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There has been some confusion and a small controversy on Lean Business Process Management vs. Service Design.
I’ve tried to follow it and I thought I’d put some of my reflections on paper. 

What about this customer value?
The first of five principles of Lean as documented by the Lean Enterprise Institute is to ‘Identify Customers and Specify Value & Ensure the process flows smoothly towards the customer.’
So for me, the critique on Lean management that it is not customer oriented, is not correct. Although I have to say that in reality projects often have such a focus on eliminating waste, that this principle is compromised in favor of cost-efficiency.

Delivery anyone?
I’m often surprised how –some !- service designers oversee the reality of an organization, the fact that services need to be delivered.  It think this is a real risk for the Service Design practice, the worst thing can happen is that service concepts end up in a drawer with the reports of strategy consultants, or that we get the we’re get known as the creative, that later hand over to ‘real project managers’.
In the best service design projects, the team designs for both the customer and the service provider, and considers Desirablity Usability Usefulness, but also Distinctive, Effective and EFFICIENT IN DELIVERY.  Realistically, Lean management has more tools and experience for the latter.

Where is that value?
The biggest flaw of Lean management however is that it tends to overlook that a lot of the value is IN the process and value is not just the outcome of the process. Maybe that’s a remainder of the Product Dominant Logic and logistics area from where it originated.
I always remember the words of Prof. Gunnerson: ”On Porters’ Value chain, the customer isn’t even on the diagram.” And I believe it’s there where service designers can make a real difference. Service are co-produced during a series of interactions and not just delivered from one party to another

Mindset & Toolset

Having experienced both Lean management and Service design (the latter more than the former to be clear), I believe it’s difficult to integrate both approaches fully. There is a significant difference in mindset of both.
That said, still it’s worth it to learn tools and methods from both practices. And I don’t agree with people stating, “Lean is Out, Service design is in”.

Especially the Tools for keeping Human centered orientation in the process and Service Dominant logic are really valuable to lean practitioners. Using  the analytical tools and organizational aspects of Lean in service design research and prototyping can prove real value.

Here are the articles that triggered me for this post :

http://wearesnook.com/snook/?p=5295

http://business901.com/blog1/integrating-lean-service-design-and-lean-startup/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BUSINESS901%2FaZwl+%28Business901%29

http://www.nataliehanson.com/2013/02/21/lean-ux-again/

Lately there has been a fierce enthusiasm –may I called it hype? – for the New Way Of Working in corporate environments. Advocates almost crucified Marissa Mayer for new her policy, requiring her employees to work at the Yahoo campus.

In this blog, I’d like to argue pro working in the office. Let me first clear something out right from the start here (to avoid being put in the conservative anti-homework camp). at Kite we have an absolute location independent work policy. We work where we can work best for the given job: at the client site, at home, at the office or in a coffee shop or hotel lobby for that matter. The management doesn’t care and doesn’t even want to know where people work, however the principle is crystal clear: where you can be the best work. So what is unacceptable is that for what whatever reason you work where it is less effective.

From a distance it’s rather funny, It seems a majority has enthusiastically adopted this ‘new’ way of working and is now criticizing the early adopters for any deviation of the approach. Talking about adoption, In 1998 (I was still in University :-) ) I read “two cheers for the virtual office”,  the MIT Sloan management review article spelled out 15 years ago what the advantages, roadblocks and reasons pro and contra are. The same arguments still used. You can’t  but wonder why it has taken so long.

Anyway, back to the title, I was going to argue that working at office doesn’t have to be that bad.

Personally, I love going to the office, it energizes me to work in our environment. Even though I’m rather introverted. I like the buzz, the exchange and the fun. Plenty of people will tell you the same, they are more productive at the office.

If we take that apart:
The exchange of ideas, particularly testing incomplete ideas is absolutely essential, all innovation come from creative combinations
And it’s not only creativity, learning and development also benefits from being together physically. Particularly coaching, this is difficult enough to do under any circumstances, let alone when you rarely see each other.
This has nothing to do with managerial control or lack of trust. If a leader isn’t capable or willing to trust his people, frankly he sucks, and that’s independent of the work policies.

Second is culture and socialization.  Great companies feel like a tribe, or a family if you prefer. It is really hard to be a tribe, have a shared identity and shared habits if you don’t meet each other in person.

Personal contacts & Fun. People having fun, experiencing positive emotions have better ideas, make better decisions and are more productive. PERIOD. There is an enormous amount of evidence of that. And, believe it or not, in the absence of politics and bad leadership, the office can be a great place for fun. 

Evidently the office environment enabling that, having an ‘office with a view’, visually stimulating and attractive and with a well thought off interior. At kite we have plenty of one-to-one meetings walking on the Kaai, you should try it sometime.

So that’s it, I hate losing time in traffic just as anybody else, but I’m convinced that employee happiness is so much more than not having to show up at the office.

Last week, I received a distressed text message from my wife. She wasn’t sure she would make it to join us in Lyon for our holiday. She had an overbooked ticket and it was likely she wouldn’t have a seat on the high speed train. Her journey of this one-way ride Brussels-Lyon with NMBS international, that’s all it takes to demonstrate the 3 key behaviors of a toxic service culture.

Don't inform
She had booked the ticket online directly on the NMBS international website. Nowhere in the booking process there was mentioned the train was full or there were no seats left. After ordering and paying, she received a confirmation mail and the request to pick up the tickets at the station.  When she did, the ticketing agent handed over her tickets.  The ticket stated the coach number, but no seat number. This is fail n°1: He must have known that it was overbooked, but failed to say anything. On the local train towards Brussels she noticed that there was no seat n° and got somewhat worried. So she asked the train conductor. He was friendly and willing to help, confirmed it was an overbooked ticket (that was mentioned at the bottom), but couldn’t do anything except assure her she would be helped at the infodesk at the Brussels station.
Don't know
The next step was standing in line at the infodesk (luckily she is so smart to always leave early), to finally arrive at the front of the line to be told that they could not help her, 'because the ticket was booked online'.  In fact they made things worse  by stating it was the first day of the Easter Holiday and all trains were jam-packed.
Can it really be possible that an infodesk is unable to verify if any seats have become available? It looked like it. The person behind the desk didn’t have the tools or the authority to do or didn’t consider it to be part of his job.
She had to ask the train conductor of the high speed train, he would assign her an empty seat.

Don't care
The star performer was this train conducter. Here’s the conversation after she politely raised that question: 
“You'll have to seek a seat for yourself. Good luck, because we’re full”
”But what if there isn’t any?”
“You’ll have to stand up in the luggage room”
“How’s that possible?”
“You have an overbooked ticket. You know that, there’s no seat number on it.”
“Nobody told me”
“You can see it, You”ll have to look for yourself”.
- And now comes the grand apotheosis - 

“How it was possible that I pay for a full fare ticket, don’t get any help and have to stand up? “
“That's your problem” and he walks away, leaving my wife flabbergasted. 

There you have it.  Don’t inform, don’t know, don’t care, 3 signs the company is not interested in his customer.

This is the third post in a series on behavior change in organizations, excerpted from the forthcoming kite workbook on change. In an earlier  one we've introduced the wagon.

Today we are taking this a step further from analysis towards actions.

Looking our organization, we use two dimensions place people in the right categorize. The first dimension is the perceived effect the change will have on them. Will it be positive, negative or indifferent/neutral? The second is their level of activity. Are they rather passive or are actively taking actions towards the change? 

We now have 5 types each with their specific motives and position. Based on that, there are specific tactics for you to follow.

Engines
Their slogan is "Finally, they have seen the light. What have they been waiting for?"
Usually engines already are trying to initiate the change, sometimes even up to a certain level of frustration or disappointment for the slow corporate adoption and bureaucracy.

Your assignment is to support them and prevent them of becoming tired. 


The main tactics to do this: Give them resources needed to have impact.

Also reinforce them through recognition and public praising. Preferably not praise recognition is not only for successes, big or small, but also for well-intended failures in the right direction.

You should also learn from engines. They probably have ideas and experience on how to proceed; they are a source of inspiration.

Most importantly, don't forget them; keep communication lines open. You will probably be fighting battles elsewhere, which could make you think that they be all right. Still, they need you.
 

Supporters
These are the ones who like the idea, but are passive. Supporters don't do anything to push it forward. Their slogan is: "I like this"
Your mission will be to mobilize them; invite, talk, trick and nudge them into action.

Anyway to do that is fine, but there are 2 key methods:
1) Use actionable communication. You do not need more convincing evidence or reasons for the change, they already like it.  They need info on what to do , when and how. Point of action communication is particularly useful for that.  
2) Create the platforms where they can contribute; give them the info and simple tools. You give them the opportunity to participate and you benefit from their skills.
They make great people to spread the message (and they probably make a more reliable source than you are).

Bystanders
The third group basically doesn't know how to make sense of it.  Either they don't recognize the dynamics creating the change or they can't figure out what it means to them. Your mission is to help them frame the change in a positive way.

The 3 tactics to follow are: 
First to inform them, letting them participate and using extensive two-way communication this helps them interpret the situation. It may well cause you to spend most time on this group. 

Second using social reinforcement. Watching people changing their behavior can help them learn and copy part of it. Even when they don't really understand the need to. In organizations the behavior of respected leaders is a source of reinforcement, this means helping leaders behave appropriately, is a way to indirectly influence bystanders.

And finally, for this group it is particularly interesting to nudging, adaptations of  the environment and the use of defaults. Using these tactics will acquaint them with the new behaviors, without them having to change their attitudes. This is putting in practice the old adage of K. Weick: "It is much easier to act you way into a new way of think than to think your way in new way of acting."
 

Cynics
Their slogan " I’ll laugh when this fails" says it all. The consequences of the changes are being perceived as negative, so they don't support them, however they avoid actively and openly opposing it. Usually something holds them from fighting it. Your mission is to negotiate with them, to find a way to lower the (perceived) negative effects.
In order to do so you have to try to understand their objections and interests as good as possible. This is only possible if you interact with them and listen as carefully as you can. 

Opposers
The fifth and final group is actively opposing the change; The consequences are so negative that they fight it with the means they have. Their motto is "over my dead body. Your mission is to contain them and limit their impact.
Using power tactics will probably be necessary here.
This is where I believe a lot of change agents go wrong, by trying to fight and convince this group. It's very ineffective and costs loads of energy.

The combined tactics and actions targeted to Engines, Supporters, Bystanders, Cynics and Opposers form an intervention plan for change.
 

Earlier, we've introduced our wagon metaphor for change and next time we will go deeper into specific tactics for each target group. But before doing that, we wanted to share some general principles on changing behaviour in organizations, based on the extensive research in the field and our humble experience.

The probability that people change their behaviour depends on 3 factors 1) the level to which they understand that they must change 2) the level to which they want to change and 3) the level to which they can change, in other words:  MUST*WANT*CAN or Drive*Motivation*Ability. These 3 factors hold the ingredients to make individual, lasting, behavioural change in organizations happen.

Paint a picture that draws attention

Vision is the dominant sense and visual language, metaphors and pictures are important change tools.
Drive is about understanding why the current behaviour no longer is appropriate and that something else is needed. But, past experience shape expectations and these influence our perceptions. Basically this strong cognitive process filters what you see, based on what you expect. Attention has proven to be the key to create new connections in the brain and see new things, even on a biological level.
That is visual language is so important it highlights and adds contrast...and thus draws attention. 

Touch the emotions

Wanting to change is primary an emotional factor. Rationally wanting something is just not enough. You have to tap into emotional sources. In individual coaching I’ve met dozens of managers who know what to do (delegate, make decisions, treat people better…). It’s only when they feel the effect of this behaviour on themselves and others, there is a chance for change.

On that note, personal fear doesn’t work. Many people use the ‘If you don’t do this (change), then … (negative consequence)’. This doesn’t move people, it paralyses.

Grass doesn’t grow by pulling it.

The reality is you can’t change people’s behaviour for them; they have to do it themselves. So the motivational factor needs to be there. You can support it, reinforce, maybe even grow it, but you can’t create it, you'll have to do with whatever is there. In the words of my former psychology Professor: “Grass doesn’t grow by pulling it.”

Don’t waste time Unwanting

‘Unwanting’ something doesn’t work. For a long time people have believed you had to unlearn behaviour before you could change into something else.  Research shows this is not the case, it is much more effective and efficient to just concentrate on doing something else. Which I think is good news.

Don’t count on an epiphany

We could define an epiphany as a situation that provokes such extreme levels of the need and want factors that it overpowers all obstacles for radical change. This type of overwhelming experience is indeed a way to change behaviour, even lives, but… it’s rather rare.
Still, if you look at change programs, organizations severely overvalue the importance of motivation and use so much energy to try to provoke or organize collective epiphany. 

Script actions

The people wanting to be more productive, slimmer, eat healthier and still procrastinate, are out of shape and eat junkfood are countless. Knowing and Wanting to change is essentially needed, but not simply enough.
The fastest way to make sure behaviour is done is to make it very specific and verifiable. We must avoid the possibility to negotiate with ourselves. “Be more commercial” is vague and can’t be measured; but “Call at least 1 old contact everyday” is different. It is much more difficult to rationalize not doing it.

Eat your elephant in pieces

Q: How do you eat an elephant? A: fork by fork. It’s an old and silly joke and still it is very true with regards to change. A lot of people do the equivalent of competing in high jump and distance jump simultaneously.
Focus on changing ONE behaviour to change at a time and sequence the change if it includes more.
Next to the advantage that it actually changes something right away (even if small)! It also has a positive effect on motivation. There’s little that motivates us more than the feeling of success.

Social context

The social environment is very influential in behaviour. Both social pressure and social support tempt us to behave in a specific way.  Think of a known mantra “If you want to become X (slim, creative, fashionable, …) hang around X people”. 

In an organization, this is a very interesting challenge. Who are these people? Are they in or out the dominant coalition (they usually are out!), Do they include the boss/ the organisations’ leadership (is should)?

Social support can also come in the form of training and coaching. It even is often at least as important as the content of the training, communities that have collectively reflected on the change at hand.   

Framing

Personal identity is a powerful force. People don’t understand as long things are framed in their old identity. If being a couch potato is part of who I am, I don’t see the need for change (even if I want to be fit). You need a powerful, new, positive image you can relate to.

Change the environment: barriers and triggers

And last but not least, people unnecessary torture themselves by over-relying on willpower. I for example, I have to admit; I have a bad sweet tooth. Eating health is going well for me, except for the sweets. It is impossible if I’m surrounded by sweets. So I have to make sure I’m not in places where there are a lot of sweets AND I always have a healthy snack lying around.  

We need to remove every possible barrier between the new behaviour and ourselves. I know countless people complaining that certain software is underused. When you then dive in to it, it is practically impossible to use. Looking for absolute lowest threshold on time, location dependency and difficulty to use is much more interesting than all sorts of motivational communications in that case. .
The impact of triggers is powerful. By shaping tools, environments and choices, you can gently guide (trick) yourself (or others) to new behaviour.

Summing up: the ingredients change to behaviour is to start with motivation, adapt the environment to do one small, specific, but significant thing differently, establish a relationship with a group of people accustomed to that behaviour and grow from there to a new definition of your identity.

This is the second post in our series on behaviour change in organizations and an abstract from the forthcoming workbook on behavioural change in organizations by kite.

We are happy to announce Touchpoint Dashboard (http://www.touchpointdashboard.com/) and Kite have entered in an agreement to combine consulting service and tooling to provide more value to companies seeking to improve their customer experience.

We will be able to integrate the creativity & empathy typical for the mapping processes with a tool suitable for business and corporate  environments. Touchpoint dashboard helps us and our clients to better bridge the gap between mapping and gathering insights on the one hand and the necessary improvement projects and measurement. Touchpoint Dashboard is the first web-based SaaS application of its kind available in the marketplace today.

“We are delighted to have the opportunity to partner with kite and extend Touchpoint Dashboard’s services to companies in Belgium,” said Anne Cramer, co-founder of Touchpoint Dashboard.

Kite will be the exclusive partner for the Belgian market.

Have a quick look at the possibilities of Touchpoint Dashboard in the presentation below or contact us for more information.  

One of service designs’ core value is taking into account the whole person and his experience. Advances in neuroscience help us do that by providing new insights on rational, emotional and social life of people.

approach reward - avoid threat
The brain is very complex, but basically two parts are of interest to us now. One is the cortex, also called grey matter, ‘home’ of the rational higher-level reasoning, conscious behaviour and decision-making. The second is the limbic system, home of fast, automatic instinctual reactions. This limbic system is wired to respond to life endangering threats (think sable tooth tigers or snakes) or rewarding factors such as rich food and shelter.  This approach (reward)-avoid (threat) response is the basis of our survival instinct and it provokes (intense) emotions, with the negative being about 3 times stronger than the positive.

In our current day life, acute threats to our physical integrity are very rare, but the mechanism is still in our brain and is activated through interpersonal, social interactions, … such as a service interaction.  

Dr. David Rock summarized in his SCARF model 5 factors that provoke these heavy emotional reactions, both the ‘approach’ and ‘avoid’. This can give us a great framework for examining and designing services and customer experience.

Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness and Fairness

Status is our importance, relative to others. And everybody is non-consciously very sensitive for it. It is one of the reasons why winning feels so good and why it hurts to feel left out or rejected. You can imagine what happened when a Belgian bank divided its clients in 'valuable to the bank' and ‘nonvaluable’ and sent a letter to the latter that they would no longer have access to local branch services.
When feeling inadequate to a task, e.g. by getting unsolicited or oversimplified advice more or less does the same.
Getting public acknowledgement, especially for improving does the positive opposite. That is why the Maitre d’hotel usually says “excellent choice” when you pick a bottle of wine for your company.

Certainty: Recognizing patterns and predictability comforts the brain; it’s its way to be energy-efficient.
As soon as something feels different, you are alerted. A suspicion of someone not telling the truth, not having an idea what will happen or a change of routine in the service provisioning will do exactly that, and cause a (mild) form of anxiety.

Our sense of Autonomy is based on feeling in control of the situation. Very little people like to be dependant, but service interactions have a strong risk for that, think of the last time you needed a licence renewal or hoped you would get a discounted rate, somebody judged you or made a decision without your input.

Giving your customers options and asking for their preference creates a positive effect on their autonomy experience.

We live in a society where people have a large number of interactions, a lot of them with people we don’t know. Our primitive brain helps decide who is in and who is out of our safe tribe; who is a friend and who’s a foe? This is Relatedness, feeling safe with others. By default every stranger is in the ‘outgroup’, that is why a service provider needs to do everything possible create a personal connection. Especially in person-to-person interaction this is important. Handshakes and sharing names can help to connect.

Fairness is basically based on the terms of engagement of an exchange. Changing them unilaterally is considered unfair. Research has shown that a threat response from unfairness is very easily provoked. The slightest hint in the service delivery; a little bit more waiting time, a rule that is applied to the letter, a promise that isn’t kept… they all do that.
Establishing clear expectations is essential and transparency in contracts/documents and communication help to prevent threat reactions.

The Scarf model may seem like a simplification, but for us it has proven to be very useful as a framework to assess experiences and a solid foundation for the design of services, it’s touchpoints and the resulting experience.

After 2 successful service Jams and last year's sustainability Jam, Kite is happy to announce the collaboration with FlandersDC and the city of Antwerp to organize the 2012 Sustainability Jam.

2-4 November we’re on again. During the second Global Sustainability Jam, people interested in a design-based approach to creativity will meet at locations all over the globe. read all about it on antwerpsustainabilityjam.be or the international site globalsustainabilityjam.org

or register here 

On October , 11 Jürgen Tanghe facilitated a Introductory Service Design workshop for the K VIV, The Royal Flemish Society of Engineers. 25 participants enthusiastically applied the service design tools and principles to design a service for a persona provided by Kite. They experienced first hand what human centered, design driven innovation is compared to technology driven innovation.  

Thanks to K VIV for the invite and thanks to the participants for their energy! 

“Who do you want your customers to become?” This question is the core concept and the title of the latest Harvard business School Single (http://hbr.org/product/who-do-you-want-your-customers-to-become/an/11245-KND-ENG) by MIT fellow Michael Schrage (who also wrote an excellent book on prototypin)

The concept reminded me of the story of Kodak, you also might know. Kodak integrated product and services to bring photography from being an expert task done by professionals to everybody, to make everybody photographers.

The author argues that all great innovations have formulated a new answer to the question and uses Google (customers as instant searchers), Starbucks (Coffee connoisseurs), and also Kodak (Photographers) to demonstrate this.
Thinking about it, this goes for some of my favorite startups / new businesses like Checkthis.com (Instant webbuilders) or Storify (storytellers based on social media) and Sonic Angel (Musical talent sponsors) and of revolutionary businesses like Grameen bank (Small business entrepreneurs).

This fascinates me. It is one phrase which for me captures the essence of the future of business and is key to (service) designers and innovators.

Human centered vision
First of all, it is fundamentally Human Centered and it adds an aspirational element to, making it positive and truly humane. It brings organizations back to the essence of their purpose: To create value by bringing something meaningful into the life of its customers (and do that in a profitable way for business organizations).
The author extents this to corporate vision statements. I like the idea of corporate vision based on customer/societal vision, but I wonder what strategists think about that.

Answering this question could bring social innovation closer to traditional businesses. The examples above are about coffee drinkers and storytellers, but image companies trying to make customers ecological travellers, informed voters or happiness guardians.

The Human Capital of the world
Also, It uses Human Capital in a broader sense: From human capital of employees ’owned’ by a company to the human capital of customers owned by the individual and the society as a whole. This is a much more sustainable way of looking at it.

Co-creation of transformation
It brings a new dimension on co-creation too. Becoming somebody new requires doing new things. Which means your job as a company is to facilitate the actions to be taken by the customer. By definition you can facilitate behavior change, but you can’t do it for your customer. Your offering needs to provide the context, deliver the cues or strengthen the ability of your customer for this behavior change.
It also emphases the importance of Von Hippel’s Lead User innovation:  If your customers need / want to transform, there must be other people out there who are already are a (few) step(s) further in their transformation and can show you the way. Find them and you will get innovation ideas for free.

Framework for customer experience
Finally, it provides a framework for customer experience efforts. If you know what you want your customers to become and what they need to do, your mission as a designer of products and services becomes clearer. You need to design an experience that makes this behavior simple, easy, engaging and fun. (There is also an excellent article by Fjord design on this: http://conversations.fjordnet.com/2012/06/29/a-business-case-for-transformative-services )

You probably know the ‘job-to-be-done’ (introduced by Clayton Christensen) as an essential concept for innovation “Who do you want your customers to become?” brings in a transformational perspective that opens a new, promising dimension to, and all through one deceivingly simple question.

What are your thoughts on this?