This document summarizes the findings of a qualitative research study into the process of transitioning from service concepts to implementation. The study involved interviews with people working in service development in Norway. Key findings include: the stakeholders involved in each phase and their roles; the iterative nature of the service design process; the methods and tools used in each phase; how results are tested and evaluated; and challenges around communication and ensuring mutual understanding between parties. The document concludes with suggestions for further research.

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Eunji Lee
PhD research fellow
SINTEF ICT
Norway
Service Design Challenge: Transi?oning From
Concept to Implementa?on

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Service design is an itera?ve process
[S?ckdorn, M. & Schneider, J., 2010]

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• Explora?on phase - making a decision on the need of a new service
and what is going to be developed
• Crea?on phase - crea?ng images for the new service to ar?culate the
goals and objec?ves for the development
• Reflec?on phase - specifying how the implementa?on of the new
service shall be done
• Implementa?on phase - implemen?ng the new service by following
the specifica?on
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Main events in the four phases

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• Service concept: a detailed descrip?on of what is to be done for the
customer and how this is to be achieved (Edvardsson and Olsson,
1996; Goldstein et al., 2002).
• ‘service design leadership’ > ‘service design management’
(how services are designed) (how services are specified and implemented)
“How do the transi6ons from service concepts through specifica6on to
implementa6on occur in service development projects?”
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Service concepts – specifica?on - implementa?on

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• Data collec?on
• Methodology: a mul?ple case study
• Method: semi-structured interviews
• Par?cipants: people working in service development in Norway
• Period: October-December 2013
• Data analysis
• Verba?m transcrip?on
• Coding and analysing transcrip?on using NVivo10
• Thema?c coding to fine-tune the analysis
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A qualita?ve research approach

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Interview
par6cipant
iden6fier
Organisa6on
type
Number of
employees
Roles of the
interviewees
Number of service
development a year
Providing service
type
P1
Public
organisa?on
900
Business developer/
Senior advisor
150 (the whole
organisa?on)
Tax administra?on
service
P2 Private company 190 Product owner 2-3 E-health services
P3 Private company 900 Business developer 3 Electricity service
P4 Private company 350 Product chief 2 eMarket service
P5
Public
educa?onal
ins?tu?on
120
Professor and
responsible for
service design
4
P6
Private design
agency
45
Service designer 1 per 0.5 year
P7 Service designer N/A
P8 Studio manager 1-2
P9 Project manager 2-3
P10
Private service
design agency
8
Service designer/
Managing director
20-30 (the whole
company)
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Background informa?on of the informants

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Events
Involvement Decision making Image crea?ng
Specifying
service
Implemen?ng
service
Service
development team O O O O
(External) Service
designer O O
End user O O O
Service worker O O O
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Finding 1 - Stakeholders: Who are involved in service
development projects, and what they do?
Stakeholders and their involvement areas in service development

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• Making decision: Collec?ng ideas → Anchoring decisions inside service organisa?ons
• Crea6ng image: Crea?ng and presen?ng images in the form of drawings/sketches/
models with text in mee?ngs.
• Specifying service: Genera?ng and verifying ideas based on the needs → Tes?ng the
ideas before developing the service
• Implemen6ng service: A decision on the implementa?on starts formally or in an
emergent manner
• Following up changes:
• Service organisa?on: Quality assurance-documenta?on-applying-measuring the
effects of the changes
• Design agencies: Set some ?me to follow up the services aner implementa?on
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Finding 2 - Process: How the service development
processes look like?

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• Making decision: Visualisa?on tools (e.g., Ms PowerPoint) and
documenta?on tools (e.g., Ms Word)
• Crea6ng image: Process modelling methods (e.g., storyboards, flowchart,
customer/user journey maps, and service blueprints), text-based
requirement specifica?on methods (e.g., scenario), and sketch.
• Specifying service: Specific requirements on how the implementa?on of a
new or changed service should be documented (e.g. Mandate and Ms
SharePoint template)
• → A need to have a common framework, methods and tools for beper
documenta?on for developers
• Implemen6ng service: Visualisa?on of rou?nes about the service
development/improvement.
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Finding 3 - Methods and tools: What kinds of methods or
tools are used in service development projects?

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• Making decision: The end users and service workers tested or evaluated
ideas of a new or improved service based on needs and feasibility through
user test, mee?ng, workshop, etc.
• Crea6ng image: The service organisa?ons or end users tested or evaluated
the created images (concepts, stories, scenarios, sketches, images or actual
designs) via user test, interview, observa?on, workshop or mee?ngs.
Specifying service: The end users tested or evaluated the services'
specifica?ons.
• Implemen6ng service: Focus groups tested or evaluated prototypes or
demos through user (usability) test . Small services are some?mes released
first and the effects are measured later.
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Finding 4 - Tests and evalua?ons: How the results from
each phase are tested or evaluated?

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Finding 5 - Communica?on: How people communicate
each other in service development projects?
Communicate mainly via mee?ngs or workshops using visualisa?on tools
Ensuring the communica6on and mutual understanding
Business developer: “I said something and then the receiver has believed that he/she has
understood it in his/her own way, but we have actually not understood each other at all.”
Service designer: “Designers some?mes see the implemented service is terrible
because it seems like the developers didn’t understand.”

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• Service designers
• No in-house service designer in the service organisa?ons
• Non-designers in service organisa?ons conduct much of service design and
development (Tether, 2008)
• Service designers focus on designing service concepts and are not involved when
implemen?ng service (Goldstein et al., 2002; Blomkvist, 2010)
• End users
• Test or evaluate ideas on new or improved services, created images for future
services, and prototypes and/or pilot services
• Service workers
• normally involved in goal approvals and feasibility checking
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Key players in service design and development

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• Needs for beper processes, methods, tools, skills, exper?se, and
competences in decision-making, image-crea?on and specifica?on
for new or improved services
• A big communica?on gap between service concepts and
implementa?on especially inside the service organisa?ons
• The service organisa?ons onen face problems in
communica?ng, understanding and upda?ng people inside.
• The design agencies complained that many things get lost when
specifying and implemen?ng services aner the service concepts
and images are handed over.
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Challenges in service design and development

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• The different ways of thinking
• Solu?on 1: Strengthening service design thinking inside the service organisa?ons
• Educa?ng staff about service design thinking
• Direct communica?on between service designers and developers
• Involving external service designers further to specifica?on and
implementa?on
• Hiring in-house service designers
• Solu?on 2: Having good methods and tools suppor?ng rigorous specifica?on of
services
• Discuss opera?onal and technical feasibility/limita?ons with help of methods and
tools when crea?ng images or specifying service → Reduce the risk of losing ?me
and resources and of redoing all the work
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Bridging the communica?on gap

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• Observa?onal studies on how services are actually specified and
implemented inside service organisa?ons aner the future
service image has been created
• Ac?on research studies that examine service designer's further
involvement
• Compara?ve studies that examine the capacity of
expressiveness of different methods or tools for service
specifica?on
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Future research

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hpp://www.visualproject.org/
• This research has been conducted within the VISUAL project (project number 219606),
funded by the Research Council of Norway.
eunji.lee@sintef.no
Ques?ons?
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Thanks for your apen?on!