Service design gives us methods for understanding experiences and shaping better services. Systems Thinking in Practice (STiP) offers ways of exploring complexity, relationships, organisational learning and purposeful action. Inspired by Lou Downe’s School of Good Services approach, Kate Tarling’s Services Taxonomy, and Mike Burrows’ Wholehearted perspective on engaging with complexity and building deliberately adaptive organisations, this workshop explores what becomes possible when Service Design and STiP are brought together. Our working hypothesis is that wholehearted service design is the capability to see, learn about, steward and continually adapt services as systems, while remaining focused on the outcomes they exist to achieve. Drawing on a real inquiry from The Open University based on Soft Systems Methodology, participants will explore this hypothesis through a practical service example. Using a series of complementary lenses, we will examine what helps us understand services as designed structures, what helps us recognise them as living systems that learn and adapt over time, and what helps us determine whether they are delivering good outcomes for the people they serve. Together, we will explore the capabilities that enable organisations to develop shared understanding, navigate complexity, learn from multiple perspectives and continually improve services in response to changing needs and contexts. Can organisations become truly service-led unless they develop the capability to see, learn about, steward and adapt their services as systems? Participants will leave with new ways of seeing services, practical insights for their own contexts, and a richer understanding of what wholehearted service design might mean in practice.
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