The Service Innovation Handbook: Action-oriented Creative Thinking Toolkit for Service Organizations

by Lucy Kimbell

This is an action-oriented book for managers and entrepreneurs who want new ways to tackle the issues they face in terms of developing and delivering services. The book focuses on service organizations, but has a broad interpretation of what services are. This is because these days, even jet engines and cars are bundled into services that create value by bringing people and resources together in different ways. The central argument is that managers and entrepreneurs designing service offerings will benefit from using approaches and methods from design and the arts. A very strong, more practical follow-up title to BIS Publishers's successful This is Service Design Thinking .

Genres: Design, Business, Nonfiction

240 pages, Paperback

First published September 9, 2014

Reviews

[Michael Cabus]

Service design deserves this book. Too many books on service design lack rigour and creativity, in part because the authors seem happy enough to just deal in what I’ll call navel gaze writing: a bare surface of content written maybe for self promotion. I hesitate because that can’t really be it. Perhaps it’s the need to justify the field itself.

For me, and many other designers, justification seems beside the point. We all saw the inevitable conclusion that UX design would morph into thinking about design across customer touchpoints, as the diversity of digital interaction and systems (technical and human) necessitated thinking beyond silos of interaction.

Given this context there is no better working book I’ve found that gives the reader both challenging and inspiring concepts around service design, and practical tools to get started, with the possible exception of Mapping customer experiences. This book isn’t afraid to challenge the reader and talk about larger concepts. For a business analyst or UX designer this is inspiring stuff. I’ll refer to this book in future for ideas and methods. It’s a true gift to the field in such need of serious, creative and interesting work.

[Michel Jansen]

Good mix of theoretical frameworks and practical methods. The book manages to give a pretty complete view on creating innovative services, building on concepts like lean startup, business model & value proposition generation etc. (though sometimes using slightly different terminology). Those expecting a true handbook with prescriptive instructions will be disappointed. It's not that kind of book. For managers and more experienced practitioners or strategists, it offers a solid theoretical base and a refreshing change in perspective on new and existing methods & techniques.

[Barry]

Pretty useful book for those interested in service design practice. The book takes many of the core elements of service design practice (or at least as people thought about it when it was published in 2015) from inception, to generating ideas, to understanding users, prototyping, and creating organisations where design can be effective. Each short chapter starts with introducing a core concept, sharing academic theory and perspectives as a strong knowledge base, followed by case studies where the theory and practice has been applied and ending with some practical tools to use in the field.

It's attempts to bridge theory and practice - and be of use to those who want to 'get on and do' is admirable and in my view largely achieved. The theory is easily accessible and is referenced for those who want to learn more. The case studies are interesting enough (though I did find it curious to view these with the benefit of considering how technology, design and the businesses themselves have changed in the last decade). The tools have enough in them to get people started and to try things. I can see how I will refer to the book in future in terms of my own practice.

It's important to note that the book is relatively short (200 pages) and it's accessibility means it isn't a 'plug and play' book. For instance, this book won't make someone a good designer, or facilitator or user researcher. Some of the theory and practices have had countless books written about them and they are summarised in a page or two, so there is an expectation that the reader will need to learn more. That said, it's accessible enough to get started. It isn't prescriptive and it will help people think differently about designing services that are valuable, sustainable and effective.

[Victor Melgarejo Zurutuza]

Mucha gente habla de Design thinking, pero la importancia de innovación en los servicios se hace imperativa. Aquí una gran guía

[Nello]

Some really good frameworks in here but prolly a bit too theoretical rather than practical to apply in many organisations unless super large corporate?

[mellyana]

A resource book.