Introduction In today’s fast-paced business landscape, the pressure to innovate and implement solutions quickly can be overwhelming. However, rushing into the first idea without a thorough understanding of the underlying business problem can lead to suboptimal outcomes. This article delves into the importance of getting to know a business problem…

In over 20 years, when running innovation and idea workshops, the apparent ideas often already exist come out first. Finding real innovation or unique ideas needs a chaotic mindset and often an approach that iterates in unforeseen ways. Data and insights alone have rarely, if ever, led to finding the…

In 1999, I travelled to Documenta X, a renowned art event and the last one before the new millennium. I came across the work above by an artist whose name I have unfortunately forgotten (if you recognise it, please tell me). The object above is a massive vacuum-formed plastic bed…

I was two months into my latest transformation programme. Jonathan (name changed to avoid crucifixion) walked right towards me on one of my first post-9-to-5 work drinks. “You need to change your name; we are service design; we were here first,” he announced, very short of introducing himself. Let’s figure…

In the 1960s, Bill Bernbach created the modern creative team for advertising. Previously copywriters and art directors did not even work on the same building floor. Bernbach put them in one room and had them run ideas back and forth so that the creative output between text and image could…

It’s the weekend, and I just popped into my local pub early to sit down and write on my second book, which feels more challenging than expected, plus it is one of the first sunny days in London this year, and they still haven’t been able to build laptops with…

Command line for the Masses (AI) The danger is that we make the same mistakes with AI that we created with data. The best use of tech is not to use it faster or bigger, but most people behave like it’s a thing, even though complexity beats speed in systems…

What jobs will we lose? What can we truly automate? Could we have an AI CEO? A topline draft walk-through of what some tools might do to your business. After over 20 years in innovation, change and transformation, I have become less excited about introducing the same lean and intuitive…

As a service designer, I have spent hundreds of hours with various practitioners like business analysts, enterprise architects, systems thinkers and change managers. We all are after the same goal: Creating a well-oiled organisation that delivers excellent value. But we all have biases, and only if we all come together…