Service Design and Systems Thinking

As this issue of Touchpoint goes to press, the world is just passing the one-year anniversary of the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. Like every organisation, the Service Design Network was heavily impacted. Our 2020 conference was hastily reformatted to be held on-line, our income from memberships saw a downturn and we relied on governmental support to keep our non-profit alive for several critical months. We were also forced to put this issue on ice, in late Spring 2020.

While we still were able to present a specially-curated issue of reprints from our archive by the time Autumn arrived (Vol. 12 No. 1, “Embracing Change”), it took some time to resume this publication, on the theme of systems thinking and service design. However, I’m confident it’s worth the wait.

We select the themes for each issue of Touchpoint by periodically taking the pulse of our community, and interest in this topic has always been high. So we are pleased to be able to bring you a collection of articles from not just established service designers, but also leaders in the fields of systems thinking and systemic design.

The growing interest in the field of systems thinking has come about as a logical reaction to the increasing recognition of our discipline, and the greater mandate - and impact - we find ourselves responsible for. When faced with seemingly intractable challenges, in healthcare for example, we learn that our ‘designerly’ approaches only go so far; the traditional tools of service design are often unfit or too limited to help us grasp the intricately-linked causes which underlie a challenge, and our future-facing imagining of solutions may be similarly too limited in scope.

On page 10, Josina Vink - who, alongside J. Tuomas Harviainen, is a Guest Editor of this issue - helpfully contextualises this issue’s contents, from her perspective and experience applying systems thinking for several years. I invite you to use her contribution as a springboard into this issue.

For our valued readers: Thank you for your patience awaiting this issue’s release, and your continued support of the SDN through your membership and participation in our global events and other initiatives. It’s what has kept our organisation alive through a very challenging year.

Jesse Grimes is Editor-in- Chief of Touchpoint and has fourteen years of experience as a service designer and consultant. He is an independent practitioner, trainer and coach (kolmiot.com), based in Amsterdam and working internationally. Jesse is also Senior Vice President of the Service Design Network and Head of Training for the SDN Academy.

Josina Vink is an Associate Professor of Service Design at Oslo School of Architecture and Design. Building on a decade of industry experience, Josina's research develops systemic approaches to service design in healthcare.

J. Tuomas Harviainen is Associate Professor of Information Practices at Tampere University, Finland, a design management researcher at Aalto University, and a freelance service designer.

Birgit Mager, publisher of Touchpoint, is professor for service design at Köln International School of Design (KISD), Cologne, Germany. She is founder and director of sedes research at KISD and is co-founder and President of the Service Design Network.

Jesse Grimes