience, the viewers, a question that you have yourself and that we will give the opportunity for people to comment on this video yeah. Oh yeah. Well, with our new focus now that we really stepped like we took a step back, we are not an agency, we don’t do projects, we really want to create tools and software, for you guys doing service design out there. We already have a few products now out.

There, but it won’t end there, so we have loads idea of what else we could do. So my question to the community would be: what do you need? What do you really struggle with, and there is not yet a solution, and you would like somebody to take this task and develop something to help you we’ll see what comes up. I think a people struggle with a lot of things. Marc.

Thank you for your time. It was awesome talking to you thanks for taking the time to be part of the service design, show a concept we are still developing. What are your thoughts about the topics weve discussed today and if you have any suggestions on who we should invite? Next, to the show be sure to let us know down below in the comments If you enjoyed this episode and like to see more interviews with service design, pioneers subscribe to our channel and check out some of the past episodes.

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