And here we go again! We are on POLISHOPA Conference in Bydgoszcz, Poland. 4 days of learning and sharing on most burning topics of Service Design Thinking and most important- practical cases from public and private sector. More updates under #polishopa2019 and on our instagram @artsquarelab as well Piotrek’s @piogawel
As always, the speakers shared a lot from many sectors, from #banking to #healthcare, #insurance, #foodindustry, shopping centers and even debt collection! In this last case, it was interesting to hear how they went beyond simple debt collection to create a whole service to support people unable to paid their debts – an example of how #systemsthinking can change the game!
Some key words we heard a lot were #empathy, #cooperation and #innovation, especially as skills to develop in in-house teams. Many reported companies building their own development and training programs to keep knowledge inside the organization. The biggest challenge is bringing people to cooperate – by building interdisciplinary teams and distributing resources, but also by knowing when to involve specific people in the process. However, it always comes back to making innovation a part of the whole culture, not just the work of one team.
Here are some highlights from the conference:
- Look out for those who already believe in design thinking. Both mBank and Santander have now their own teams and training programs, but everything started from young people who saw a need for change. In Santander’s case, it happened much easier because there was already a general and management restructuring going on. In times of transformation, there are always people on different levels who are open to new solutions and willing to be ambassadors to innovation. The key is to find them. On that note…
- Understand the challenges of transformation. There’s always a moment of panic – the old ways don’t work anymore, but the new ways aren’t working either (yet!). People may end up frustrated, but it’s understandable – and temporary. This is when small experiments can prove the value of design thinking and push employers to give it a bigger chance.
- Think about who your end customer is. But try to make life easier for all sides! For example, speaker Adrian Chernoff from Johnson &Johnson talked about how they designed a holistic solution for diabetic patients, an app to self-monitor their blood sugar levels that syncs with a monitoring system to keep all their health stats in one place – making it easier to share info with all their healthcare providers.