In summary
There are many different ways of doing Service Design and different focuses of Service Design. Here are a few of the different types of service designers I've met over the years.
The workshop nerd.
The implementation nerd.
The backstage nerd.
The consultant.
The educator.
The design leader.
The Workshop Nerd
There are service designers who really specialise in workshops.
A lot of the work they do is about bringing people together in workshops and facilitating the work.
Service designers make great workshop facilitators because they understand that the backstage and front-stage people need to work together to create great experiences.
Plus, service designers know that they are not the experts. They need to bring the different stakeholders together to create lovely experiences.
The Implementation Nerd
The implementation service designer is the one who is focused on creating really the services and improving them.
These are often service designers that you will find in-house who is making sure that the company's services continue to evolve in a good way.
The backstage Nerd
The backstage service designer. These are people who are focused on services that are hidden.
These service designers know organisations, businesses and processes really well.
Much of their work is about making work processes easier so that services can be created for other people.
The Consultant
The consulting service designer is one that jumps from project to project to project.
With each project, he might take on a very different role.
In one project, he might be a workshop guy. In another, he might be more focused on the implementation stuff. And in another, more on the backstage stuff.
These service designers usually work in design agencies or big consultancies.
The Educator
The Service Design educator brings Service Design into big organisations.
Sometimes these people are also called design evangelists. Their work is to train, up-skill and set the foundations within organisations so that Service Design can happen.
The Design Leader
And then there are service designers who become design leaders.
These people are managing a big group of designers and other specialists.
Usually, these people have a good level of seniority and switch their careers from "making the things" to " managing the people who make the things".