Service Design Tools in Managing Large Scale Projects
Service Design Tools in Managing Large Scale Projects
GEDS Strategic Design Consultancy is the lead design company of MATUROLIFE project, were fully responsible for managing the design process. In our Horizon2020 MATUROLIFE project, we aim to put creative and artistic design at the heart of the innovation journey to develop fashionable, smart solutions (footwear, sofa, and clothing) for older people. This project combines design with cutting-edge, innovative materials that provide aesthetic, valuable, and functional assistive technology (AT) products. Assistive Technology's goal is to improve the quality of life, well-being, and independence of older people.
This ambitious project brings together 20 partners: 11 SMEs from 9 EU countries to work for 36-month on a 6-million-euro project. We acquired materials supply chain through SMEs and scientists working on cutting-edge advances in electrochemistry and nanotechnology. It enables us to have an innovative, highly conductive, multifunctional, smart textile to produce novel AT prototypes.
In this highly complex project, managing diverse teams from different expertise areas, priorities and languages was a big challenge.
Approach
It is not realistic to expect many diverse teams from different practices, cultures, expertise areas to understand each other and work together in a remote working environment.
As the lead design company for the project, we wondered what the unifying element would be for the diverse teams. We thought of the user stories. However, user stories will only help them empathize with users and help change their work accordingly. We needed a tool that would guide people to think on the technical level. The answer was service design blueprints.
A generic definition of service design would be planning activities and organizing people, infrastructure, communication, and material components of a service to improve its quality and the interaction between the service provider and its users.
Challenge
The main challenge was that the teams were not familiar with the service design, which led to thinking that service design will be implemented into smart products (footwear, sofa, and clothing). As it was explained later service design tools were used to address alignment problems between teams and not the products.
We addressed this approach to explain the purpose step by step to show that the service design was to address alignment problems.
As a result, we developed high-level service design blueprints and updated them every quarter according to our award-winning design management approach.
Result
The service design tools and approach were a perfect fit to explain diverse teams' involvement with users or other partners and develop a sequence of actions that they needed to make it work. Also, the blueprints provided a big, clear picture of a very large-scale project.
Read more about
