Marc Stickdorn on Journey Management, AI & Leading Change in Chaotic Times

[00:00:00] Gerry Scullion: Hey folks, and welcome back to another episode of This Is Hate City. My name is Jerry Scion and I'm a [00:00:05] human centered, serves design practitioner based in the beautiful city of Dublin Ireland. Now, today in the [00:00:10] show, I'm delighted to welcome probably the most, uh, requested person and on the most loved [00:00:15] person.

[00:00:15] Gerry Scullion: He's been on our show over the last decade, and that is Mark stick torn. He is [00:00:20] highly regarded as the pioneer of service design, creating some seminal books, [00:00:25] and he's the CEO of Mapley. We were speaking together at SD and [00:00:30] gov in Edinburgh, and I took this opportunity to really pull Mark into the conversation around [00:00:35] what we mean by journey management.

[00:00:36] Gerry Scullion: Okay? So we're gonna be speaking, uh, a lot more in the state of [00:00:40] service design today and where we see the opportunities strategically for us to sit and [00:00:45] provide value to the people that hire us. So the three key takeaways in this episode, number one, is. [00:00:50] Scaling service design. Through Journey Management, mark unpacks how organizations can move beyond [00:00:55] project based design to embed design at systemic organization wide level.

[00:00:59] Gerry Scullion: This is what we [00:01:00] spoke about at sd. And go myself and Mark and Owen Swift from Dub from Dublin City Council. [00:01:05] We ensured that when we were working with Dublin City, we out, we provided the scaffolding there for a lot of [00:01:10] the, the key metrics, which still have to be defined in many ways. And gives us that scaffolding [00:01:15] for service design to blossom.

[00:01:16] Gerry Scullion: So the number two thing that I want you to take away is creating impact that speaks the [00:01:20] language of leadership. He shares practical advice on how to frame your work, build stealth [00:01:25] projects, and demonstrate measurable value, whether you're in the public sector or the private sector. And [00:01:30] number three, the role of ai.

[00:01:31] Gerry Scullion: And tooling. In the future of design, we discuss how to embrace [00:01:35] technology responsibly and using it to accelerate, not replace the [00:01:40] deep human understanding that sits at the heart of design. If you're leading change shaping [00:01:45] experiences, or trying to navigate the next evolution of service design in your organization, [00:01:50] this episode is just for you.

[00:01:52] Gerry Scullion: And before we jump in, please don't forget to like and [00:01:55] subscribe. If you like this episode, pass it on to your team. It helps us grow, helps us find new [00:02:00] listeners, and helps us ultimately drive impact that we do, and we always focus on where we're creating new [00:02:05] episodes on the podcast. It's a great one.

[00:02:06] Gerry Scullion: Let's jump straight in.[00:02:10] [00:02:15]

[00:02:17] Gerry Scullion: My buddy, my mark, my main man. [00:02:20] Um, mark, it's great to have you back on the podcast. [00:02:25] Um, I feel like it should be called, this is HTD Jerry and Mark's podcast. You've been on so [00:02:30] often. Um, we're here, we're in Edinburgh. We did a talk together [00:02:35] and I want you, 'cause I see you as a [00:02:40] pioneer of service design. You were the first seminal book out in the market [00:02:45] in the late, in the early 2010s.

[00:02:47] Gerry Scullion: 2010, exactly. Yeah. 2010. So [00:02:50] I believe we're in a, in the state of service design here at the moment. [00:02:55] Where we're all kind of, we're struggling in a chaotic world. We just saw, saw Rachel Dika [00:03:00] speak, um, and I loved on normalization Yes. And hypernormalization. And it [00:03:05] resonated with a lot of the stuff that we were speaking about and setting the scaffolding up, [00:03:10] um, for service design thinking and doing to blossom.

[00:03:14] Gerry Scullion: [00:03:15] Where do you see the, um, the, the next. [00:03:20] Kind of foray for service design within organizations. [00:03:25] Um, what, what's the most important steps for service designers right now, do you believe to be focusing on? [00:03:30] Huh, that's a tough question. In 50 words or less

[00:03:34] Marc Stickdorn: [00:03:35] impossible. I, I don't know. It's, it's really. It is [00:03:40] such a, such a weird time with so much change from outside that [00:03:45] it's really hard to say what like, like to predict how the world will look like [00:03:50] in five or 10 years.

[00:03:50] Marc Stickdorn: So it's really hard to say like, this is what you should be doing. But I think what [00:03:55] we should be aware of, the impact we can have and. We should [00:04:00] focus on these kind of values that we really care about humans, that we [00:04:05] really want to have a positive impact on humans.

[00:04:08] Gerry Scullion: Hmm.

[00:04:08] Marc Stickdorn: And also be aware of the impact we're [00:04:10] having.

[00:04:10] Gerry Scullion: Yeah. I mean, more and more we're seeing organizations, [00:04:15] um, you know, lots of people are losing their jobs in design. We'll walk around this way, [00:04:20] we're kind of doing a loop. Um, but, but generally speaking, people are struggling [00:04:25] to, uh. Move the craft forward and move organizations forward to become [00:04:30] more aware of the impacts of poor project planning, [00:04:35] pure implementation.

[00:04:37] Gerry Scullion: Um, and that cascades down to [00:04:40] citizens. It cascades down to customers as well. And it feels like in some ways we've been [00:04:45] stuck in a stasis for quite a while. Um, and I know. [00:04:50] From, for as long as I've known you, you've been talking about this new framework. [00:04:55] You know, we, we call it Journey Management. Just speaking to that, for people who [00:05:00] don't know that, don't know what Journey Management is, there's episodes out there on the podcast where we've [00:05:05] covered it before, so we're not gonna cover over that old ground.

[00:05:08] Gerry Scullion: But what does that give [00:05:10] organizations and what are you seeing from coaching organizations at the moment? [00:05:15] Um, what, what are the, the benefits? What are the, the kind of sapling moments if you want?

[00:05:19] Marc Stickdorn: [00:05:20] So, so first of all, I don't think we, we are stuck, like I see [00:05:25] constant evolution and normalization of service [00:05:30] design, and I think that is fantastic to see like, okay, where we are, like the state of service [00:05:35] design today, if you compare with like 10 years ago Yeah, it's completely d.

[00:05:39] Marc Stickdorn: [00:05:40] It's huge now. People talk about it as a, as a normal thing. [00:05:45] Yes, of course. We need to do that. And we didn't see that 10 years ago, like 10 years ago. [00:05:50] That was like, if we go back further, like like 20 years [00:05:55] ago, we talked about how important customer experience is. No one talks about that now. Like we know it.

[00:05:59] Marc Stickdorn: It's a [00:06:00] given. Yeah, it's a given. 10 years ago we talked about how important service designer is, [00:06:05] how important it's to focus on that and so on. Yeah. It's, it's almost a [00:06:10] given now, at least in many organizations. So where we are now, it's rather about how do we [00:06:15] actually do this at scale?

[00:06:16] Gerry Scullion: Yeah.

[00:06:16] Marc Stickdorn: So it's not only.

[00:06:18] Marc Stickdorn: A small team doing it, [00:06:20] but how can we do it across different teams, across different departments in [00:06:25] the organization. And that's where journey management, service [00:06:30] architecture, journey ops, whatever you call it in organization. 'cause I think language [00:06:35] is so important to, um, to also think about [00:06:40] or how to bring it into an organization.

[00:06:42] Marc Stickdorn: 'cause it needs to resonate with the organization. Yes, exactly. [00:06:45] So naming is really important and, um, what [00:06:50] it, what it does is it helps you to scale service design by [00:06:55] focusing on prioritization.

[00:06:56] Gerry Scullion: Yeah.

[00:06:56] Marc Stickdorn: What do we need to do? I think that we, we always need [00:07:00] to talk at two different levels. It says one level [00:07:05] where

[00:07:05] Gerry Scullion: you

[00:07:05] Marc Stickdorn: talk.

[00:07:05] Gerry Scullion: It's pretty windy here. This is Scotland. This is Scotland. [00:07:10] This is a perfect summer's day in Edinburgh. Let's sit over here at this bench over here. [00:07:15] So

[00:07:16] Marc Stickdorn: we're talking two different levels. We have on the one [00:07:20] level kind of immediate actions, if you like, to horizon one, maybe horizon two, [00:07:25] where it's about like what is the near future?

[00:07:27] Marc Stickdorn: Yeah. You talk about fixing pain points, [00:07:30] focusing on. Identified unmet needs and so on.

[00:07:33] Gerry Scullion: Yeah.

[00:07:34] Marc Stickdorn: And [00:07:35] then we have level three, horizon three, where we talk about [00:07:40] the pharma future larger change management. What is the vision for the organization, the [00:07:45] vision for a product, and how far away are we today from this vision?

[00:07:49] Marc Stickdorn: Where are these [00:07:50] gaps and how can we close these gaps? So

[00:07:51] Gerry Scullion: yeah.

[00:07:52] Marc Stickdorn: What we're seeing now is we use [00:07:55] services design not only for on a per-project basis, but we use it [00:08:00] to craft from a vision for the organization, the vision for the experience. How [00:08:05] should it feel in 10, 15 years, even though we don't know how the future [00:08:10] looks like, we start thinking about this.

[00:08:12] Gerry Scullion: Okay. And from

[00:08:13] Marc Stickdorn: that we, we [00:08:15] tied down our strategy. What do we need to do now? So we are actually preparing ourselves for the future. [00:08:20] Yeah.

[00:08:20] Gerry Scullion: So. A few minutes ago, you were saying like people aren't really talking, they don't need to [00:08:25] sell in what CX is. They know it's a given. In my experience, when people come to [00:08:30] you, okay.

[00:08:30] Gerry Scullion: They kind of know what journey management is. They wanna do it. In my experience. I'm still in that kind [00:08:35] of like bringing them on the journey, showing the value that it could be demonstrating the ROI, [00:08:40] I'm kind of earlier in the sequence. Um, lots of [00:08:45] organizations out there don't have, uh, leaders perhaps [00:08:50] who really.

[00:08:51] Gerry Scullion: Look at it as being the North star. They may think [00:08:55] of service design as being a stepping stone to the North Star, and it's just one part of [00:09:00] many business functions that can be used to, to deliver those experiences. So it [00:09:05] makes it very difficult for teams to, uh, move ahead. [00:09:10] They, they're getting that resistance.

[00:09:11] Gerry Scullion: Well go down here again, we're just walking around the grounds of. The university or [00:09:15] they're making it really difficult for service designers to deliver those experiences. And we [00:09:20] heard from Rachel Dees in her keynote there about what that feels like. It is like that slap in the face and then you're [00:09:25] going back again and you're repeatedly doing that hypernormalization.

[00:09:29] Gerry Scullion: So [00:09:30] I guess I'm really keen to hear, uh, more around [00:09:35] advice to those people. Um, who, you know, they [00:09:40] might be in the private sector, they might be in the public service sector, and they really want to deliver great experiences [00:09:45] and that lack of adoption and lack of leadership support and lack of awareness and education at leadership [00:09:50] level.

[00:09:50] Gerry Scullion: Um, how can they nudge this forward?

[00:09:54] Marc Stickdorn: It's, it's, it's [00:09:55] different from organization. Organization obviously. So it, it's just whatever I say now [00:10:00] might apply or might not apply to any specific situation. Right. That's a

[00:10:02] Gerry Scullion: caveat.

[00:10:03] Marc Stickdorn: He's given a caveat here.[00:10:05]

[00:10:07] Marc Stickdorn: Thank you for framing that. Thank you. Thank you. Just [00:10:10] so, um. What I, what I've seen working [00:10:15] is if you, if you don't phrase it as the service design project, whatever, yeah. [00:10:20] But focus on the outcome. Call it a stealth project. A project that don't appear on the radar of the [00:10:25] organization. Yeah. Use a very boring name for it if you name, need to name it, or use [00:10:30] whatever project you're working in and start applying some of the principles, the tools, the [00:10:35] methods, the ways of working.

[00:10:36] Gerry Scullion: Yeah.

[00:10:37] Marc Stickdorn: Try to build your first [00:10:40] case study, and if you do it. Try to [00:10:45] create a measurable impact.

[00:10:48] Gerry Scullion: Yeah.

[00:10:48] Marc Stickdorn: And like whatever your [00:10:50] organization is, is caring about. If it's a, a private company, it might be revenue. If it's [00:10:55] public services, it might be, um, um, costs. If it [00:11:00] is about care healthcare, it might be like the amount of people you can [00:11:05] positively impact if it's.

[00:11:07] Marc Stickdorn: About trauma informed design, it might [00:11:10] be the quality of impact it might have on people. So whatever you as an [00:11:15] organization really care for. What, what is, what is your, your mission? And try to [00:11:20] tie your project to ask. Quantitatively as [00:11:25] possible, as measurably as possible to any of these [00:11:30] values.

[00:11:30] Gerry Scullion: Yeah, absolutely.

[00:11:31] Gerry Scullion: And if you're

[00:11:31] Marc Stickdorn: able to do that, you can, you can, you're prepared for the [00:11:35] question, what is the return of investment?

[00:11:36] Gerry Scullion: Yeah.

[00:11:37] Marc Stickdorn: Like, try to keep a lock [00:11:40] about your investment side.

[00:11:41] Gerry Scullion: Yeah.

[00:11:41] Marc Stickdorn: And try to identify the impact. If [00:11:45] you can't do this, you have a success story from within your own organization.

[00:11:49] Gerry Scullion: Yeah. [00:11:50]

[00:11:50] Marc Stickdorn: And that resonates then with people don't talk about your [00:11:55] approach.

[00:11:55] Marc Stickdorn: Yeah. People don't care about services.

[00:11:57] Gerry Scullion: Yeah.

[00:11:57] Marc Stickdorn: People don't care about journey management. [00:12:00] They care about the impact we can have with that. Yeah. And that's what we need to focus [00:12:05] on.

[00:12:05] Gerry Scullion: Yeah.

[00:12:05] Marc Stickdorn: So don't focus on. If, if you think back of Super [00:12:10] Mario Yeah. The video game.

[00:12:12] Gerry Scullion: Yeah.

[00:12:12] Marc Stickdorn: Don't focus on the flower that Super Mario [00:12:15] can grab.

[00:12:15] Marc Stickdorn: Yeah. But focus on how, what, what Super Mario becomes. Yeah. [00:12:20] Once you grab this flower or the mushroom or whatever.

[00:12:22] Gerry Scullion: Yeah. Or the level you can get to the score. Yes. [00:12:25] Okay. So the stepping stones to get there, say you're at that [00:12:30] point, advancement of maturity is happening in your organization. [00:12:35] At some point there's a tooling problem, and this is a [00:12:40] segue for you to talk about the work that you're doing.

[00:12:42] Gerry Scullion: Yeah. You've dedicated a large portion of your [00:12:45] life to creating, uh, software. That's right. Okay. I'm writing books as well, of [00:12:50] course. Um. Where do you see [00:12:55] the future of that kinda tooling space in helping enable that? 'cause obviously we're in the, [00:13:00] the world of ai, uh, we'll go on this way and [00:13:05] I'd love to understand where you see it going.

[00:13:06] Marc Stickdorn: Yeah.

[00:13:08] Gerry Scullion: So [00:13:10]

[00:13:10] Marc Stickdorn: f first of all, tooling helps.

[00:13:11] Gerry Scullion: Yeah.

[00:13:13] Marc Stickdorn: Choosing the right tool is [00:13:15] important and, and finding a tool that matches your way of working, not the other way around. [00:13:20] The tool shouldn't dictate the way you're working. It should be the other way around.

[00:13:23] Gerry Scullion: Yeah.

[00:13:24] Marc Stickdorn: Now, [00:13:25] if you found a tool that works for you, um, if we look at AI features [00:13:30] like they are the generative [00:13:35] ai, like that helps you with like speeding up to get started.

[00:13:38] Marc Stickdorn: Like yeah, you have a [00:13:40] blank slate. How do you get to your first journeys and so on. Okay, good enough. If you [00:13:45] use ai, it quickly helps you to create a quick journey and so on. But yeah. The [00:13:50] danger I see there is that we often stop at this level,

[00:13:53] Gerry Scullion: right?

[00:13:54] Marc Stickdorn: We create a [00:13:55] map, it looks convincing. Good enough. Yeah. We put a bit of data [00:14:00] in.

[00:14:00] Marc Stickdorn: If it's automated, we upload a few reports and interviews [00:14:05] and bam, that's it. Good enough. Yeah. People start taking decisions based [00:14:10] on data they don't understand anymore. Yeah, and I think this is really dangerous, so we should [00:14:15] see AI as a companion. Right. As a tool that helps us in our work [00:14:20] reduce maybe redundant work for us, helps us to get started with the first few steps.

[00:14:24] Marc Stickdorn: [00:14:25] Okay. But we need to ensure that there is someone responsible [00:14:30] for the experience visualizing this one journey.

[00:14:32] Gerry Scullion: Yeah.

[00:14:33] Marc Stickdorn: And if they take decisions on [00:14:35] prioritization, which pain point to fix, which vision to follow. Hmm. It shouldn't be [00:14:40] dictated by an algorithm. It should be a [00:14:45] conscious decision. Yeah. That is matching the values of the company and division of the company.

[00:14:49] Gerry Scullion: Yeah, [00:14:50] absolutely. I mean, like, that is a, a shout out to leaders out there who'd be [00:14:55] like, well, AI can do a lot of this stuff. Uh, we can generate a journey map, that's fine. We, we don't [00:15:00] need people to be creating the journey map. You can do it ourselves. A lot of it, I think that is [00:15:05] overlooked is the. The actual going out and doing the research.

[00:15:08] Gerry Scullion: Yeah. And being able to smell the [00:15:10] context, literally the physical context of the room that you're researching in and trying to understand the [00:15:15] context of the people that you're designing for. What, what are they going through? Absolutely. And AI can sometimes [00:15:20] make that a little bit too superficial.

[00:15:21] Marc Stickdorn: And I think the, the [00:15:25] dominant story should not be, how can we speed up this process?

[00:15:29] Marc Stickdorn: How can we make [00:15:30] it faster? Because the problem is that people don't spend enough time with. [00:15:35] Journeys or the, the experiences these journeys actually visualize with the [00:15:40] people in the field out there? Yeah. It is such a difference if you [00:15:45] experience things yourself. If you go out and talk to people yourself, and you [00:15:50] have this implicit knowledge yourself when you take decisions versus you [00:15:55] get the data, you just see the summary of data in whatever form or shape, and then [00:16:00] take a decision based on this.

[00:16:03] Marc Stickdorn: Absolutely. Interpretations of data. [00:16:05]

[00:16:05] Gerry Scullion: Absolutely. So we're doing a shorter podcast 'cause we're here at SD and golf. [00:16:10] Um, people can follow you obviously on the internet. You're working on another book Journey Management. [00:16:15] I'm sorry for

[00:16:16] Marc Stickdorn: that. Yes. Way, way, way slower than expected. Yeah, it's all right. Take [00:16:20] one.

[00:16:20] Gerry Scullion: Lot lots of stuff going on. I have kids.

[00:16:22] Marc Stickdorn: You have kids. It's such a different writing experience [00:16:25] now.

[00:16:25] Gerry Scullion: Yes, I know. But people give, give a shout

[00:16:27] Marc Stickdorn: out to the URLs for the, for the Future book. [00:16:30] It's, uh, this is journey management.com. You can still sign up for [00:16:35] co-creation if you're interested. Okay. Look up this way.

[00:16:36] Marc Stickdorn: And I

[00:16:37] Gerry Scullion: think

[00:16:37] Marc Stickdorn: this

[00:16:37] Gerry Scullion: might be res, but we'll see.

[00:16:38] Marc Stickdorn: Hm. [00:16:40]

[00:16:40] Gerry Scullion: Um, no, it is. Let's go there. We don't wanna be following anywhere into the [00:16:45] rooms.

[00:16:45] Marc Stickdorn: So, um, this is journey management.com. You can still sign up for corporation if you're [00:16:50] interested. Yeah. Um, we have, uh, a block on our company website, [00:16:55] snappy.com. If you look for Block, you find articles there, absolutely.

[00:16:57] Marc Stickdorn: Published by us and guest author. [00:17:00] Yeah. And follow me on LinkedIn and say

[00:17:02] Gerry Scullion: hi at conferences like this. Yeah. Fantastic. [00:17:05] One last thing. The work that we spoke about here today, we worked on it. [00:17:10] Collaboratively with Dubin City, we're available for that kind of coaching and training as well. Being able [00:17:15] to assist, uh, social and public impact organizations to [00:17:20] set the scaffolding up for their own services, the Blossom within our organization, if you are [00:17:25] interested, right?

[00:17:26] Gerry Scullion: You know, to get in touch with me at this stage. Mark, thanks so much for your [00:17:30] time. Um, looking forward to, we're going to Sweden next week. Yes. Do this all over again. Yes. I'm [00:17:35] looking forward to [00:17:40] it.

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