We, designers, are increasingly called to address transformational challenges for which we have little academic or practical training. Most service design projects create processes for an organisation’s offer to customers through service delivery, through multiple channels, interactions and technological systems. Systemic design expands the context for design, engaging multiple organisations and stakeholders using systems methods, enabling service systems to be designed and defined across multiple levels and scales.

Do services 'scale' to systems level, or are services contained within systems and other services? Are services and systems different levels of interaction? Why are there meaningful varieties in design when we cross boundaries from service to system?

Systemic design has developed as a discipline through research and continuous practice innovation for about a decade. In service design, we often discover challenges that interact with larger systems, often seen as service infrastructure. When organisational challenges overlap the boundaries of complex systems, including public services, infrastructures, policies and natural ecosystems, the challenge space for design shifts from complicated to complex and user-centred design methods fail to match the required complexity.

Peter Jones will share his view on systems as highly interconnected, social and technological assemblages that function as a whole – not as delivery processes, but often containing services that provide direct value. You will get introduced to specific tools that enable service and strategic designers to facilitate stakeholders in effective co-creation for complex systems.

Although self-standing, this talk provides a prelude to the workshop by Kristel Van Ael, scheduled for the Service Design Days 2021, in which you will fully dive into and practice some of the tools Peter discusses. Between the two sessions we aim for you to be able to start on mapping systems and human behaviours, learn about systemic design, build on knowledge and experience from inclusive contributions across many system stakeholders, and identify risks and potentials from a service’s interaction in a system.

The talk will happen live via Zoom.