Service Design Requires a Holistic Approach

This week I received my newest issue of TD Magazine, the monthly publication from the Association of Talent Development, that I read religiously.  It is a fantastic way to stay up to date on current trends and important information in the arenas of talent and organizational development.  The article that caught my eye first, and was most relevant to us here at Changemaker Innovation, was titled A Patient-Centered Culture Begins With a Focus on Healthcare Workers by Glen B. Earl.

What was so great about this article was that it reminded me again about how service design and human-centered design are not successfully created in a bubble.  Anyone who is familiar with service design knows that it takes a village.  Not only do you bring the user front and center, whether that be for external customers or your employees, but you also involve relevant points of view from a myriad of sources. The beauty in service design is that great ideas, creative ideas can come from anywhere, by anyone. In this article, Mr. Earl reminds us that the design approach can not successfully exist if you do not look beyond the solution itself.

As we have worked with clients implementing and teaching human-centered design, we have often discussed the importance of a commitment to the process.  Not only is it important to get the right people involved in the design, but you must also pay attention to what is needed throughout the organization for the design to have legs.

• Do you have an executive team that champions human-centered design?
• Is your culture one that supports creativity?
• Does your culture support failure?
• Do you have talent in place to support the solution?
• Do you have competing forces that will derail the solution?
• Do you have a communication plan in place for the solution?

These are just a few of the questions we must ask ourselves when working on a human-centered design solution. Just as Mr. Earl discussed in his article how the need for talent within the healthcare industry must evolve to match the move to a more patient-centric industry, we must take a holistic view of the solution and its impact to insure the on-going success of it.  We are not designing for design sake.  We must design for long-term, sustainable impact.