A practical guide for local authorities in Ireland and the UK on introducing service design without a two-year transformation plan.
Most local councils we meet don't need convincing that service design is worth doing. They need help figuring out where to start without stalling on a two year transformation programme that nobody can point to a week later. Here's what tends to actually work. Pick a service, not a strategy The most common failure mode is starting with a "design strategy" that lives in a slide deck. Instead, pick one high volume, high friction service — bin collection changes, planning enquiries, housing repairs, adult social care assessments — and design that end to end. The strategy writes itself once people have seen it work. Map what's actually happening, not what the org chart says Every service map we build for a council reveals the same thing: the real journey crosses six teams, three systems and at least one shared inbox that nobody officially owns. That gap between "how we think it works" and "how it actually works" is where all the value hides. We use lightweight service blueprints — Journey Management if the service is complex enough to need ongoing governance — and get the whole picture on one wall before we touch a single interface. Bring the frontline in from day one Councils have deep
Humana Design — service design and design research consultancy, Dublin, Ireland.