Lean Service Design

UX Lisbon 2018 Masterclass | May 22, 2018

Jess McMullin is a Canadian-based management

Jess McMullin consultant who uses human-centred design and
Principal, Situ Strategy innovation to tackle the most valuable problems his clients
face—from new kinds of government ID to new business
jess@situ.org models for social income assistance. Working in digital
twitter.com/jessmcmullin and UX since 1996, today he trains, coaches, and consults
with leaders and teams to grow their own internal
+1.780.709.9396 capability and culture for tackling complex challenges.

Lean Service Design Workshop. Worksheets. Copyright © 2010-2018 Jess McMullin. All rights reserved. hello@situ.org Situ.
Lean Service Design: Codiscover a Quick System Snapshot
Codesign for Codiscovery
When you have limited time for field-
work, prototype the system to
discover the system. Ideally this will
be in a workshop with frontline staff
and others involved with daily service
delivery.
While we often refer to prototyping
together as codesign, at early stages
of a project this is as much about
codiscovery, shared understanding,
and helping teams describe details
conversation alone will not capture.
Use quick, low fidelity tools to work
together to capture the key elements
of a system. Options include table top
prototypes, sketches, and improv.
Key elements to capture:
# Who is involved?
» Where are services delivered?
# What are the touchpoints?
# What is the sequence or the path in
the system? What are the major
stages? Major choices or branches?
# When and where are the defining
moments?
# Current state Plus / Deltas
Lean Service Design Workshop. Worksheet 1.1. Copyright © 2010-2018 Jess McMullin. All rights reserved.
HOW: Table Top Prototyping
Table top prototyping provides a
shortcut for visual thinking. By using
preprinted cards, everyone on a team
can contribute right away.
Creating a concrete, physical, and
spatial model externalizes the
work—instead of our understanding
being just in each person’s head, it’s
visible, shared, and co-owned.
When you create your model:
# Think about the areas or spaces
where services are delivered.
# Work through building these spaces
with people, touchpoints,
environments, and the connections
between them.
# Work in parallel—build more than
you talk. You don’t need to discuss
every card that you place on the
table.
TIPS
# Use the stands to place cards
vertically.
# Label your cards as you go
# Use post-it arrows to show a core
path through your model.
# If you need a shape that isn’t in the
set, draw it on an index card yourself.
EXERCISE: Create a current state, high level prototype
1. Using the table top prototyping kit provided, work as a team to
model a hotel experience, from arrival to check out. Include separate
areas for the hotel lobby, rooms, conference areas, and amenities (like
bars, restaurants, business centres, and fitness facilities). TIP Decide
on overall areas and then work solo or in pairs to build out details and
structure in those specific areas rather than discussing every card as
a whole group. Work in parallel. Build more than you talk.
2. Share your model with a partner table, then switch.
3. Triage the model by placing green dots for positives, and yellow
dots for areas that could be changed. Discuss these Plus / Deltas.
NOTES
MATERIALS
Table Top Prototyping Cards
Table Top Prototyping Stands (from gamecrafter.com)
Blank index cards
Sharpies or other fine-tip marker
Small removable labels
Post-It Arrows
Removable color coding labels
Situ.
(green / yellow)
hello@situ.org
Lean Service Design: Journey Stages and Jobs-To-Be-Done
Sequence the Journey...
Journeys take place over time, can be
non-linear, and vary between each
indivdual’s experience. Mapping the
journey creates a touchstone that is
useful for teams to design better
services, especially across silos.
Our focus at this point is on the
overall rhythm and stages of the
journey. Looking at your prototype,
what is the overall structure? These
stages or major steps will often follow
the path of arrows that you outlined in
your table top prototype.
Jobs can be nested--there are overall
desired outcomes for e.g. a hotel stay
(these are core jobs). And there are
also desired outcomes for specific
elements of the experience (or
consumption jobs) such as checking
in. As well as these functional jobs,
there are social and emotional jobs
(such as coming to a conference for
networking, or using the quarter-inch
hole to hang art to impress your
friends so you feel more accepted
and respected).
Jobs are verbs, and we can capture
jobs as desired outcome statements.
EXERCISE: Journey Cards & Job Cards
1. Use horizontal large blank index cards to identify different sections
of the customer journey. What are the major stages of the journey or
experience? What is a common sequence for those stages?
If available, use an extra thick marker to title your cards. Stand these
cards in your model to mark the stages.
2. Use vertical small blank index cards, write one or more desired
outcome statements for each major stage of the journey. Focus on
functional jobs first, though you may also add emotional or social jobs
later. Add these to your table top prototype using the card stands.
NOTES

...Then Identify Jobs-to-Be-Done Verb: What is the process or action?

Jobs-to-Be-Done is a theory and a
mindset that identifies the user’s
desired outcomes or goals.
“People don't want to buy a quarter-
inch drill, they want a quarter-inch
hole” - Theodore Leavitt c. 1960
One way of thinking about these jobs
are immediate results vs. end results.
Note the jobs are not tasks. They are
the goals, motivation, or desired
outcome users hope to realize from
Object: What is acted on?
Context: Who / Where / when?
Functional Goal(s): Direction [e.g.
Maximize/Minimize] + [measure of
customer value]
VERB OBJECT CONTEXT
Check in to the hotel as soon as I
arrive so that I
- maximize my time with clients MATERIALS
- minimize time storing luggage Large and Small Blank index cards
DIRECTION VALUE Bases to stand cards with
Sharpies or other fine-tip marker
Many thanks to Mike Boysen at Strategyn and
Jim Kalbach at Mural for their generous time in Optional: Thick chisel tip marker
conversations about jobs-to-be-done. However, any errors

Situ.
completing a task. Jobs answer Why? in JTBD descriptions are all due to my own limits.

Lean Service Design Workshop. Worksheet 2.1. Copyright © 2010-2018 Jess McMullin. All rights reserved. hello@situ.org
Lean Service Design: Lean Service Maps & The Universal Journey
Journey Maps, Lean Service Maps,
& The Universal Journey
Journey maps diagram someone’s
experience over time. A shared
understanding of the customer
journey provides a touchstone that
allows different parts of the business
(or even muiltiple stakholders) to
collaborate without full consensus.
You can create a lean service map by
adding new layers for prototyping,
JTBD, hypotheses, and measures
onto the basic journey swimlanes.
Mapping Tips
Maps work best to start with simple
rows and columns on paper. Columns
are stages in a journey, while rows or
swimlanes reveal different layers of
the experience. From working on
paper, teams can transcribe to a
spreadsheet, validate and refine the
map, and then create a more visual
diagram.
Lean Service Maps have 4 key layers:
Action, Empathy, Solution, and Logic.
Each of these layers may have
multiple swimlanes.
EXERCISE: Mapping Stages, Jobs, Tasks, and Emotions.
1. Post your large paper sheet on the wall. Transfer your journey
stages as headings onto the sheet. Use a glue stick or tape.
2. Place your Jobs Cards in a row underneath each respective stage.
2. Use sticky notes to brainstorm specific tasks that support getting
those jobs done. Place these in the next row. Add new jobs if there is
a clear missing desired outcome.
4. Place emoji stickers along the journey to describe highs and lows.
How is someone feeling throughout the experience?
NOTES

Maps can start with the universal
journey:
# Before
» Trigger: something starts a need for a
service
# Service Discovery & Matching to
find an appropriate service
# Begin - how a service starts
# Service Delivery Interactions during
the service (often multiple stages)
# Defining Moments (highs/lows,
make or break interactions)
# Outcomes and Resolution - results
throughout and concluding the
service
The action layer shows what the user
does and how they do it (what tasks they
have, and the channels and touchpoints
they use).
The empathy layer shows thoughts,
feelings, questions, and emotions. It may
have research quotes, graphs showing
stress or positive/negative experience,
or icons showing emotions. MATERIALS
Large Sheet of Paper (1m x 2 or 3m. Longer journey = longer paper)
The logic layer adds metrics, key
Sticky Notes in Different Colours
performance indicators, quantitiative
Sharpies or other fine tip marker
data, hypotheses, and outcomes such as
Tape, putty, or glue stick for placing cards
jobs-to-be-done.
(3M or Scotch Restickable Adhesive recommended)
Emoji stickers
The solution layer shows sketches,
Optional: Grid tape for creating swimlanes

Situ.
prototypes, photos, or other captures of
# After possible solutions.
Lean Service Design Workshop. Worksheet 2.2. Copyright © 2010-2018 Jess McMullin. All rights reserved. hello@situ.org
Lean Service Design: The Other MVP: Most Valuable Problems
Finding Opportunities in Journeys:
Most Valuable Problems
Looking across the journey helps you
have an overall systems-level view of
the opportunities for the organization.
These opportunities may also show
up as problems, challenges, or
puzzles.
When given a problem or puzzle to
solve, ask yourself “is this the most
valuable place we could invest our
time? Or is there a better problem to
solve right now?”
Look for the most valuable problems
as you prioritize your efforts. Don’t
work on something trivial if you can
solve better problems.
Elements of valuable
problems
# They are important— frequent
enough, risky enough, or valued
enough to gain attention from
customers, users, citizens, clients.
» They are not well served yet by current
solutions. Satisfaction is lower.
# Save feasibility questions for when
you explore & validate solutions.
Lean Service Design Workshop. Worksheet 2.3. Copyright © 2010-2018 Jess McMullin. All rights reserved.
HOW: Dot Voting
Importance x Fulfillment
Dot voting is a way to quickly get a
sense of group sentiment or
priorities.
Give everyone the same number of
dots (though is some situations I give
senior executives more dots).
Start by working in silence--this is
about what you think, not what other
people think (yet).
Use all your dots. You may use more
than one dot at a time if something
stands out to you--use two or even
three dots.
This is a quick way to scan a group’s
focus. However, it is a shortcut rather
than a precise measure. For critical
decisions consider other tools.
TIP: Work quickly. Dot voting is
subject to social bias, since everyone
can see where other people put their
dots. Working quickly helps people
leave their inner critic behind and to
pay less attention to their peers and
more to trusting their own
judgement.
EXERCISE
1. Dot vote on the other MVPs. Work solo, and in silence. You’ll get a
chance to discuss soon...right now, just work as quickly as possible.
2. Use blue dots to vote on the most important Jobs. You can use more
than one dot if you think a Job is particularly important.
3. Next use red dotes to vote on the Jobs that are best served, most
fulfilled, or satisfied. These outcomes are consistently delivered by the
service. More dots=a better job of meeting customer needs.
4. Discuss as a group. Identify Important Jobs (lots of blue dots) that
are not well served (few red dots). Use a Post-It arrow to flag the top 3
Most Valuable Problems.
NOTES
MATERIALS
Overall customer journey
List of JTBD Desired Outcome Statements
Colour coding dots (blue and red).
NOTE: Some JTBD weighting algorithms count Importance at a higher
weight than Fulfillment or Satisfaction. Consider using twice the
number of Importance dots vs. Fulfillment dots.
Situ.
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Lean Service Design: Service Sketchboarding
Shifting to Solutions
Sketching offers a simple, rapid way
to shift from insights to solutions.
Skechboarding is a collaborative
sketching technique adding many
design options onto one very large
sheet of paper. You can build a
sketchboard on its own large sheet of
paper, or jumpstart the process by
adding sketches directly to your
journey map. Sketch and place pos-
sible solutions in each journey
stage–first as thumbnail sketches
and then zoom in to more detailed
screens or moments.
HOW: Service Sketchboard
Look across your journey map,
especially at the most valuable
problems—where are the stages,
tasks, or situations that currently have
the most potential to improve?
Use a small index card and sketch 1
or more thumbnail solutions for each
stage of your journey, focusing on
high potential areas. For longer
sessions you may use a thumbnail
sheet to create multiple sketches all
together instead of individual cards.
Lean Service Design Workshop. Worksheet 3.1. Copyright © 2010-2018 Jess McMullin. All rights reserved.
Sketchboarding for services includes EXERCISE
drawing solutions across touchpoints 1. Working individually, sketch thumbnails for solving different
and channels. You may need multiple challenges across the journey. Aim for 1 or more per journey stage.
cards or panels to capture your Post them on your journey map.
intended solution, but aim for volume 2. Review as a team.
rather than detail at this point. 3. Zoom in and sketch a single more detailed version of one of your
most promising solution.
Sketching touchpoint interactions
Your sketches may be screens, NOTES
conversations between a customer
and staff, voice interactions, or other
touchpoints. If your project scope is
focused on specific channels, focus
on those. You may create specific
channel swimlanes in your map, or
tag solutions with channel icons.
Review as a group. Then sketch more
detailed, zoomed in versions of of the
most promising directions, on a large
index card.
Because the sketchboard is on a
large sheet of paper you can roll it up
to move to different meetings. MATERIALS
Looking at the sketchboard provides Sharpie
an immediate connection between Thumbnail sheet or small index cards
needs, opportunities, and solutions Detailed sketch sheet or large index cards
for the whole team—designers, Glue stick, drafting dots, or tape.
frontline staff, production, and
leadership. Sketchboarding was created by Brandon Schauer
and Leah Buley at Adaptive Path.
Situ.
hello@situ.org
Lean Service Design: Bodystorming
Using Improv to Visualize Services
Table top prototypes, mapping, JTBD,
and sketching all give you a sense of
how a service will work. You gain
additional understanding when you
move up to the human scale. Walking
through specific service scenarios
and eventually the whole service with
other people lets you see things that
you can’t see working with other
prototyping tools.
Principles of Improv
from Dan Goldstein, How to Improvise
#Yes, and…
#Don’t deny, work with shared reality
#Add History & Context
If this is true, what else is true?
#But keep it tight. Not a monologue.
#1-2 sentences and pass the baton.
More
http://www.dangoldstein.com/howtoimprovise.html
HOW: Prototype with Improv
Gather three to six members of the
project team who are ready to think
on their feet. If possible, identify a few
users who can play along.
Bring the project team to the user’s
environment.
Lean Service Design Workshop. Worksheet 3.3. Copyright © 2010-2018 Jess McMullin. All rights reserved.
If that’s not practical, model the
user’s environment in a conference
room.
Assign each member of the project
team to a role, interface, or “touch-
point” that you have identified in a
journey map. If users are present, ask
them to pretend to accomplish their
goals as usual. Otherwise, assign a
persona to one or two members of
the team who isn’t serving as a touch-
point. If you anticipate discomfort,
assign roles in advance and start with
a basic script.
Use props (including sketches from
the sketchboard) to role play how
users accomplish their goals.
“Speak the interface” to one another.
For example, one of the touchpoints
might say “Submit all of your required
forms,” and the user might respond
“Arg! I don’t know what forms are
required!”
Review the exercise as a team and
document the opportunities and
challenges that this exercise reveals.
from 18F Method Cards: Bodystorming
methods.18f.gov/discover/bodystorming/
EXERCISE
1. Decide on a service scenario from your journey to bodystorm.
2. Work as a group to assign roles, including both people and then
other touchpoints.
3. Improvise your scenario, keeping improv principles in mind. Yes,
and...!
4. Perform your bodystorm sketch for another group. Switch. Give
feedback and ask clarifying questions when your team is the
audience.
NOTES
MATERIALS
Conference room or actual service delivery space
Optional: materials to make props
Optional: materials to model the environment
(e.g. chairs, desks, cardboard boxes)
Optional: video camera (advanced teams only,
filming can make people uncomfortable)
Optional: fake moustaches.
Situ.
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Service Hypothesis Set: Hypothesis for the overall service, and key touchpoints

Service Experience Hypothesis Touchpoint Hypotheses

For people in this situation For this service stage

Who + When? This touchpoint interaction

This overall service Supports this job-to-be-done

What service Measured in this way

are you designing?
Will make this difference in their experience

Customer Outcomes and Touchpoint Hypotheses

Jobs-to-Be-Done impact
For this service stage
And create these results for our business

Business Outcomes This touchpoint interaction

Supports this job-to-be-done

Measured or Observed in this way
Measured in this way
Quant or Qual Data, KPIs?

Lean Service Design Workshop. Worksheet 3.3. Copyright © 2010-2018 Jess McMullin. All rights reserved. hello@situ.org Situ.
Lean Service Design: Build, Measure, Learn, the Measure Edition
Measurement and Continuous
Improvement
Measuring the experience provides
you with the feedback to improve
your MVS. The build-measure-learn
cycle keeps you on track as you
develop, launch, and then deliver
your service on an ongoing basis.
As you sketch, rehearse, and model
new services consider how you will
measure their success.
Key measures to consider
Efficiency & Productivity metrics:
time / people / money required to
deliver the service.
Effectiveness metrics: JTBD,
resolution. Satisfaction scores for
both customes and employees.
Number of times service accessed
before resolution.
Service recovery pass/fail, recovery
times, recovery satisfaction.
Business metrics--connection to
revenue, market share, etc. See Dave
Maclure’s AARRR Aquisition, Activation,
Retention, Referall, and Revenue Statup
Metrics for Pirates framework, via Lean UX.
Lean Service Design Workshop. Worksheet 4.1. Copyright © 2010-2018 Jess McMullin. All rights reserved.
HOW: Measurement Mapping EXERCISE
1. Look across your map. Brainstorm 1 measure for each stage of the
By building measures into the logic journey. Add mesures in their own row below everything else.
layer of you map you can see where it 2. Read other people’s measures
will be easy to measure and where 3. Discuss measures as a group. Which ones are easy to get? Which
you might need to invest in data ones are harder?
instrumentation and collection.
Considering measurement from the
beginning of your work lets you build NOTES
your service interactions so that they
are easier to monitor and provide
more frequent feedback.
Measurement mapping can unpack
many elements beyond just the
metrics or key performance
indicators (KPIs). Who’s experience is
being measured? What data are
collected? How? How often? What
business goals are supported? What
are predictive measures or KPIs? Can
measures be used for forecasts and
planning? Which measures are the
current priority for managing
objectives and key results? MATERIALS
Sharpies
However, given the size of our paper Sticky notes
and our time together, we’ll focus on Map of major journey stages with action, empathy, solution layers
simply thinking about simple Any available documents, dashboards, reports, etc. on measures.
measures.
Measurement mapping was created by Smriti
Shakdher and Meg Whetung in the
Situ.
Government of British Columbia
GDX Service Design Team.
hello@situ.org
Acknowledgements and Resources
Thank you!
Many thanks to Jeff Gothelf, who suggested we should look
together at what agile service design means. His interest and
encouragement sparked this workshop, and it is better from the
conversations and insights Jeff has shared over the past year and
half. Because of Jeff, I started recognizing, collecting, and
documenting lean service design practices inmy own work and in
the community.
Thanks to the folks at the IA Summit, Adaptive Path and Capital
One for giving me the opportunity to develop and present many of
these ideas for the first time in their events. Thanks also to other
events like UX Lisbon for hosting me and helping share these
ideas.
Thanks to Lou Rosenfeld, a long time mentor and friend who I am
grateful to work with as a Rosenfeld Media Expert. The
community Rosenfeld Media fosters makes me a better
practitioner—more mature, and more effective.
Thanks to the Hitachi Sevice Design team who created business
origami, the predecessor to my current table top protokit.
Thanks again to Mike Boysen of Strategyn and Jim Kalbach of
Mural for their time and mentoring on Jobs-to-Be-Done.
And thanks to my clients, who give me the opportunity to put
these ideas into practice to help design better services and
transform the organizations that deliver them.
Lean Service Design Workshop. Worksheet 4.1. Copyright © 2010-2018 Jess McMullin. All rights reserved.
Resources
Gothelf, Jeff. Lean UX: Applying lean principles to improve user
experience. " O'Reilly Media, Inc.", 2013.
Gothelf, Jeff, and Josh Seiden. Sense and Respond: How
Successful Organizations Listen to Customers and Create New
Products Continuously. Harvard Business Review Press, 2017.
Ries, Eric. The lean startup: How today's entrepreneurs use
continuous innovation to create radically successful businesses.
Crown Books, 2011.
Christensen, Clayton M., et al. Competing against luck: The story
of innovation and customer choice. Harper Business, 2016.
Ulwick, Anthony W. Jobs to be done: theory to practice. Idea Bite
Press, 2016.
Polaine, Andy, Lavrans Løvlie, and Ben Reason. Service Design:
From Insight to Inspiration. Rosenfeld Media, 2013.
Kalbach, James. Mapping experiences: A complete guide to
creating value through journeys, blueprints, and diagrams. "
O'Reilly Media, Inc.", 2016.
Risdon, Chris and Quattlebaum, Patrick. Orchestrating
Experiences: Collaborative Design for Complexity. Rosenfeld
Media, 2018.
hello@situ.org Situ.
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NOTES

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