Accredited Service Design Course: Service Design in Practice
Six-month accredited service design course for people working in public services
Do you work in a public service or not-for-profit organisation and strive to bring real change to your organisation and service?
Service Design in Practice is a six-month course for people who have little or no previous experience in service design. It helps you bring service design to your organisation, challenge the way you think and behave, and change how you work for good.
This course is a pathway to Service Design Network Service Design Practitioner Accreditation. It is the only UK-based SDN Accredited Service Design training specifically created for public service and not-for-profit organisations.
Learn through practice and experience by applying new thinking, behaviours and tools to a real-world problem.
You might be fed up with services failing to meet your users’ needs or expectations, and feel unable to find better solutions. Or wasting energy and resources on never-ending costly projects that are built on assumptions and fail to make a difference.
Let’s change that
No one plans a bad service, but designing a good one takes the right approach, skills, methods and people. It needs collaboration and some bold, radical thinking to challenge yourself to look at the underlying problems.
Good services are not just better for the end-user but for everyone involved.
Designed for people working in councils, housing associations, government, charities and other not-for-profits, Service Design in Practice training course gives you the mindset, self-awareness and tools you need to think differently and transform your services for the 21st century.
Join Service Design in Practice
Led by experts in service design, culture change and behavioural psychology, Service Design in Practice training course is based on the Design Council Double Diamond framework.
You’ll be guided through three service design projects while developing self-awareness and insight into influencing and supporting people through complex change.
You’ll learn how to:
frame challenges and question assumptions
research and understand user needs
generate ideas beyond obvious solutions
plan, create and test prototypes cost-effectively
create sustainable change in your organisation’s culture and practice
form effective teams
What we cover
The programme is structured around ten core workshops, plus coaching sessions and reflective practice.
For each of the design projects, we will cover:
Discovering the challenge
Get to the root cause of a problem.
Learn the service design basics, the principles, mindsets and core activities, before focusing on discovering more about a service design challenge you’ll work on. Explore topics including:
discovery - what and why we do it
finding a balance: desirability, feasibility, viability
challenge framing
divergent and convergent thinking
getting to the root cause
recognise and question assumptions
explore from multiple perspectives
empathy mapping
psychological safety in teams
influencing stakeholders
User research
Discover people’s real needs.
Learn a series of effective methods to engage beyond the surface level with users and understand their behaviour better, including:
qualitative and quantitative data
stakeholder mapping
empathy mapping
observation and interviewing for research
assumption testing
goal driven personas
customer journey and systems mapping
using a coaching style of questioning
Creativity and idea generation
Develop ideas to address your challenge.
Practice techniques to think outside the box with fresh insights from your own user research. Generate innovative ideas using creative tools and techniques, including:
synthesis and analysis of research data
pattern recognition and insights
user stories
reframing the challenge using “How might we…” questions
rapid idea generation
idea clustering and idea prioritisation
recognising our privilege as designers
communicating service design
design maturity in organisations
Prototyping and evaluation
Experiment with ideas, and quickly learn and improve on them.
Find out how to test your ideas in a structured way before committing huge resources. Learn the prototyping process from planning to evaluation, including:
what and why do we prototype
prototype vs. pilot
prototyping methods
co-designing with users
prototype planning, testing and evaluation
business model canvas
service design quiz (for accreditation prep)
influencing simulation
Learn through application
Three service design projects
Mini design cycle
During the intro session, we’ll guide you through a mini design cycle in about 90 minutes - designing a better lunch experience for your partner.
This gives you an overview of the design process.
New starter experience
Workshops 1 - 4 are all about learning and applying service design to create a better new starter experience in your organisation.
Expect to observe and interview your colleagues.
Real work challenge
Workshops 5 - 8 are where you get to apply your learning to a real work challenge. Working in teams with your peers, you’ll agree on which challenges you’ll work.
Expect to engage with real service users.
Meet the team
Jo Carter
Service Design Lead
Founder Director of Service Design, Jo is an Accredited Service Design Master.
She works exclusively with public service and not-for-proft organisations, helping them to adopt and develop the right skills, tools and culture to solve the difficult challenges the 21st-century presents.
Ffion Jones
Collaboration Partner
Passionate about helping teams get better at being teams, Ffion’s career in Learning and Development has seen her work with and support a variety of people and projects. In a world moving at lightning speed, she helps teams deliver excellent work and fresh ideas through workshops, coaching, psychological safety, digital teamwork and collaboration.
Testimonials
Marie tells us - if you really want to put customers at the heart of your service, you need to go on this programme. Find out why
Howard tells us why how the programme helped him develop in his Business Analyst role
“I learned loads about service design - about the tools and methods and things I’d not used or even heard of 8 months ago.
More importantly, I’ve come away with a different mindset. It changed my thinking from “we’ve got to build a really nice process that works for us” to “don't worry about the process, let’s focus on what our users need and experience. We’ll get to the solution later.”
The result is a complete change in my thinking – I’m now genuinely passionate about understanding the needs of users and making sure we develop and build something that meets user needs and serves customers.
I really would recommend others to do this training course without a shadow of a doubt. I really enjoyed it - the learning, the making connections with peers and the individual coaching expertly combined to make a huge difference to me and my work.”
- Owen Burgess, Service Design and Development Lead, Sport Wales
Dave Madge, Cwmpas
"As a marketing professional, I was a bit suspicious of Service Design to begin with.
It's an absolutely brilliant programme. I've learned a hell of a lot from it. I'm now an advocate for service design.
The combination of theory, practice and how to influence others has already helped me in my job."
“I learned tools and techniques that I now put into practice in my real-world environment. It’s changed my work forever.”
“The training course pushed me out of my comfort zone and my new knowledge of service design is now invaluable to my work.”
— Marie Kiff, Customer Engagement Officer at Valleys to Coast Housing Association
Jane Lewis, Welsh Government
“It's really changed my mindset. I came from another organisation where I knew something was wrong, but didn't know how to fix it or influence people in the right places - to say that users need to be at the heart of service design.
If I had my time again I would now be able to do things differently. Everything I'm learning here I can see how we can put into practice. I'm already having conversations with colleagues - the future is looking bright!”
“After working here for over 10 years, this is definitely the best training programme I’ve done.”
— Senior Policy Advisor at Welsh Government
“Of all the training I’ve done, this course has changed my mindset the most”
— Howard Merrett, Business Analyst Partner at Valleys to Coast Housing Association
I can highly recommend the course below... practical and thought provoking. Very grateful to be part of the current cadre. https://t.co/Dr4GslYiaO
— David Madge (@DaveMadgeCOOP) July 6, 2022
Case studies
Find out what previous cohorts did with their learning
Applying service design to a new housing association tenant app
Using service design to improve customer satisfaction
Improving the ‘new employee’ journey using service design
Your commitment
The best learning is experiential, in essence putting everything into practice. To make the most of the programme, in addition to the scheduled workshops, you’ll need to set aside:
10 full days equivalent
Attending the intro session, workshops and coaching sessions virtually and face to face at Tramshed Tech, Cardiff. Evenly spaced over about six months.
1/2 day each week
Working collaboratively online with your peers, putting your learning into practice, preparing for sessions and doing user research activities.
An hour each week
Individual self-guided reflection, reading and watching videos.
FAQs
+ When’s the next programme?
The next programme will run from 24 September 2024 - 10 April 2025.
See the full schedule of dates.
+ How much does it cost?
Early Bird: £3,750 + VAT per person (limited availability: available until 5pm 16th July 2024 or when sold out)
Standard: £4,100 + VAT per person
+ Is there a group discount?
5% discount for 2 or more people from one organisation.
+ Do I need previous experience in service design?
No! Leave your assumptions at the door and come with a curious mind, a readiness to collaborate and an eagerness to learn. That’s all you need!
+ Will I get a qualification?
ServiceWorks is an Accredited Organisation with the Service Design Network. You'll receive a co-branded certificate of completion. This programme is a pathway to becoming a SDN Service Design Accredited Practitioner.
You'll receive a 50% discount code at the end of the programme should you wish to gain accreditation.
+ How can I convince my manager to let me enrol?
You’ll bring a new innovative and collaborative approach to your workplace that will become a great asset to your organisation.
Use this letter to justify it to your boss.
+ What resources will I need for the programme?
We’ll provide you with a copy of the book This is Service Design Doing. We use Trello and Mural to share learning material, communicate and build a community of practice. So you’ll just need a laptop with internet access to attend online sessions and do your own work. Face to face sessions are in Cardiff.
+ What if I can’t make the dates for the next programme?
Complete the form at the top of this page under "Let's Change That" and be the first to know about the dates for the next programme. We’ll also give you an exclusive discount code.
+ Do you run this programme in-house?
Yes we do. Get in touch if you’d like to fill a programme entirely from your organisation.
How to enrol
You’re interested in joining the next cohort - great!
Here’s what to do next
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Even though we’ve tried to be as thorough as possible, you’re bound to have questions and perhaps want to meet us before you commit.
Submit the form below and we’ll be right back to you!
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Let’s set up a 15-minute Teams call to make sure we’re a good fit for each other. Book a call with Calendly.
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