Signals

Recently we have been receiving clear signals – companies have approached us requesting we recommend qualified service design trainers who meet specific requirements. We have also been approached by service design trainers asking if we could create transparency in the growing market of service design training programmes to ensure quality.

We wanted to know how the community saw these issues so we carried out a survey. We received 243 responses – about half of them from potential clients looking for service design training and the other half from providers of service design training.

All of them shared the impression that the market for service design training and other educational programmes is growing exponentially – and that more and more offerings can be found.

Indeed it seems that both providers and potential recipients of service design training see quality as an issue: “I've noticed an increase in service design trainings, but the quality isn’t always there,” says one respondent, and another one claims, “In Finland, most trainings provide the basics well, but when it comes to more challenging content (i.e. user research, concept design) the content is often quite thin.”

So what about an accreditation system?

90% of potential clients see this as desirable! Today it is hard to find the right trainer for the needs of a particular company – so clients claim: “It is difficult to know what kind of quality and level the trainings provided have”. An SDN-driven accreditation system would make all the difference.

The development of an accreditation system

 So the SDN has set up a task force to develop an accreditation system that serves the needs of both providers and potential clients. The system has been under development for the past 5 months and consists of two main parts.

The first part of the accreditation is the self-assessment. The questions are aligned with what clients want to know about potential providers of service design training. The assessment serves as a foundation for the Accreditation Committee – and later it will appear as a report on the personal profile of the accredited trainers. 

After successfully completing the first step, the candidate is interviewed by the Accreditation Committee.

And a successful interview leads to certification as an SDN Accredited Trainer – visible on the SDN website and connected to a specific search engine where clients can access all accredited trainers.

SDN Accredited Trainer benefits 

The SDN accreditation system will not only help clients to find trainers that fit their needs – it will also have a range of benefits for the trainers:

• a three-year SDN Professional Membership with all the benefits it includes
• an official accreditation badge on your personal SDN Member profile
• your self- assessment report visible to the community
• tagged as an accredited trainer, so potential clients will easily find your profile
• promotional material to show your accreditation on your own media channels
• discounted SDN memberships to give participants of your training sessions
• endorsement to award SDN co-branded certificates of participation to the participants of your training courses
• Partnering with the SDN Academy

Launch

The SDN Trainer Accreditation was launched on 15 September 2017 and since then we have officially accredited many talented trainers. Get to know our Accredited Service Design Trainers.

Are you interested in becoming an SDN Accredited Trainer yourself? Find all the details here.