Improve a service in 5 steps in 5 days
Yes it really is possible. On a recent project we set about improving an existing service. By the 5th day we’d finalised our road-map and started implementing quick wins. This is how to do it.
But before you start any work, there is of course preparation. You need to get your ducks in a row before you can set off.
- Nominate your team lead — this is the person who will guide the work packages on each day. They need to be a good team player who can think on their feet.
- Build out your team — when improving a service you need cross functional representation. You’ll need someone from service operations as much as from engineering, technology, marketing and field sales. Keep the group small and manageable. The Amazon ‘two pizzas’ rule works well here.
- Set out your challenge, tolerances and principles — make sure everyone knows what the team is trying to achieve. Be clear what tolerances exist. These are typically things like timelines, budget and resources. Outline the principles that will govern activities. I like to add in principles related to keeping an open mind, challenging the status quo and building upon each other’s ideas.
- Set aside a room — you need to divorce your mind from other work. Having a separate, dedicated room will help the team focus their thinking. When they walk into that room they leave everything else outside. Easier said than done but try it!
Warm up complete. Okay so now you’re ready.
Day 1 / Step 1: Customer Immersion (60 minutes)
Start by thinking about the customer. Think about the jobs or tasks they are trying to complete. It might be a banking customer who is trying to open a new account. They might be looking for a phone number, trying to use a rate calculator or trying to log in. Write down next to each job the pains they might be encountering.
You can also use customer feedback to help guide your thinking. You could go even further and get customers involved. Trust me — they won’t hold back in telling you what they think. Write down what expectations the customer might have. These will be useful when designing out service or product improvements later on.
Day 2 / Step 2: User Journeys (90 mins)
Plot out the user journey. Include all online and offline elements. Remember to include information relating to what channels they interact with and when they need to make decision points. You can simply map this out on brown paper or using post it notes. This is also a good time to bring in that person who loves writing down process maps. If you have time, write down the back-stage activities that your company does to facilitate the user journey. Think of it like a 360 view.
Again, highlight areas where you know there is friction for the customer. You might be sitting on a mine of verbatim that tells you a process or form that is driving customers nuts.
Okay, so after 2 steps you know the customer, what they expect, what they’re unhappy about and what the end-to-end experience is like for them.
Time for Step 3…
Day 3 / Step 3: Barriers & Challenges (60 mins)
Catalogue all the barriers, pains and challenges you’ve noted down. Some will be from the customer perspective and others from the business view. You can organise your thinking into a simple table under the headings: organisation, processes, technology, systems and data. It’s totally up to you. You might want to group and de-dupe post-its during this stage. You’ll need to take some of the big pains and translate them into problem statements. Think about prioritising your pains into a ranked impact order.
Day 4 / Step 4: Problem Statement & Ideation Resolution (120 mins)
Take your post-it notes and craft them into 4 or 5 problem statements. These are simple statements, sometimes just a few sentences that outline the problems the user has that you’re trying to solve.
Write them down in plain English so everyone can understand. Each problem should have an impact statement outlining the impact on the user and/or the business. The impact will help others understand how you prioritised this problem above others. Then turn it on its head and write down what the outcome statement would be if you killed the problem.
NOW COMES THE FUN BIT! Ideation
Get the team together and start brainstorming ideas to solve the problem. Think about how you might prune back a process, re-design a form or remove annoying steps from the user journey. Don’t hold back. Bring in customers again to test your ideas. Do they hold water? Are they interested? Do your solutions seem sticky?
Don’t forget to look externally for inspiration and not just within your own competitive set. There’s a lot you can learn from the likes of Lyft, Airbnb and Southwest.
Of course everyone loves dotmocracy so give everyone some stickers and ask them to vote for their favourite ideas.
Before you wrap up, group your ideas into quick wins vs. big plays. By quick wins we mean things you can typically start or even land on day 5. Big plays tend to be those ideas that you need to walk away, think about and sometimes write a business case for. Sort them based on ease, effort and feasibility. Some ideas will be relatively easy to implement. Aim for at least 1 or 2 ideas or changes you can implement tomorrow on day 5.
Day 5 / Step 5: Action Stations (60 mins)
You’ve made it. It’s day 5.
Wrap up by planning out what ideas get done today. Don’t put off getting started on the big ideas. Get the team thinking about how to tackle them on day 5. Don’t forget to finish this meeting with a wash up. The wash up session is important to identify what you would do differently the next time you run improvement work.
Remember it’s easy to get this done across 5 days and it doesn’t need you to give up a full 8 hours per day. You can do this around your other tasks providing that when you walk into the room you’re there in mind as well as in body.
At Strategy Activist we help clients improve existing services or launch new ones. We can help with everything from service design through to product build. To learn more about how we can help visit www.strategyactivist.com or call +44 7786063053.
