Service blueprint

Definition: A service blueprint describes a service in enough detail to implement and maintain it carefully. According to the British Standard for Service Design (BS 7000 -3, BS 7000 -10, BS EN ISO 9000), blueprinting is described as Mapping out of a service journey identifying the processes that constitute the service, isolating possible fail points and establishing the time frame for the journey. G Lynn Shostack who was VP of Citibank in the US during the 1980’s pioneered the concept of service blueprinting, and developed it as a way to plan the cost and revenue associated with operating a service. A blueprint can be used by both business process managers, designers and software engineers during development, and can be used as a guide to service managers that operate services on a day-to-day basis. Currently, the biggest challenges in blueprinting revolve around ways of depicting services in a holistic way, from elements of the branding and user experience on one hand to back-end technical and business processes on the other. Methods: Service blueprints need to describe time in a service. This includes the sequence of events of a service experience, its durations and timings. A blueprint should graphically and narriatively describe this time element. A sequence of events - sometimes called use cases or flows - is relatively easy to blueprint as it can be represented in a linear flow identifying user actions, service responses and the touchpoints or interfaces that enable the service relationship. Sequences become challenged when there are multiple options or directions and when the planned process goes awry. The danger here is that the sequence becomes prescriptive with little room for variation from the ideal path. Source: Livework Studio Ltd References Lynn G. Shostack. Breaking Free from Product Marketing. Journal of Marketing. 41 (Summer 1977), 73-80. Lynn G. Shostack, Designing Services that Deliver, Harvard Business Review 62, no. 1 (January-February 1984), 133-139. Lynn G. Shostack, How to Design a Service, European Journal of Marketing 16,1 (2001), 49-63. G Hollins and W Hollins, Total Design: Managing the design process in the service sector, Trans Atlantic Publications, 1991 (republished 2002 in its original form), ISBN 0273033387 Links: British Standard for Service Design click here