Imagine a world where you can simply look at your journey model and ask it why... Why, for example, is our customer churn spiking this quarter? How close are we to that reality?

I invited my good friend ​Jochem van der Veer​, CEO of TheyDo, back onto the show to find out. It’s become a bit of a tradition to start the year with Jochem, looking back at our past predictions and setting the stage for what’s next in the world of Journey Management.

Not so long ago, "Journey Management" was really just an emerging term. Fast forward to today, and I think it's fair to say that the conversation has shifted entirely. We're seeing organizations big and small adopt this practice as a framework that drives real business decisions.

In last year's episode, Jochem predicted that by now we’d be able to ask our journeys "Why?" and get instant (and meaningful) answers. In this conversation, we discuss how the technology has arrived and why "Journey Anarchy" is the new hurdle we have to clear.

Next, we play a round of "Objection Bingo" where we address the most common roadblocks we hear every day that stand in the way of wider adoption of journey management. From "we don't have the data" to the classic "It’s too expensive". And of course, Jochem shares some practical strategies to help you overcome these roadblocks when you encounter them.

Finally, Jochem makes some spicy predictions for 2026. Like the emergence of a completely new role in the CX space. So, if you want to stay one step ahead and hear where our field is heading, this is the conversation for you.

I would love to know: how do you feel about the state of journey management heading into 2026? A) Mostly "meh" B) Excited! C) Something else...

Leave a comment (if you're on Spotify).

Be well,

~ Marc

--- [ 1. GUIDE ] ---

00:00 Welcome to Episode 245

05:30 Revisiting 2025 Predictions

10:00 The One Question Most Marketers Forget to Ask

12:45 Role of Human Judgment vs. AI Clues

14:30 4-Step Journey Framework for 2026

17:00 Why Journey Mapping is "Dead"

21:15 #1 Reason Companies Fail at Implementation

24:45 The "Journey Anarchy" Crisis

28:00 improving decision making

31:00 How Siloed Teams Kill Revenue

38:30:00 Another Objection: "It's Too Expensive"

42:30 Objection Bingo: Flipping the Script on Stakeholder Pushback

46:15 Wildcard: AI Agents vs. Simple Chatbowildcard: AI

48:45 Credit Card/Budget Reality Check

53:00 Predictions for 2026

54:15 Shift from Efficiency Cuts to Innovation Growth

57:00 Why "Operationalizing Empathy" is the New Competitive Edge

58:00 Other Challenges to Watch for in 2026

59:30 Near Real-Time Journey Monitoring

1:03:00 The 10 Million Dollar Problem

1:05:00 Connect with Jochem

--- [ 2. LINKS ] ---

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/jochemvanderveer
• The Experience Edge Podcast - https://open.spotify.com/show/4M2BsaT4jC5Oz54eyek0SZ
• https://www.theydo.com/

--- [ 3. CIRCLE ] ---

Join our private community for in-house service design professionals.

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Sorry, but I have to say it...

We are optimizing our way to boredom.

Measure everything, test every variation, and optimize the customer journey until it’s "perfect".

That seems to be the mantra of modern business today.

But in this first episode of 2026, our guest ​Kendra Shimmell​ throws a big wrench in this machinery.

Kendra argues that while things like A/B testing validate what works right now, they often come at a steep cost.

Because if we rely solely on reacting to quantitative data to make small, incremental improvements, we eventually, you guessed it, optimize our way to mediocrity and boredom.

We lose the soul in our services.

Kendra shares a painful example of this phenomenon in action: social media algorithms.

You click on a cool backpack once, and the system thinks it has you figured out. Suddenly, your entire feed is just backpacks. A lot of backpacks.

The algorithm is "optimized," sure.

But it has stripped away all the serendipity, turning a place of discovery into a repetitive, boring experience.

As Kendra put it, just because you can keep a user clicking doesn't mean you aren't exhausting them.

So, the question is: Why do organizations default to this?

Why are we so focused on squeezing out efficiency rather than exploring new avenues?

When I asked Kendra, her answer was blunt: "Greed, Fear, and Confusion." Ouch.

The greed to squeeze out the last 1% of revenue.

The fear that if they try something new, they won't find product-market fit again. And the confusion that comes from ignoring the fact that humans are wildly irrational beings driven by feelings, not spreadsheets.

This conversation is a wake-up call to stop treating our customers like subjects in a scientific experiment and start treating them as people to co-create with.

And if your organization isn't ready to hear that? Well, Kendra has some advice on how to be a little "sneaky" to get the work done anyway!

The conversation ends with a question that pairs perfectly with a long walk, somewhere where you can let a little serendipity back into your day: "When, where, and how is it most important to be human?".

Happy New Year and keep making a positive impact!

Be well,

~ Marc

--- [ 1. GUIDE ] ---

00:00 Welcome to Episode 244

04:30 Why We Need Co-Creation Over Experimentation

08:30 The Twitch Lesson

14:30 Why Excessive Optimization Leads to "Beige"

16:03 Social Media & the Algorithm

23:45 Backpack Rabbit Hole

25:30 3 Forces of Stagnation

32:30 Funding Analogous Thinking

35:00 Creating Space for Change

38:30 The Compliance Pilot Strategy

44:15 MVW (Minimum Viable Working Model)

45:45 Permission vs. Action

48:45 Moments of irrationality: taxes vs buying

52:45 Doing Things Better vs. Doing Better Things

56:15 Living Inside the Algorithm

58:15 Why We Must Learn to be Bored Again

1:01:45 The Role of the "Human in the Loop" in the Age of AI

1:04:15 Case Study: Designing for Distance

1:06:15 Question to ponder

--- [ 2. LINKS ] ---

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/kendrashimmell/

--- [ 3. CIRCLE ] ---

Join our private community for in-house service design professionals.

⁠https://servicedesignshow.com/circle

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We need to talk about the "intern" sitting on your desktop...

Come on, you know the one.

Sure, they are fast, very eager to please, and can process data at lightning speeds.

But they also have a bad habit of hallucinating facts and making things up just to make you happy.

Of course, I’m talking about AI.

It is fair to say that we are past the initial "wow" phase of generative AI.

Now, for us service design professionals, the real question is: How do we actually hire, train, and trust this new digital colleague?

That is the focus of this episode of our Inside Service Design series.

We sit down for a chat with two brilliant professionals: Jessica Dugan and Judith Buhmann.

They share a grounded, hype-free look at how they are integrating AI into their own existing workflows. Not as a replacement for our work, but as a "Junior Associate" who needs some (sometimes a lot) management.

To make this real, Jess walks us through the framework she uses for building her own custom AI agents. She explains how to define their "persona," scope their tasks, and curate their knowledge base so they can actually be useful (and safe).

And Judith shares a critical perspective on why we can’t fully trust AI yet. We explore why we need to treat AI as an "unreliable narrator" especially when working with vulnerable groups.

So if you are feeling a bit somewhat by the pressure to "use AI" but aren't sure how to do it responsibly, this conversation has some key insights you don't want to miss.

Here's a question: If you had to give your current AI tools a "performance" review, what rating would you give them? A) Employee of the month B) Promising intern (needs supervision) C) Chaos agent (fires random info at me).

Let me know, I’m really curious where we are all at!

Be well,

~ Marc

--- [ 1. GUIDE ] ---

00:00 Welcome to the November Round Up

04:00 Jess's journey into service desig

09:45 Judith's challenge

12:30 Designing for the employee experience and internal systems

14:00 The "Pros" of in-house service design

15:30 The necessity of patience and deep knowledge for in-house success

18:30 Judith topic

19:00 Jess topic: Building (and trusting) your own AI agent

23:00 Why we cannot fully trust any AI

27:00 Scoping the AI agent's role and understanding user need

29:00 Designing the "Human" side: Setting personality and tone for your agent

33:45 Accessibility: Is it actually hard to build your own agent?

35:30 Human-in-the-loop: Regulation and ensuring data accuracy

40:00 Why transparency matters more than just "trust"

47:00 Getting organizational buy-in for AI tools

54:45 Markers of success: How service blueprints live on after the workshop

56:30 Closing thoughts and Question to Ponder

--- [ 2. LINKS ] ---

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/judithbuhmann/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/jess-dugan/

--- [ 3. CIRCLE ] ---

Join our private community for in-house service design professionals.

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Sure, design might be going through a tough period...

But as the saying goes, "never waste a good crisis."

So this moment of uncertainty, where everyone is wondering if (or rather when) AI will take over their job, might actually be our biggest opportunity to rise up.

It is a unique chance to reclaim our core focus of designing services that genuinely improve people's lives, rather than just extracting value to maximize shareholder returns.

Of course to discuss an existential topic like this we had to find someone who's been around the block for some time. And boy did we find someone!

For this episode we sit down with the legendary Dan Saffer to chat about what we can learn from the last two decades of design evolution.

We try to wrap our heads around what caused the erosion of strategic design from its heyday, which, frankly, wasn't even that long ago.

We look into how we somehow got identified with the outputs, like running workshops or creating interfaces in Figma, rather than the outcomes. And more importantly, what we can do to prevent that from happening again, whether that’s with journey management or crafting smart prompts.

And finally we also tackle the big question of why design isn't having a greater influence on the current wave of AI, and how we can change that.

So bring your cassette player for this one, because we're going back in time for some nostalgia and a healthy dose of hope.

Enjoy the conversation and keep making a positive impact!

~ Marc

--- [ 1. GUIDE ] ---

00:00 Welcome to Episode 243

03:00 Why Design Has Failed the Enterprise

07:15 Defining a 'Well-Designed Service'

11:00 4 Stages of Design Maturity

13:45 The Critical Challenge of Design at Scale

16:30 Debunking the Myth being Design as a 'Luxury'

19:30 Is Service Design an Attitude or a Practice?

20:45 Impact of Cloud & Mobile on Design Challenges

23:15 Designing for the 'Cloud Age'

29:00 Service Design vs. Interaction Design

31:45 Focus on the System, Not Just the Artifact

35:00 The Challenge of Hiring True System-Level Designers

37:30 Moving Design from Extractive to Generative

44:45 Only Way to Win Is to Not Play the Game

48:15 Driving Organizational Change Through Design Culture

52:45 Why Designers Burn Out

56:45 How to Measure the Impact of Generative Design

1:00:00 Why AI is a People Problem

1:03:15 What Makes a Great Design Leader?

1:06:15 The Essential Mindset Shift for Modern Design Leadership

1:09:15 The Great Opportunity of AI in Service Design

1:13:45 Final Takeaway

1:14:15 Question to Ponder

--- [ 2. LINKS ] ---

• LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/dansaffer/
• Blue Sky - https://blueskydirectory.com/profiles/odannyboy.bsky.social
• Medium - https://medium.com/ui-for-ai/welcome-to-ui-for-ai-eb22aef8d26c

--- [ 3. CIRCLE ] ---

Join our private community for in-house service design professionals.

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We often hear the "mantra" to move fast and break things...

But what happens when the thing that breaks is you?

For many service design professionals, this is the reality of their calendar: back-to-back meetings, a rush to deliver, and very little space to actually think.

In many organizations, there is a culture that views this busyness as a badge of honor.

But our guest in this episode, Rachael Dietkus, has quite a different -and healthier- approach.

She has a rule written on a post-it note right next to her desk: "No meetings before 10 AM".

This might sound like a luxury, doesn't it?

But Rachael, who's a licensed clinical social worker and designer, argues that rules like this are actually a professional necessity.

Rachael is the founder of Social Workers Who Design, where she is bridging the gap between the deep, ethical frameworks of social work and the often frantic pace of design.

This is an eye-opening episode where we explore why service design might be missing a "manual" that social workers have had for decades.

You'll hear about:

• Why we need to move beyond just empathy to genuine care and compassion.
• The importance of having a structured "safe space" to process your work (social workers spend at least 1 hour in supervision for every 40 hours of work!).
• Why setting hard boundaries is actually a sign of competence and professionalism, not weakness.

So, if you sometimes feel the weight of the work is getting too much and you're looking for ways to create a healthier, more sustainable work environment, this conversation offers practical clues.

As we are almost wrapping up the year, it's an important reminder that reflection on our work isn't a nice to have, but a healthy habit we should all embrace.

Enjoy the conversation and keep making a positive impact.

Be well,

~ Marc

--- [ 1. GUIDE ] ---

00:00 Welcome to Episode 242

04:00 Making Care an Integral Part of Practice

09:00 Recognizing Care (or the Lack Thereof) in Project Pacing

14:00 Difference Between 'Careless' and 'Care-full' Design

17:30 How Rachel's Path to Care Began

26:30 Human Rights and Social Work Foundation

38:45 What Design Can Learn from Social Work

46:15 Radical Act of Slowing Down

52:30 Practical Steps to Build Spaciousness & Combat Workaholism

57:45 Setting Boundaries

1:01:15 Boundaries as Professional Resistance

1:03:45 Takeaway She Hopes You Get

1:05:15 Piece of Advice

1:05:45 Question to ponder

--- [ 2. LINKS ] ---

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachaeldietkuslcsw
• Social Workers Who Design - https://www.socialworkerswho.design/

--- [ 3. CIRCLE ] ---

Join our private community for in-house service design professionals.

⁠https://servicedesignshow.com/circle

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Okay, we are pretty good storytellers... but are we telling the right story?

As service design professionals, we nail it when it comes to what I call "Horizontal Storytelling".

We can walk anyone through the customer journey, step-by-step, building empathy for the user's pain and frustration over time.

But here is the somewhat inconvenient truth: As you might have experienced, your CEO or CFO often doesn't know what to do with that story. They are looking for something else.

They need "Vertical Storytelling".

They need to know how a specific pain point on the ground connects up to the strategic objectives of the business. They need to know the ROI. They need to know if the needle is actually moving.

In episode 8 of the Journey Management Playbook series, Tingting Lin and I are closing the loop.

We are moving from doing the work to measuring the impact.

If you’ve ever struggled to justify prove that your journey management efforts are actually influencing the bottom line, this episode is for you.

We dive into:

• How you can translate customer empathy into business language to get buy-in.

• Why you can't just rely on churn or NPS as your metrics, and how to find early warning signals that prove your work is having an effect now.
• How to connect your solutions back to the original business challenge to see if you actually solved the problem.
• And how to start measuring impact today without having to wait for perfect data integrations.

This episode provides the missing link between "making mapping a journey" and "driving business outcomes."

What is the one metric you struggle to track the most? Send me a reply or leave a comment on YouTube, we’d love to know where the biggest data hurdles are for you.

Enjoy and keep making a positive impact!

Be well,

~ Marc

--- [ 1. LINKS 🔗 ] ---

👉 Playbook Slides -

✅ Sign up for TheyDo - https://go.servicedesignshow.com/scjwb

--- [ 2. GUIDE ] ---

01:00 What's in store episode 08

03:45 Power of Vertical Storytelling

05:30 Proving Your Journey Map Worth the Investment

07:00 Biggest Mistake People Make in Journey Mapping

11:00 When a Simple Insight Changes Everything

16:30 'Horizontal' View vs. the 'Vertical'

23:00 How to Operationalize Your Journey Map

25:00 Start Small, But Map the Full Customer Story

26:00 Closing the Loop and Feedback Mechanisms

30:00 Summary: 3 Pillars of a Successful Journey Strategy

31:34 Differentiating Horizontal and Vertical Stories

33:00 Overcoming Internal Resistance to New Mapping

36:00 Stakeholders as customers

38:45 Translating Empathy into Actionable Design

39:45 Mapping an Employee Onboarding Journey

45:00 Debunking misconceptions

50:30 Software and Resources We Recommend

54:45 Second Essential Technique

58:00 Final Takeaways & Last-Minute Advice

1:00:00 5 Practical Tips You Can Implement Today

--- [ 3. FIND THE SHOW ON ] ---

• Spotify ~ https://go.servicedesignshow.com/journey-management-playbook-08-spotify
• Apple ~ https://go.servicedesignshow.com/journey-management-playbook-08-apple
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• Youtube ~ https://go.servicedesignshow.com/journey-management-playbook-08-youtube

Service design, so what...

That's a question still many people around us (rightfully) ask.

And let's be honest, they'll probably keep asking it for the foreseeable future.

It will take a very long time before our field becomes a household name, which I doubt it ever will.

Now, it’s easy to get frustrated about this, to roll our eyes every time someone questions the value of our work.

But that frustration isn't going to get us any closer to creating the impact we know we can.

A much more productive approach is to prepare for these questions, to have our answers ready before they even get asked.

This also helps us to better recognize when we end up in situations where, no matter what we say or do, our message about service design just stand a chance of resonating.

We do everyone a favor by acknowledging this. Sometimes it's just not the right place or the right time.

But where do we learn which stories to tell, when and to whom, and which stories we should avoid?

Well, we can take some clues from Mark Howell, our guest this in this episode.

Mark is a seasoned professional who's led some of the largest in-house service design teams I've heard of. This achievement becomes even more impressive when you consider he did this in industries not exactly known for their human-centered thinking.

In our conversation, we explore how Mark used tools like a "service design quality assessment" to have the right conversations with stakeholders. We talk about how he learned to identify the red flags that signal it's time to find a different project, and we dig into the key role community plays in building a successful service design practice.

I'm really excited about this episode because we just don't have many examples of people who have scaled service design teams to these kinds of numbers. And we have even fewer who are willing to share the real learnings from that journey.

So, if you have the ambition to grow service design, this is a fantastic conversation to get some best practices and hear about the pitfalls to avoid.

What stuck with me from our chat is recognizing that sometimes you need to take a step back instead of just trying to push forward (and burning out in the process).

I would love to hear from you: What's a key signal for you? What's the clue that gives away that it's time to stop pushing and find a different battle?

Enjoy and keep making a positive impact!

~ Marc

--- [ 1. GUIDE ] ---

00:00 Welcome to Episode 241

05:00 Positioning Service Designers

09:00 Cracking the Organizational Nut

13:30 the 3 disciplines to drive perspective

20:00 His Take on Journey Mapping

25:30 Lessons Learned

29:00 The Red Flags of a Failing Project

31:45 How to Spot Red Flags

34:30 The 4 Quality Indicators

40:00 Defining the Indicators

46:00 Collecting Design Quality Data

48:30 The Design Community of Practice

56:45 Aligning with Product Manager OKRs

1:02:00 Question to ponder

--- [ 2. LINKS ] ---

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/markhowell-phd

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Join our private community for in-house service design professionals.

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