Work stream development

Company: NatWest (Commercial Banking Digital Experience)

Work stream: Service Design

Skills: Delivery process & cycle development, stakeholder management & provision of Subject Matter Expertise (SME) to grow work stream

Introduction

The purpose of Service Design is to create new and transform existing services so that they are simple to deal with and support customers at every stage of their journey. Key aspects are:

• Capturing the holistic and real end to end customer journey

• Capturing the direct voice of the customer on how we meet their expectations

This work stream was trialled at the start of 2021. Following successful delivery and exposure across key stakeholders within the bank it was agreed to expand this into a major work stream within the Commercial & Institute Digital Design team (C&I Digital Design) for introduction across the bank. As a key member of the strategic delivery team I drove the expansion of this work stream, particularly focused on providing SME support in terms of journey assessment, UX & UI aspects.

Aim

Trial the introduction of a Service Design approach to product and service development. If determined to be successful, establish a mechanism for embedding this skill set within the team and roll out into the 2022 roadmap.

Approach

As Lead Product Designer I worked within a small specialised team to initiate and develop the Service Design work stream within the NatWest C&I Digital Design team. The steps undertaken were as follows:

• Expand skills through specific Service Design training and lead trial for one or two projects

• Assess project success, determine roadmap to introduction of work stream

• Resource development and continuation of project work to raise exposure

• Expand reach of work stream through introduction of multiple scrum teams. Providing training programme, support and SME guidance

• Embed Service Design within business case screening for roadmap pipeline planning

Service Design as a solution

Service Design is an established iterative process, it puts the "voice of the customer" at the centre (also referred to as user-centric design).

It is important to collaborate across an number of disciplines, considering:

• The real end to end experience and customer voice

• Collaborate across teams and with stakeholders

• Consider what is financially viable

• Consider what is technically and organisationally possible

Service Design projects typically run over a 12 week period, utilising Agile Scrum and Lean Startup methodologies. Using this approach we are able to pivot where needed and look to create the right thing in the right way, rather than focusing solely on pre-determined business requirements. This enables a reduction of risk in development. Each Service Design scrum works across three core capabilities:

• Experience Management

• Research

• Design and Content Strategy

The Service Design approach has been well received across the bank and is now an established work stream. Here is a flavour of some of the typical outputs that are created during a project:

• Assessment of incoming demand, allocation of resourcing and scope definition

• Initial review of data, research requirements and planning

• Data analysis, journey mapping, heuristic analysis, competitor research etc

• Customer interviews, prototype or concept build and test

• Co-creation, target and transition mapping

• Validation (assessment of objectives and key results) and business case presented for review