In the past decades, there has been a transition from an inside-out focus on product-orientation and optimisation to an outside-in approach; centred on understanding why customers make use of a particular solution and aimed at serving them the best way possible. That is why for organisations, service design has grown in importance and has become a crucial capability to stay relevant in this service- and experience-dominant economy.

Service design is all about the design of these services, inherently looking at the customer's experience, and enabling organisations to deliver. By combining the service's frontstage and backstage, service design offers a holistic view of the organisation's interactions and their unique contexts, processes, systems, metrics, people, and tools involved. This process ensures cohesiveness and enables engagement with the organisation over time. Hence, service design increases the capacity to improve not only service experiences but also organisational design.

This self-paced course focuses on services as ecosystems for value generation in which value is co-created by all actors and stakeholders involved, not only customer-facing staff and customers but also other organisations who serve the customer as well. The course takes a systems approach to the design of services, looking at the relationships between individual elements and at the service as a whole. To help you gain this all-encompassing perspective, fields like social science, organisational design/design operations and business design are included in different lessons throughout the course.

You will combine theory with practice during the course, including exercises and a real-world case.

You will follow a series of lessons bundled in 8 chapters. Study the content, watch the videos, and do the exercises at your own pace. Simultaneously, work on a unique brief set by a tech-forward, sustainability-driven company presenting a real-world challenge to solve. Our team will monitor your progress, support you when needed, and offer expert feedback on your exercises. All course material, lessons, exercises, tools, etc., will remain available to you for a total of 12 weeks. In total, the course consists of approximately 60 to 70 hours of material. 

This course is tailored for decision-makers, entrepreneurs, and business owners in service industries seeking to understand how service design can add value to their organisations. It’s also for creative professionals, such as UX designers, product designers, and design researchers, looking to transition into service design, as well as brand/marketing/communication managers, program managers, and senior business designers aiming to expand their toolbox with emerging design methods. Additionally, it’s designed for engineers, consultants, and agile/lean experts who want to explore new approaches to innovation and gain a holistic understanding of product and service development. 

If you are a professional aspiring to lead innovative, human-centred service design projects and looking to enhance your competencies in addressing future challenges and navigating uncertainty, this course is for you.