Service design identifies what processes, people, and tools are needed to reach the desired state of customer experience. Rooted in a deep understanding of the user, service design practices take a holistic approach by understanding and synchronizing the employee experience and the customer experience. Service design is a growing skill set within government shaping the way people interact with the government and bolstering all aspects needed to support those experiences.
We create safe and experimental spaces for service designers to learn, network, and evolve. This is a free community open to any public sector service designers that are curious and want to grow. In addition to supporting government service designers, we present and share many different methodologies, including Liberating Structures, Game Storming, Participatory Design, Behavioral Design, Equity-centered Design, Design Futures, Inclusive Design, Systemic Design, and much more.
The Service Design in Government group brings together practitioners to learn and share as a community of practice. This group will bring together all levels of service design talent from federal, state, county, and municipal governments.
DESCRIPTION
To explore different approaches for creative problem-solving by collaboratively identifying high-impact challenges and experimenting with structured innovation frameworks.
BIO
Divya Harpalani is a former product manager with B&H Photo, Video in New york. As a Product Manager and a creative problem solver, she likes creating customer centric digital experiences that enhance and streamline the customer’s overall user journey on B&H web experience. As an individual she thrives in connecting the dots between data, people and ideas. As a PM, she often faces challenges with aligning cross functional teams to a common vision or prioritizing challenges that have high impact value to business and customers. While dealing with those challenges, there are certain innovation frameworks that she uses that spark creativity amongst teams for brainstorming ideas and also some of the frameworks are just used as brain exercises to help her and the team think differently for solving complex problems. Hence this workshop is an introductory approach towards solving those complex challenges that most of us might face in our daily work and walk away with familiarity on how to use them further to address similar or other problems.
*******
Ami Shrivastava is a UX Researcher and Product Designer at Kaizen Analytix, partnering with S&P Global to shape intuitive, empathy‑driven digital experiences. She believes in asking the right questions to uncover both spoken and unspoken user needs, enabling a holistic understanding that informs high‑impact solutions. With hands‑on experience across diverse domains like fintech, Edtech, and e‑commerce, she excels at translating insights into user‑centric designs while deriving solutions that deliver optimal outcomes and align tightly with business goals. Ami thrives on connecting data, people, and ideas—facilitating clear alignment across cross‑functional teams and guiding them through complex challenges. In this workshop, she’ll introduce a suite of proven innovation frameworks that spark creativity, foster collaborative brainstorming, and help you prioritize solutions that deliver real value to users and stakeholders alike.
DESCRIPTION
The design process is inherently riddled with power dynamics, and designers don’t often realise they have power and a part to play in negotiating between end users’ needs and business goals. By employing mediation techniques, we can build trust and create a more equitable design process. If mediation or mediation techniques are new to you, this will be an interesting talk to learn how it can improve our work in the government.
BIO
Morgan Miller is Senior Director of Service Design and Facilitation at Stanford University, leading an in-house consulting team working across the institution to cultivate innovation and human-centred approaches. Morgan is a facilitator, leader and strategist helping guide teams to alignment and action, with two decades of design and management experience.
We meet twice a month--one time for a speaker/training and one small group discussion as part of the Lab Series. Each month The Lab Series provides a space for an inclusive community of service designers to openly ideate, troubleshoot, and experiment with old and new activities and methods. Check out our upcoming meetings below.
January 8 [Lab]: Time for Reflection 2025 with Lexi Schilf, SDG Co-lead
January 29 [LAB]: Singapore gov service design (tentative) with Melissa Chan
March 19 [LAB]: Collective Decision-making with Isabella Bruno
April 9 [SPEAKER]: Integrating Community Insights to Design Responsive Primary Health Care Services & Systems in sub-Saharan Africa with Naserian Saruni and Oliver Muchiri
May 21 [WORKSHOP]: Naming the Rupture: Grief, Groundlessness, and the Unspoken Realities of Public Service with Amy J Wilson
May 28 [WORKSHOP]: Making Meaning in Motion: Practicing Presence and Possibility After the Fall with Amy J Wilson
June 11 [DISCUSSION] How service design amplifies the circular economy with Gaëlle Le Gélard
June 25 [WORKSHOP] Civic Service Ecosystem Ecology with Abigail Fisher
July 16 [LAB] Casual designer hangout
July 23 [TALK] Ethics and Care in User Research with Vaidehi Supatkar
August 27 [PANEL] Designing Ethical Services
September 10 [WORKSHOP] Hands on Approaches to Frameworks for Innovation and Impact with Divya Harpalani and Ami Shrivastava
September 24 [TALK] Navigating power and equity in service design with Morgan Miller
October 15 [CASE STUDY] City of Atlanta design with Mariama Ndiaye
October 29 [WORKSHOP] Engaging design with Laura Ferrarello
Check out our speakers page to view a full list of past speakers/facilitators from 2021-2024.