SFIA 9 - Service design

Service design has evolved significantly since its initial inclusion in SFIA.

Our comprehensive review has established:

• The historical alignment with ITIL framework (Availability, Capacity, and Service Level Management) no longer fully represents the breadth of modern service design
• Service design now encompasses a broader methodology that spans multiple disciplines and requires diverse skill sets
• The framework recognises service design as both a strategic approach and a practical discipline that includes user experience, customer experience, patient experience, and employee experience
• Service design skills are distributed throughout SFIA - from initial concept and analysis through to development, implementation, and continuous improvement
• SFIA 9 provides guidance to help organisations and practitioners identify and apply the relevant skills needed for their specific service design initiatives

This positions SFIA 9 as a practical tool for organisations to identify and develop the complete range of skills needed for modern service design, while acknowledging its evolution as a multifaceted discipline.

Get in touch if you have comments, ideas - we would love to hear from anyone interested in this area

Current position following consultation and review

• For SFIA 8 - service design was reviewed
  • In SFIA 7 and previous versions of SFIA there had been a sub-category of skills called 'Service design'
  • This was aligned to the ITIL framework - it had 2 to 3 SFIA skills: Availability management, Capacity management, Service level management
• For SFIA 8 - the sub category was removed as it was mis-leading as it did not contain the full range of service design-related skills available in SFIA
  • Guidance notes were published to help employers and service designers locate potential SFIA skills
• For SFIA 9 - interest in service design is still strong and growing in some areas, but like many emerging disciplines it is not easy or desirable for SFIA to suggest there is a single, settled position e.g.
  • service design needed a suite of role/jobs
  • service design as a methodology or as a mind-set
  • service design used interchangeably with other terminology
  • the range of 'experience' related concepts, such as, user experience, customer experience, patient experience, employee experience
  • the relationship between skills needed to create the service "design" and other skills needed for analysis, development, implementation and operation of a service - e.g. if service design is an iterative approach which requires continuous monitoring and improvement - then there are scores of SFIA skills which fit under the service design umbrella
  • it seems more important for SFIA 9 to help employers and service designers navigate their way to a position on skills rather than aim for a finalised, 'settled' position.