I participated on 28.5.2020 in a digital event focusing on organizational change and service design. The four-hour-event was hosted by Livework studio, an international service design company, and Delft University of Technology, technological university in Delft, Netherlands.

The event had two keynote presentations. The first keynote speaker was Professor Brian Pentland from Michigan State University, a pioneer in routine dynamics. Second keynote talk about service design aspect was brought by Marzia Arico and Jan Koenders from Livework studio. Rest of the afternoon was spent in round-table discussions and breakout rooms, ending with a open discussion to sum up the day.

In addition to service design, the focus of the event was organizational changes, science of routines and especially the idea of routine dynamics, a branch of research on routines, and the stability and change behind it.

Understanding organizational changes and routines inside an organization is vital for any service designer, especially from the point of view of implementing a new, designed service. Livework studio’s Director of Design Marzia Arico and Senior Design consultant Jan Koenders talked about the common frustration that service designers face.

“51% of service design projects run by Service Design agencies never get implemented.”

– Marzio Arico, Livework studio

“Corporate entertainment”, as Arico called it, is when you’re only generating ideas to entertain organization’s innovation department but never actually implementing them. The lack of impact in their work can be frustrating and demoralizing to service designers.

Understanding organizational change and routines allows service designers to boost the probability of a successful implementation. Arico and Koenders introduced a four-layer-approach to battling implementation problems: capability building, doing, learning and adopting.

Through establishing routines, constant reiterations and feedback and careful training, it is possible for the organization to adopt the new, designed service into their “business as usual”. The presence of routine is vital in the approach, as it makes sure that changes are not just done in paper, but also in practice.

Key take-aways:

• Routines: don’t deliver only frameworks and materials, but also provide thorough coaching
• Collaboration: hands-on collaboration within teams encourages new routines being used with actual customers