It took us about 3 years of running the ‘Introduction to service sesign’ training in Germany to finally offer it in German.
So far, we have run it in English. In parts, we have gradually adapted it to a German context, but only this week have we run a German-language version.
This round also had a second novelty: Cross-government colleagues joined us for the training.
Similar to the spring edition, we conducted the training over 2 consecutive days, spanning 4 hours each, including breaks, from 9 am to 1 pm.
In the afternoon of the first day, we had a little epiphany: The training works very well, but we need to change everything once again. Luckily, that’s in the nature of this training.
Rethinking our service design training
In its current state, the ‘Introduction to service design’ training – or ‘Einführung in Servicedesign’, as we now started calling it – is a voluntary side gig. It’s something Sabrina picked up when I told her we have some well-tested and iterated training ready to run back in autumn 2022. She has been running it 4 times since then. I assisted her and co-delivered segments. In spring, Marco chipped in, too.
Without our intrinsic motivation to run it to educate public servants about how to design better services, the training would not exist. We can easily tie it to organisational and personal objectives, but there is no necessity to run the training in any way. We run it because we want to. We carve out time to make it happen. Colleagues carve out time because they want to learn and do their job more effectively.
What if there would be another way to frame and run the training?
The, rather obvious, realisation: We can tie the training to the Service Standard.
Instead of mentioning the Service Standard in a side note, as I did on Wednesday, it could provide the frame for the entire training. Each section and every exercise can be linked to a specific criterion of the standard.
Kara reminded me that we discussed that in 2019 for the UK training in our UCD community team, too. I had forgotten it. Then, the third update of the UK Service Standard was issued. The scope had changed. Colleagues created new guidance to assist service teams in meeting the new requirements. So, complementary training would have made sense.
At the same time, it was unnecessary to tie it to the Service Standard for visibility or awareness creation. There was a hype around service design in government in 2019. It was what people wanted to learn more about. So, ‘Introduction to service design’ was a descriptive title that resonated very well with people. We never had a demand problem. At times, more than 500 people were on the waiting list for the training.
Things are different now in our German context. People across government don’t talk much about service design. There is no hype around it. But there is some momentum around the co-created update to the German Service Standard.
As we wait for the minister to sign the statutory instrument to make the standard and the related DIN Spec 66336 binding, people want to learn how to satisfy it. In recent workshops, we repeatedly heard that specific Service Standard criteria appear harder to meet than others. It’s those that the training discusses with focus.
Section 1 on ‘What is a service?’ sets the basics. The activity ‘Define the problem’ is closely connected with criterion 2 ‘Describe the problem and define objectives’. Our activity ‘Identify the users’ addresses what criterion 1 ‘Understand users and identify needs’ is all about.
The training doesn’t cover every part and criterion of the Service Standard – not at all. But it covers those related to user-centred service design, which quite a few people struggle with.
An alternative title could be ‘Designing good services’. A subtitle can refer to the standard.
If we agree that it is a good idea to run the training more closely linked to the Service Standard, there are a few things we’d have to do:
- Write and insert a brief segment providing a basic introduction to the Service Standard
- Go through all segments and exercises and attach the respective criteria to them
- Adapt language and style to that established on servicestandard.gov.de
- Adapt visual branding to the Service Standards and the umbrella brand
- Sharpen the training proposition and provide a brief description
- Create a dedicated page for the training on servicestandard.gov.de
We will investigate this in the coming weeks. We have a strong solution-problem match here. The fact that we considered tying the training closer to the standard as early as 2019 gives me further confidence.
On a somewhat related note: The Service Standard episode of the eGovernment podcast we recorded 2 weeks ago went live yesterday.
The podcast is a good introduction for German public servants and anyone else working on improving and transforming public services in the country.
I hope it reaches many people and leads to some productive encounters.
Preparing for a senior stakeholder visit
A state secretary is stopping by on Monday. So, we had to prepare for the visit.
Such a visit from a senior leader is always a good reason to tighten one’s narrative. So we distilled our headlines and a few bullet points for the Service Standard and the cross-government umbrella brand.
I will not be around for the visit, but the teams are well-equipped to represent their work.
The key questions remain:
- What is the 1 thing the senior official should remember?
- What is our 1 ask from them to support or elevate the work?
We’ve got that answered, and I hope good things grow from that visit.
What’s next
I will be travelling to the United Kingdom to attend the ‘Service Design in Government’ conference in Edinburgh.
Next Friday afternoon, Kara and I will be running a workshop on end-to-end service design.
On the way there, I plan to be doing some focus work. It’s a long train journey to Scotland. That will include writing sections that Kara and I discussed during our prep session on Friday.