We are back from DOERS Service Design Conference in Budapest. Good to hear the stories of practitioners from the industry, see how they work and what is service design market in different countries. No fairy tales, no myths, just real stories.
More than 500 designers were present at the event, covering a total of 20+ countries – just for one day!
As always, we were happy to share and learn from practitioners from so many different sectors, spanning #banking, #telecommunications and #publicservices. We talked about service design and #governments (with the wonderful story of over 3000 designers working in and for the UK government), as well as implementation, transforming company culture and ultimately, what the scope of design thinking is.
Once again, we talked a lot on how to weave design thinking into organizations. Even though it’s been around for a while now, there are still doubts and misconceptions on what design thinking really is. Many speakers told us how it took a small bite – a project, or a workshop – before clients felt confident enough to say, “Hey! This looks interesting! What else can we do with it?” Sometimes, it’s actually even better not to present it as ‘design thinking’!
It’s easy to see why – in the end, design thinking is all about #mindset, and that takes a while to change. Some tips from the speakers include:
- Prove that design thinking is worth it. In the end, you have to deliver something of value.
- Find your allies. Build a #community of interested people, both inside and outside the company. Take time to train your colleagues, but also to take part in conferences and talks. It’s more than just growing the design maturity of your company – it helps you not to give up!
- Fix the basics first. When you build a house, you focus on the house, not on the tools used to built it. Similarly, the point isn’t design thinking – it’s just a tool. The point is the house, the culture and mindsets of the people inside the #company