What if we’ve been led down the wrong path…

When it comes to service design, we’re often told the main goal is to break down silos. And that makes sense, right?

Our organizations are structured vertically, but the experiences we design flow horizontally. This clash creates friction, so the natural instinct is to declare war on silos.

But what if that’s sending us in the wrong direction?

Silos exist for a reason; they bring focus and efficiency to specific tasks. The real problem is often the broken connection between them. So, what if instead of trying to eliminate silos, we focused on repairing them?

In this episode, I talk with Ellen Pittman, a researcher who shares a fascinating case study from a high-stakes organization struggling to meet a critical, time-sensitive performance target. On the surface, the pressure was on a single department to solve it.

But as they dug deeper, they discovered the true bottleneck wasn't in that department at all, or even on the organizational chart. The real roadblocks were less visible and far more human.

So what does it take to overcome these hidden barriers?

Ellen found a specific mix of ingredients that allowed them to collaborate across team boundaries and address the issue with great success.

In our conversation, we explore what those ingredients are and why it seems so hard for most organizations to get them right.

This episode has the potential to reframe your thoughts on silos, leadership, and the roadblocks you think are in your way.

A theme that I really loved exploring was how easily organizational metrics can be "gamed". We've all seen it, you hit the target but miss the actual goal... we talk about antidote in the episode.

Enjoy the conversation and keep making a positive impact.

Be well,

~ Marc

--- [ 1. GUIDE ] ---

00:00 Welcome to Episode 233

05:00 Vertical vs. Horizontal Structures

06:00 Ellen's Journey into Healthcare Change

07:30 Hospital Case Study

10:30 Real Challenge: System-Wide Impact

12:30 Breaking Silos: A Hospital's Approach

15:30 Leadership Beyond KPIs: True Purpose

23:30 Top-Down Initative, Bottom-Up Ownership

25:30 The Consultant's Fear of ED Patients

27:45 Overcoming Fear with Data Experiments

30:00 Data as Curiosity, Not Blame

35:30The CEO's Risky Vulnerability

39:30 Leadership Flexibility: When to Take Control

44:30 Repairing Silos vs. Breaking Them

45:30 Overcoming Jadedness

48:30 Reconnecting to Shared Purpose

52:30 Principles Etched in Minds, Not Walls

55:30 Why Cultural Change Takes Time

59:00 Insulating Change at Every Level

1:01:00 Leaders & The System: Mutual Understanding

1:04:00 Alan's Book: The Hive Model of Fluidity

1:07:45 Question to Ponder

--- [ 2. LINKS ] ---

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-ellen-pittman-27311421a/

--- [ 3. CIRCLE ] ---

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

⁠https://servicedesignshow.com/circle

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

• Youtube ~ https://go.servicedesignshow.com/233-youtube
• Spotify ~ https://go.servicedesignshow.com/233-spotify
• Apple ~ https://go.servicedesignshow.com/233-itunes
• Snipd ~ https://go.servicedesignshow.com/233-snipd

• I have to admit, even I got stuck...

  Recently, I was working on the onboarding journey for my Circle community.

  What started as a flexible journey inside a Miro board very quickly became a complex map that became impossible to use.

  With every new insight we wanted to add came questions about where it should go and how it should be defined. Due to these meta-level questions, we lost momentum, and the entire process slowed to a halt.

  Unintentionally, I had created a journey structure that was simply too complex to be useful in practice.

  Finding the right balance between structure and flexibility, as well as richness and overview, in your journeys is a challenge many of us face.

  That's why it's the next big problem we tackle in our Journey Management Playbook series.

  In the past episodes, we've used AI to generate a journey and then verified it to build trust. Now, we need to make it truly manageable.

  The core issue is that we often treat journey maps as containers for all information, when their true power lies in driving action.

  So, as we've said often, we need to shift our mindset from "journey mapping" to "journey management".

  The key is a simple yet powerful framework for structuring your journey.

  * What if the most effective journey had a specific, limited number of lanes?

  * What if there was a rule for how many steps you should have (maximum)?

  * What if there was a simple way to handle complexity without cluttering your main map?

  In this episode, Tingting reveals the proven framework that helps you answer these questions.

  With this framework, you'll be able to transform your map from a static document into a practical tool that teams can use to make informed decisions.

  Heads-up, this is another deep-dive where we get into the nitty-gritty details.

  We spend a lot of time sharing our screen, so if you're listening to the audio-only version, I highly recommend opening the accompanying slides to follow along visually.

  We've also included timestamps in the description, so you can easily jump back to a specific topic later on.

  Be well,

  ~ Marc

  
  

  --- [ 1. LINKS ] ---

  • Playbook Slides - https://go.servicedesignshow.com/08gpl
  • Sign up for TheyDo - https://go.servicedesignshow.com/scjwb

  
  

  --- [ 2. GUIDE ] ---

  00:00 Welcome to Episode 5

  03:00 Meet Tingting: Journey Coach

  05:00 Short articles at the end

  06:00 Series Recap

  07:00 Next Steps: Filling Your Journey

  10:00 Action-Biased Journeys

  15:30 Simplifying your journey

  17:30 Workflow First: Not Just Visuals

  19:55 Journey Map Evolution (V1 vs V2)

  27:00 Why Fewer Lanes Work

  29:10 Triple Diamond Workflow

  33:40 Framework Over Flexibility

  38:30 Nested journeys

  41:20 Lane Owners & Stakeholders

  45:30 Offboarding Journey Example

  49:00 Automatic Data Roll-Up

  50:00 Actionable Insights > Stories

  54:15 As-Is vs. To-Be Approaches

  1:00:30 Key Takeaways: Structure Tips

  1:04:00 Next Episode Preview

  1:04:50 Connect With TheyDo

  
  

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

  • YouTube ~ https://go.servicedesignshow.com/journey-management-playbook-05-youtube
  • Spotify ~ https://go.servicedesignshow.com/journey-management-playbook-05-spotify
  • Apple ~ https://go.servicedesignshow.com/journey-management-playbook-05-apple
  • Snipd ~ https://go.servicedesignshow.com/journey-management-playbook-05-snipd