Rita Cervetto: Service Design in Tech

Talk summary

Outside of fintech, tech companies don’t usually hire Service Designers – yet.

It might be because we like to pick things apart and tech companies like to put things together, or because Service Design is a relatively new practice (my job didn’t exist until 1984, when a brilliant bank exec, Lynn Shostack, wrote about it in HBR). I personally think it’s because creating a Service Design function inside successful tech companies takes hard work.

That said, technology underpins the best and worst services out there, so the opportunity to have a positive impact on millions of lives seems well worth the effort.

In this talk me and 3 other special guests (from Moonpig and N26), will manage your expectations if you’re thinking about joining a tech company. Especially If you’re joining as a Service Designer (like me) and are terrified about knowing:

• How does a service designer work in tech?
• How is “end to end” thinking done inhouse?
• How can I work with teams who push out features every week?

The journey has been mind blowing and the questions that terrify me, I mean – fuel me, are:

• How might we turn delivery teams into empowered teams?
• How might we balance speed & learning as a company?

Bottomline is I can’t wait to share the story of being the first Service Designer in this amazing tech company I’m at. I hope it reaches someone who has terrifying questions and a challenge ahead of themselves.

PS – What does a Service Designer do?

1. We build relationships with people who provide services.
2. We then become passionate about the humans in, out and around that service.
3. Finally, we work with all the mentioned humans, to change the system for everyone’s benefit.

 

Date & time: 17th July 2020, 10:45

Duration: 30 minutes

How to watch: All talks on Friday 17th July will be free and streamed on YouTube. The link to the stream will be published here, and on the BUG Meetup page closer to the event.

 

About Rita

At Kaluza my role as a Service Designer is to look after onboarding and offboarding. If someone wants to “switch energy providers” for example and the switch goes wrong, I help the organisation come up with a systemic solution, so we save our customers and internal staff any cognitive load and feelings of frustration and uncertainty. Service Designers thrive solving problems like these, that involve many touchpoints. We have to bring together many teams and make strategic partnerships with UXers, Researchers and any relevant discipline.

Before Kaluza I was doing discovery, co-creation, prototyping and (or) delivery for a variety of organisations such as NHSBT, United Nations, Canyon, Well Pharmacy, The Co-op, Scope, AXA and Bristol Water… among others.

Please don’t hesitate to contact me, I love making new friends.

Twitter: @ritacervetto
Web: www.ritacervetto.com
LinkedIn: ritacervetto