Marjaana Toiminen

Hanno Nevanlinna
Risto Sarvas

Lean Service Creation

Open Source
Tools for

Change
Agents - the what, the how and the why
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION
Content
Introduction ............................................................................................. 10

The Revolution from Within ...................................................................... 14

Lean Service Creation Manifesto ...............................................................32

You Are the Change Agent ........................................................................ 44

Client Case: Helen. When Lean and Corporate Collide ...................................48

Scaling Learning on a Corporate Level Interview with Marco Ryan, Wärtsilä ...54

Trust the Process ......................................................................................58

Client Case: Telia. Consistency and customer focus at scale ............................ 64

Get Naked and Listen ................................................................................70

Communicate and Collaborate Interview with Jussi Aho, Fira ........................76

Client Case: Vapo. How to Change and Never Turn Back? ................................82

The Danger with Tools. Interview with Kristian Luoma, OPLabs ..................... 88

LSC is a Movement, Not a Method Interview with John Oswald, Futurice ...... 90

Four things to remember ...........................................................................98

The Canvases: Lean Service Creation the Handbook 2.0 .............................. 104
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

12

Introduction
 13

IN 2013, ONE OF FUTURICE’S clients made an on what to prioritize, where to invest time and
exceptional request. Instead of an assignment to resources, and so on.
create new digital services, they asked Futurice to Lean Service Creation seemed like a set of
teach them how they work. tools that aids with all of those issues. I wanted
That was when the process known as Lean to find out if such simple poster canvases can
Service Creation was formulated into a series of actually help solve them. Even more, I wanted to
canvases for the first time. Since then, Futurice see what happens to people who work with them.
has printed the series of tools in over 15,000 Furthermore, it seemed to me that the
distributed booklets and taught people how to pioneering culture of Futurice, a company built
use them in dozens of companies, universities on the values of autonomy, transparency and
and public institutions. trust, is embedded in the Lean Service Creation
The impact of the simple set of poster process.
canvases has been incredible, yet to a certain For a company to actually rely on its staff to
extent invisible: known only to those who transform the business and create new value by
participated in the process, and to the staff of focusing on the customer seems self-evident, but
Futurice who facilitated them. reality is often far from it.
The ramifications of the process have been, Based on what I know of Futurice, their
more often than not, profound, sometimes thriving business is actually linked to those
even revolutionary, for both individuals and values and autonomy of the personnel in
organizations. This is why the creators of LSC everyday life.
tools decided to share not only the tools in Founded in 2000 on software development,
another print run of the canvas set, but also the Futurice has since grown into a business of over
user experiences and insights of people who have 500 people in five countries with a turnover of
adopted them. 50 million euros. Having been honoured twice
When Hanno Nevanlinna, Head of Culture as the best workplace in Europe, the company is
at Futurice, called me to get recommendations very serious about developing its autonomous,
for good writers, I felt tempted. Even though my humane culture even further.
daily work as a management consultant is far So I agreed to accept Hanno’s request, with
from that of a reporter, the thinking behind the a hidden motive to learn the tools myself. I
Lean Service Creation process appealed to me. attended several one-day courses and company
demo sessions, interviewing the developers of
THE REASON IS SIMPLE: in digital transformation, the tools, the Futurice staff members using them
companies and organizations often struggle with and clients implementing them.
the whole process of change: both the what and
the how. The need to change is there, even the
will for renewal, too often overlapping with far
too many simultaneous projects and urgent daily
matters to attend to, on top of conflicting views
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

14
 15

THE LSC PROCESS is a smart compilation of widely-

used tools for concisely creating new digital
services. After talking to people familiar with the
process, it became clear that LSC is both a great
enabler and a ruthless mirror. It often brings
out the hidden potential of participants and
empowers them. Yet it can also reveal hidden
motives, dysfunctions or discrepancies at any
given organization.
Often, it has triggered transformations far
beyond just creating new digital services, in
people, teams and entire organizations. It is a
powerful tool.
In this book, you’ll find members of the
Futurice staff talking about their perceptions,
experiences and lessons. There are three
examples of organizations and companies that
have adopted and implemented the tools in their
business. There are views of leaders who have
faced the digital disruption in their daily work
and discovered the potential in the changing
business environment. To unlock the potential,
they have used tools and thinking methods of
various kinds, including LSC.
In the second half of the book, you will find the
updated canvases accompanied with a short user
manual.
Thanks to Hanno Nevanlinna for giving me
the opportunity to delve into the world of Lean
Service Creation, and to those who gave their
time for interviews and insights.
This book is targeted at anyone with the
ambition to learn, grow and do meaningful work
with others. Change agents, enjoy!

Marjaana Toiminen
April 2018, Helsinki
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

16

The
Revolution
from
Within
A set of posters for new business
development trigger a transformation of
thought and action
 17

THE FRAMING
It started out, as new thinking often does, with The need to formulate a sustainable, repeat-
atoms of insight gained during a long, unbroken able and transformative process for creating new
succession of days, weeks, months and years. digital services had been present in Futurice’s
Even for Isaac Newton, the apple that struck practice for years. The need to crystallize this and
his head would have been no more than a minor share it grew as its potential was revealed in their
nuisance if he had not already been reflecting on daily life, in their work with customers.
the idea of gravity.
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

18

“Once the management

understands their role, they
also see a possibility for a new

That is how Lean Service Creation came into The set of tools has expanded and the process
being in 2013, as a client requested Futurice to itself has evolved over the years. The relevance,
teach them how they work in creating digital potential uses and purposes of the process have
services. That is when the Futurice way of think- grown dramatically – perhaps even exponentially.
ing, which has now grown into the Lean Service In every industry, the spread of new digi-
Creation process, was documented for customers tal technologies and the rise of new disruptive
for the first time. threats are transforming business models and
Since then it has been tested in dozens of organizations. Globalization, changing customer
organizations, proven useful and even revolu- behaviour, the lowering of market entry barriers,
tionary by thousands of users. Multinational along with the rise of the data-driven platform
corporations such as Wärtsilä, Tesco, Telia and economy, all pose potential threats to businesses
BMW have successfully implemented it at scale. from the industrial age.
Educational institutions, organizations within the Amid the accelerating speed of change, the
public sector and a vast number of companies of ability to adapt, change and react has become a
all sizes and various business sectors have bene- crucial skill for all organizations, regardless their
fitted from it. size or industry.
 19

type of dialogue, that is much

more rewarding than the old
hierarchy of order and obey.”

We might claim that there is not a single to act upon intentions. Or, a company might lack
company, institution, association or government a shared vision of the future and even a shared
service where the rapid shift sparked by digital language to analyse the transformation they face.
transformation has not brought about fundamen- In the digital business environment, the pro-
tal changes. cesses of the analogue world may no longer be
sufficient, or they may have even become outdat-
But there are. Of course there are. ed altogether. Yet companies need to adapt, need
to grow, need to transform.
THERE MIGHT BE an awareness of the digital shift,
but no urge to change. There might be a compul-
sion, but not a need. There might be a willingness
to change, but indecision as where to focus, no
structure to make it happen in the midst of all
the everyday hassles.
Or, even more frequently, there might be a
strategy and will to change, but also an inability
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

20

Lean Service Creation is a step-by-step guid-

ed path for developing new digital services in
an agile, customer-centric way. In actuality, and
all simplicity, it is a set of poster canvases with
questions. The LSC process supports the discov-
ery of new business opportunities and supports
the process to develop, iterate, manage and even-
tually launch them. It is a step-by-step guide to
create new business in the digital era.
As simple as it sounds, there is more to it.
There are fundamental changes that the LSC pro-
cess triggers. Once implemented, it changes the
way people work and communicate. Digital trans-
formation is, after all, less about the technology
and more about the way we think and act.
Lean Service Creation promotes a transform-
ative, collaborative culture that is fit to face the
challenges of the digital era.
In the end, any successful transformation or
change is about the people. It always is.

WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT NOW?

Gary Hamel, the legendary writer on strategy,
innovation and management, has formulated
the situation of the companies of the industrial
age quite bluntly: “Right now, your company has
21st-century internet-enabled business process-
es, mid 20th-century management processes, all
built atop 19th-century management principles.”
Added to that, the world around companies
and their market environments is transforming
by leaps and bounds. Of all the firms that made
it onto the Fortune 500 list in 1995, only 57% still
existed 20 years later.
The research institution Gartner has predicted
that by 2027, one fifth of all market leader com-
panies will lose their position to others founded
 21

“The process after the year 2000, because of a lack of digital

business advantage.

itself is a
Yet an astonishing number of companies still
seek growth primarily via cost reduction. The
need to change is far more common than the

trigger for
courage to transform.
According to Barry O’Reilly, author of Lean En-
terprise, only 29% of companies on the Fortune

a more
500 list have plans for new products as a source
of growth. If the number is accurate, the lack of
innovation is in stark contrast with the countless

fundamental
possibilities of the digital era.
“We have an amazing ability in digital technol-
ogy to iterate in seconds, to capture volumes of

renewal, for
data on how users behave and engage with our
systems at scale. Yet most of the processes we
build around our business operations are slow

rewiring the
and legacy-oriented. We have long, slow feedback
loops that do not match the speed of the market
or the complexity we are dealing with. Yet this

way you work

is the world most of us are faced with,” O’Reilly
says.

– and think.”
NO WONDER companies and organizations are
perplexed and even anxious as they watch the
digital age unfold.
“The digital age is the age of uncertainty, a
period of transformation that is impacting all
industries. The business logic that has served
for decades may collapse unexpectedly or be
challenged by a newcomer, a disruptor,” says
Eeva Raita, Head of Culture Advisory at Futurice.
Raita has facilitated LSC processes for companies
of different sizes and strategies in Finland and
Germany.
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

22

“Quite often companies face challenges, not

just with their business but also with their or-
ganizational culture, as these two are obviously
intertwined. You need to be able to change both
the business and the culture from within the
company in order to survive. That is why Lean
Service Creation tools were devised: to help
companies and organizations trigger renewal on
many levels,” Raita says.
In his book The Startup Way, Eric Ries describes
the differences of a pre-digital company and
a digital-native company by categorizing two
fundamental ways of working: that of a modern
company and that of an old-fashioned company.
This comparison ignores the actual age or size of
the organization, and focuses on how it operates
and the principles of its business practice.
According to Ries, a modern company fo-
cuses on long-term growth rather than on cash
flow, and is made up of cross-functional teams
that work together to serve customers through
iterative processes. It is committed to continuous
innovation, channelling the innovation process
via an internal structure – an inner startup, for
example.
An old-fashioned company is made up of ex-
perts working in silos. It prefers projects based on
“vanity metrics” – numbers designed to look as
good as possible, instead of “revealing the truth”.
 23

Additionally, in an old-fashioned company the municates to staff. Managers are used to talking
staff multitask and divide their creativity and on a meta-level, not in a way that is tangible in
focus across many different kinds of projects at everyday life,” says Hanno Nevanlinna, Director
the same time. of Culture at Futurice.
That division is an oversimplification of the Transformation is not only about the products.
diverse world of organizations, but it reveals the It is about the culture, the shared understanding.
fundamental issue: the way a company is organ- The culture of a company is always initiated from
ized, what it measures, how it collaborates and the top.
communicates, both internally and with its cus- “Digital transformation means transforming
tomers, has implications for its ability to thrive in the leader’s role as well. In our experience, this
the digital age. is often the hardest part. We face it quite often
The success of a company in the 21st century when developing new digital services for our
may even depend on these factors. clients. The digital environment is essentially a
The first step towards thriving in the digital transparent one, in which management need to
age is grasping the fundamental nature of the be able to give reasons and argue for their vision,”
change. Digitizing services, investing in tech- Nevanlinna says.
nology or adding competencies are not enough. “No customer has ever approached us with a
According to a recent study by Microsoft, digitiz- request of changing the management. But that is
ing parts of an existing business or developing often where the process leads,” he says.
new initiatives around technology are unlikely “Customer-centricity, which is at the heart of
to succeed unless the company has transformed Lean Service Creation, transforms the role of the
its culture and organization to support the digital manager into an enabler. The role of the manage-
transformation. ment is not smaller – on the contrary. Learning
“Some years ago, the main driver for devel- to enable development processes is not easy, but
oping digital services was having them ‘because it is crucial. The transformation is often hard for
our competitors have them’. Now, the motives any executive, as it often goes deep into the iden-
have more to do with the digitalization of the tity of the leader.”
economy. But executives may still find it hard to
articulate a strategy in a way that really com-
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

24

WHAT IS LSC, ACTUALLY? “Lean has become a buzzword, and many of

Defined broadly, it is a support system for our clients have picked up on it, on rapid pro-
humans to collaborate and communicate on a totyping, testing and iterating. Design thinking
specific task. The purpose of the LSC canvases is has also already been fashionable for years, with
to direct the development of a service, product or many companies appreciating its holistic ap-
business initiative in a customer-centric way. The proach, and concepts such as customer journeys.
process is built around customers, their unmet In addition, the Agile philosophy has taught
needs and their reactions. many organizations that, to get results, they must
One of the basic principles of the canvas set is have a core team that works seamlessly togeth-
to “find a problem worth solving”, or, in business er,” says Risto Sarvas, one of the driving forces
terms, to identify a substantial and scalable busi- behind the LSC.
ness opportunity. “Lean, design thinking, and Agile represent
The canvases support the process from dis- ways of thinking that address the same issue:
covering customer needs to formulating business how to create successful new digital services. We
goals; then designing the service that meets the wanted to streamline all of them together, to put
identified need or solves the customer’s problem, them into a single integrated process,” Sarvas
testing and iterating the service – all the way explains.
until an actual pilot, a minimum viable product, According to him, the Lean Startup process
is created. gave the toolset of constantly validating assump-
“LSC incorporates the best elements of start- tions. Design thinking provided the tools for delv-
ups: Lean experimentation, learning from the ing deep into the customer’s needs. From Agile
customer, and working in cross-functional teams. thinking, LSC borrowed the principle of working
The major advantage of the process is the set of in cross-functional teams in a focused way.
concrete, sustainable tools it provides for idea- “What LSC has in common with lean thinking
tion, testing and implementation,” Raita says. is the ideology of failing fast. You avoid making
Having a path to follow and a set of questions pointless investments in products that won’t
to answer in each phase gives the team develop- solve real problems or fulfil actual needs. In a
ing the service not only a structure but a shared way, you could call it risk management. But in
language to operate with. This, in turn, makes it comparison with lean development and the Lean
easy for a team of diverse backgrounds and com- Startup philosophy, the Lean Service Creation
petencies to communicate constructively and process that we have developed allows you to
collaborate effectively. concentrate much more on the customer at every
Still, every team developing a service has to stage,” says Juha Pesonen, a Lean Service Creation
define how they will collaborate, share out tasks, Coach at Futurice.
and analyse the answers and results that they Companies or institutions might start with a
come up with. The canvases are both the com- specific program of the LSC process or an entire
pass and the path they tread, without knowing project structured around the LSC tools. Once
where it will end. a company or an organization recognizes the
 25

potential and opportunities of the tools for their

new business development or evaluation of their
existing products, they often extend it further.
Raita describes the two most common ap-
proaches: “We can facilitate an LSC process by
building a team that consists of Futurice staff
and the client’s key people on the project. Usu-
ally, this type of project is Futurice-led, with the
client providing the crucial information needed
for the project,” she says.
“The other common option is having the LSC
team consist of our client’s staff, with Futurice
team members guiding the process. There might
be several teams working on different business
concepts for months. During that time,
we are able to learn about the
client’s culture and help them
transform, while creating new
business ideas or developing
existing ones.”

ONE OF THE companies using

the LSC thinking is the telecom
corporation Telia, which uses the
Lean Service Creation tools widely
across its entire organization and
various functions.
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

26

“Essentially, the Lean Service Creation pro-

cess made us feel like a real startup within a big
corporation. It spurred a lot of enthusiasm. Every
team worked hard on their concepts and demos,
even competed with each other,” recalls Janne
Mikola, Product Manager at Telia.
From their first projects with LSC, the com-
pany has gained competence and experience to
run LSC processes whenever they need them – by
themselves. There might be as many as ten dif-
ferent LSC projects running within the company
at any given time.
“For us, Lean Service Creation is not a process
with a start and an end, but rather the way we
work at Telia, an essential part of it. To co-cre-
ate with our customers, to test fast and iterate
is always the way we initiate new things,” says
Mikola.

WHAT IS THE IMPACT INSIDE THE

COMPANY?
“The tool is not only about the outcomes that
it generates. First of all, when people working
on a new concept actually learn to listen to the
customer’s needs and feelings, it transforms
them. The work instantly becomes much more
meaningful when you understand its impact first
hand,” Nevanlinna says.
According to him, after dozens of cases with
various companies and institutions, the experi-
ence of going through an LSC project is usually
empowering for all participants.
“People speak in a different tone of voice, in
the new language that they have learned. The
tools enable a collaborative, autonomous way of
working in cross-functional teams. This unlocks
people’s potential in a way that surprises them.
 27

Their eyes shine as they connect with their cus-

tomers and their teammates in a profound way,”
Nevanlinna adds.
Over the years, Mikola has discovered two
major advantages in the Lean Service Creation
process at Telia.
“First, it prioritizes the voice of the custom-
er in creating new services. The second is that
all teams do it in a similar manner. To have a
consistent way of focusing on the customer is
immensely important for a large corporation. It
brings certainty, clarity and transparency,” he
says.
Certainty, clarity and transparency are vital
in any company, especially in organizations
attempting to transform. Finding meaning and
consistency in change are valuable assets in the
company culture.
“When you discover the meaning of your work,
you gain ownership of it. You become aware of
how you can have an impact, instead of being
a mere resource for the company,” Nevanlinna
says.

THERE ARE SETBACKS and difficulties as well.

“To be able to work in a cross-functional team
you have to be willing to collaborate on your ide-
as, instead of owning them. This can be difficult
at first, because people tend to want to hold on
to their own expertise. However, on the modern
environment, expertise is essential, but collabo-
rating seamlessly with other experts is even more
valuable– realizing the power of working together
to achieve more,” Eeva Raita says.
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

28
 29

“Technology has a huge

impact on our society.
The values we adopt
within companies will
make a difference in the
transformation ahead. At
Futurice our values are trust,
caring, transparency and
continuous development. The
LSC tools match those values.
They have huge potential,
if they are used on a large-
enough scale throughout
society.” Risto Sarvas, Futurice
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

30

“The new role of the leader is

to be vocal about the what,
not the how. Communicating

“LSC is a tool that allows these experts to

work together and to find a common language,
to create, agree and disagree. A shared language
is fundamental to the creation process,” Raita
concludes.
The process, while bringing out the partici-
pants’ hidden potentials, also uncovers unspoken
conflicts or differences of interest within the
organization. Most importantly, it puts the inten-
tions and mindsets of all the executives under
the spotlight. It reveals the company’s values in
practice.
“If a company has declared that its value is
trust, it has to demonstrate that. It needs to trust
people in everyday life. Trust is at the core of Fu-
turice’s culture. That’s why at Futurice, the teams
work autonomously on client projects; there is no
middle management level,” Nevanlinna points
out.
“In a team-based project like LSC, the role of
the company management is to enable independ-
ent, focused work by the team, to demonstrate
the vision, to provide support, and to ask ques-
tions that help the team move forward. There is
no room for micromanagement or bureaucratic
barriers. But for many managers, it is hard even
 31

the end goal, showing trust

and giving up on power.”

to verbalize their vision. ‘We want an app’ is not

at all the way to do it.”
According to Nevanlinna, the most successful
LSC projects start with coaching management to
understand the process, the tools, the values of
autonomy and transparency.
“Once management understand their role,
they also see a possibility for a new type of dia-
logue that is much more rewarding than the old
hierarchy of command and obey,” he says.
“The new role of the leader is to be vocal about
the what, not the how. Communicating the end
goal, showing trust and giving up on power.”

WHAT IS THE REWARD? – A LEARNING

ORGANIZATION
“The industrial age was about scaling efficiency.
The digital age is about scaling learning.”
Those are the words of John Hagel, a Deloitte
consultant and a future-of-work visionary. They
resonate well with the aims of the Lean Service
Creation process.
In order to scale digital services, a company
also needs to learn and to scale internal learning
efficiently. O’Reilly talks about the ability to inno-
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

32

vate at scale as being the final step in a corpo-

rate-level transformation. “Digital
transformation
“In order to innovate at scale, you need to
reduce the learning anxiety,” O’Reilly has said.
According to him, corporate-level innovation can-

is less about
not depend on a single team or on the company’s
“digital stars”. Innovation has to be embedded
across, and to be the responsibility of, all teams.

technology
“There are two levers in any organization: sur-
vival anxiety and learning anxiety. Our business
is going to die if we don’t do something! That

and more
is survival anxiety. The aim of reducing learn-
ing anxiety is to enable ordinary people to do
extraordinary things, to enable an endless flow of

about how
capability and growth.”
In addition to relieving anxiety, LSC triggers
empowerment.

we think
“This is a set of tools that empowers the in-
formation age office workers in companies and
institutions. The tools empower workplaces and

and act.”
make them better for the people who work in
them. Better workplaces, happier people. That
is what Futurice aims for: We want to leave a
much bigger footprint on the world than just the
products we develop. For us, it is important that
tools that trigger change are spread and adopt-
ed,” Sarvas says.

SHARING TOOLS that enable change also has a

potential societal influence.
“Technology has a huge impact on our soci-
ety. The values we adopt within companies will
make a difference in the transformation ahead.
At Futurice, our values are trust, caring, transpar-
ency and continuous development. The LSC tools
match those values. They have huge potential if
they are used on a large enough scale throughout
society.”
33
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

34
 35

Lean Service
Creation
MANIFESTO
LEAN SERVICE CREATION (LSC) is a systematic and In practice LSC consists of a set of canvases that
adjustable way for multidisciplinary teams to outline the relevant phases in a successful ser-
create new services. LSC stems from Futurice’s vice creation process. Asking the right questions
experience with thousands of software projects at the right time is by far the most important
and it stands on the shoulders of Lean Startup, part of creating a product or service. Each LSC
Agile methods and Design thinking. Hence, LSC canvas poses a series of questions appropriate
is more than a service design process. LSC is your for a particular phase of the process. Keep in
Sherpa guide through all the phases of creating mind, however, that there is no orthodox order of
services from early ideation to finishing the last canvases that you must obey and follow! Rather,
lines of code. LSC is open for modifications and should always
be adjusted to the project at hand.
What is unique about LSC is that is has a social
mission: to make the best practices of design & Importantly, LSC is much more than ink on
development freely accessible to everyone. That paper. It is, first and foremost, about the mindset
is why LSC is free to use, free to adapt, and free and practices that enable the creation of success-
to grow. This has made LSC probably the most ful services. Hence, what counts at the end of the
validated and used open source service creation day is not whether you use LSC canvases, other
process on the planet. It is used from Finland to canvases, or no canvases at all. What counts is
Brazil and from big corporations and universities whether you really are able to live and work by
to startups. these basic principles:
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

36

All for
the Team,
Team for
All
1
37

principle

CREATIVITY FLOURISHES in a team of multi-

disciplinary individuals that care for each
other and trust each other. And it requires
systematic curation of teamwork to find the
team’s own best practices and routines. It
also requires for the team to be open to new
people and new ideas, i.e., for the team to
leave the door open for others. Hierarchies
and airtight social groups are poison to
creativity and innovation. Caring and trust
are the remedy.
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

38

Love
the
problem

2
not the solution

principle
Us humans are rigged to create solutions
and then falling in love with them because
they are our babies. That’s why the world
is full of technical solutions looking for a
problem. You should fall in love with the
problem, not the solution. A real problem
will not disappear that easily, but you
should be able to change your solution very
quickly. Love your customer’s problems.
Love your organisation’s business problems.
Try millions of solutions that solve them
both at the same time.
39
 3
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

40

principle

No matter
what you do, be
transparent
about it
 41

MAKE ABSTRACT THINGS tangible. Visualise

complex dependencies. Make your decisions
and rationale understandable. Make things
transparent so that others can take part,
co-create, chip in, help you, give feedback,
and bring their expertise to the table. Being
transparent is the only way to take your
work forward and create something bigger
than any individual can achieve.
 4
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

42

principle

Never stop
iterating, never
stop learning
 43

EVERY STEP IN creating a new service is a learning worship micro-level targets that are far removed
point. No matter if you fail or succeed in your from reality. The sign of a good goal and target
step, you should learn from it. And to learn is is that they are also iterated and changed as the
often to go backwards and iterate. To be able to team learns and gets smarter. Demand broad
go back and forth is to have good clear goals that clear goals from your executives that leave room
leave room for iteration. The enemy of iteration for learning and iteration.
is a detailed project plan that forces the team to
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

44

5
principle
See
45

Forest,
the

See Trees,
the

Spot
Squirrel
the

THERE IS ALWAYS a bigger picture. Every pro-

ject is a part of a larger objective. If you can’t
see the big picture, you don’t understand how
your work fits in, and ultimately, you don’t
know what is the required impact of your
work. Once you know the big picture, you can
draw a line between the details of your work
and the broader objectives. This gives you the
superpower to bind high-level strategy and
detailed implementation seamlessly together.

Hanno Nevanlinna, Eeva Raita and Risto Sarvas

L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

46

VOICES FROM THE INSIDE:

Kalle Tuomi, Creative Director
& Strategist at Futurice
 47

You Are
the
Change
Agent (and here’s the best
toolbox you could have)

“AFTER GOING IN-DEPTH into the Lean Service with the customer. To succeed in that your nar-
Design process, I have realized it is about giv- rative has to be clear and you have to be concise
ing structure to any creative process, regardless with it at all the touchpoints, right down to the
of the end result. Up to now, coming from the last detail.
advertising world, I have regarded all tools as Technology should be the great enabler for
nonsense, as unsuited to creative work. But in all achieving that, but too often it is far from it.
those years in marketing I have secretly longed
for a framework, a structure. The creative indus- I fell in love with this method, even though I of-
try takes a sceptical view of any creative process ten find myself hating technology, or the fact that
or method, relying more on its ability to create technology is not developed on the users’ own
magic. terms, and not focusing on the people that ac-
tually use it. I also hate digitization gone wrong,
Marketing and advertising are business sectors or executed badly. It is a horrendous mistake to
that really need tools like this. Before, we used think that simply by creating digital self-service
to talk about integrated marketing, but now it is functions you will make people happy.
more about building a relationship and engaging
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

48

Technology and design enable intuitive and en- bigger and better by sharing them within the pro-
joyable user experiences that are almost uncon- cess. You become part of it: you claim ownership
scious to the user: the customer simply enjoys of the process and your own work in a new way.
following or using your service, without necessar- You don’t get chances like that in a regular
ily rationally understanding why. That’s far more meeting where you are trying to decide onabout a
meaningful than just producing an application or project. This sort of live-business/live-action role
digitalizing a service. That is using technology in play has potentially huge ramifications for learn-
a creative, user-centric way. I have called this ap- ing together as a team and as a company.
proach the new creative – a combination of brand
and technology. After all, in the ever-accelerating digital trans-
formation, companies have a responsibility to
Lean Service Creation provides the language and help their employees to learn to think and act in
the process for making all this happen. It is crea- the complex business environment. Here’s the
tive thinking at its core, limitless design enabled method for that.
by technology.
On an individual level, being able to see where
Before I got acquainted with lean, I was almost the world is heading, being more perceptive,
afraid of it. It has become a synonym for cost-ef- recognizing and seeing the context behind the
ficient. Companies may think they are lean when transformation is certainly an advantage, for your
they kill new projects as fast as possible. ‘Yep, own personal choices as well. When entire busi-
we failed fast. Check’. More than ever you need ness areas are transformed and get disrupted,
to understand the big picture, the strategy that you as an individual realize that you, too, can be
sparks experiments. Lean must not replace think- a change agent. You can be a part of the change,
ing. You still need to be ruthlessly analytical to one of the architects of the future.
pick out the best ideas. The yellow Post-its on the You don’t need to just let it happen to you.
wall won’t help you unless you use your analyti-
cal skills. The problem with methods is that you Yes, you guessed it, I think we should be talking
tend to trust them in the wrong way. The world about a revolution here. Even though it’s a series
doesn’t change by itself. of canvasses. But clearly also something bigger.
Much bigger.”
On a corporate level, or within an organization of
any size, the great advantage of lean is that peo-
ple learn how to get out of their silos and collab-
orate in a meaningful way. The method is funda-
mentally inclusive. If you work in the back office,
you can participate in the co-creation of new
business ideas. If you consider yourself a creative
genius, you can make your brilliant insights even
 49

“Before I got acquainted with

lean, I was almost afraid of
it. It has become a synonym
for cost-efficient. Companies
may think they are lean when
they kill new projects as fast as
possible. ‘Yep, we failed fast.
Check’.” Kalle Tuomi, Futurice
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

50

CLIENT CASE: Ossi Porri, Development Manager at Helen (presently at Leanheat Oy)

When
lean and
corporate
collide
Matching corporate culture with lean service
creation isn’t always easy. Especially when
the approaches applied diverge radically from
corporate routines.
51
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

52

“How can
HIGHLY QUALIFIED EXPERTS find it surprisingly
hard to rely on anything other than their own

you run lean

knowledge. The traditional model is engineer-
centric rather than customer-centric: You make
the product, put it out into the world, and wait for

processes
someone to grab it. It was a tremendous change
at Helen to turn to the customer and ask them
what they want. It meant a change of principles.

Another obstacle is willingness to change. From

my perspective it seems that, if the company is when
everyone’s
making money and the organization is happy
with what they’ve got, any incentive to make
changes can become forced, artificial. Innovations

calendar is
become no more than brand-polishing
campaigns – harmless and ineffective. They don’t
spring from the need to reorganize the business,

booked up
to find new income streams that will carry the
business into the future.

for months
Once companies grow big enough, say, into
billion-euro enterprises, the people at the top
can see their priority as being not to make

and months
mistakes, that is, to avoid decisions that might
lead to risk taking. For example, if a phase in the
corporate-innovation process involves making

ahead?”
business plans for the next 20 years, you know
the outcome will be completely artificial. No one
can make solid plans for an untested idea that
will last for two decades. In comparison, it’s easy
for the executives to maintain the status quo and
avoid risks.

*Fake Advertisement is a phase in the Lean Service Creation process, where the team
creates an ad of the prototype being designed, imagining it as it were if actually realized.
 53

These examples are just to illustrate how hard

it is to reconcile lean and traditional ways of
working. Failing fast and cheaply goes against the
engineer-centric culture in which processes are
long-lasting and comprehensive.

For us at Helen, for example, when we launched

the Lean Service Creation process in the New
Services unit, it was extremely difficult to try get
access to the participants’ calendars. How can
you run lean processes when everyone’s calendar
is booked up for months and months ahead?

The Lean Service Creation process

empowers the team to make the vital
decisions for designing and testing new
business concepts. At Helen we produced
experimental ideas on new themes, such
as the sun or the electric car, and finding
innovative, functional solutions that
matched our customers’ needs.
Each week started with a new theme
and ended with a sprint demo session, with
the Strategy Lead and other executives. We even
voted on the demos, had competitions and so on.

The difficulties arose when the course ended

and the participants returned to their units after
engaging in lean methods in cross-functional
teams. The level of support needed to continue
with the methods they had learned varied
radically from one department to another.

Another difficulty is deciding whether to

concentrate on developing the concept with the
customer or to spend your time preparing slide
shows to convince corporate executives who are
not part of the living process.
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

54

Of all the different phases in the Lean Service

Design process my favourite is the Fake
Advertisement* that you make for the product
idea. This is the first prototype to customer-test
your idea.

I have tweaked this phase a bit, and used it not

only to present the idea to the customer, but also
to ignite their initial interest in it, and to get a
commitment to acquire it if it is ever launched.
That’s how we introduced solar panels to
Helen’s customers, and we got 2 000 potentially
interested buyers in a short period of time. We
were very direct and sincere about the fact that
the product did not yet exist, and would only be
realized with sufficiently many interested clients.
This has proven to be a way to successfully
launch several new business ideas. But it was
not always seen as fitting into the corporate
environment.

To be able to transform, corporations need to

make changes in their organization. Agile and
lean can collide with the corporate culture,
often so there are no easy solutions. One
way of enabling a faster route for conducting
experiments is to divide core business and new
business into separate companies. My choice,
however, was to join a smaller company that
seeks to disrupt the entire energy business, as a
proper start-up should.

Helen is a Finnish energy production company with 400 000 clients. Ossi Porri is a
development manager for new digital energy services. He is presently at Leanheat Oy.
 55

“Innovations become no
more than brand-polishing
campaigns if they don’t
spring from the need to
reorganize the business.”
Ossi Porri
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

56

FLASH VIEW:
Marco Ryan, Chief Digital Officer at Wärtsilä

Scaling
on a
Corporate
Level
Any successful transformation requires
communication and collaboration. LSC tools
can be a way for people to realise the true
value of them, Marco Ryan says.
 57

I AM AN advocate of LSC. Overall it is a very

well-structured, pragmatic approach to effective-
ly doing design thinking. The idea of combining
lean service design with a modular framework
can be excellent. Is it better or different than
other working methods? Well, so much depends
on the people, their passion and ability to bring
it to life.
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

58

Also, you need management support to make the and changing them in any profound way. Lean
most of it. That can be as simple as resource pri- Service Creation can help break down that re-
oritization, with dedicated time for that built into sistance. It can be a way for people to realise the
the process in sufficient measure. It’s no good true value of collaboration and communication.
getting people excited about something, then Sometimes they even turn into avid advocates of
saying you still have to manage your everyday the subject.
tasks simultaneously. And to make the process
feel safe, the leaders need to be able to say that In our innovation strategy at Wärtsilä we active-
it is a learning process, you can and are allowed ly encourage our colleagues to suggest internal
to fail. startups. We think of them as intrapreneurs. We
are interested in the incubator methodology,
The essential thing is collaboration and commu- but we also look at acquisitions and early-stage
nication. There might be resistance to developing partnerships. We’ve set up an acceleration centre
 59

at Wärtsilä, where we learn about, test and scale about them. For example, I developed a mobile
these issues and learn the culture that goes with app that I put on the market to make sure I
them. understood the processes involved. I am a data
scientist by background, you see.
How do you apply the digital mindset to big
companies? How do you change the clock speed? You need to be curious. You need people who are
These are the vital questions for corporations willing to collaborate and communicate. Then
right now. We need to do things faster, to be you need to rely on them to try their best and
more ruthless in our processes. If you change the deliver.
culture in a corporation so that collaboration and
communication function on a new level, if you
get that buy-in, you are able to scale at a pace
that startups can very rarely achieve.

I guess what I learned from the startup world is

that you don’t need legions of people to achieve
this. You need passion.

At Wärtsilä we come from a very data-led, insight

driven corporate culture, with great emphasis on
business-value creation. Everything we do has
to have value for the customer. That helps us
prioritize.

My own methods in my work? The first thing is

to stay connected and maintain an inquisitive
mindset. I visit Silicon Valley to stay ahead of the
game. I try to teach myself new things regularly;
how to actually do things instead of just talking

Wärtsilä is a global leader in smart technologies and complete lifecycle solutions for the marine and energy
markets. By emphasising sustainable innovation, total efficiency and data analytics, Wärtsilä maximises the
environmental and economic performance of the vessels and power plants of its customers.
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

60

VOICES FROM THE INSIDE: Juha Pesonen, Lean Service Creation Coach,
Senior UI & Concept Designer at Futurice

Trust
the
Process
– you will be surprised at what you are capable of doing with it

Create a campaign for politics! Design a landfill

site! You can create a variety of things with the
LSC tools, but the beauty of the process is it
allows you to focus on the customer from the
beginning to the end.
 61

“I HAVE A background and a degree in education,

my original vocation was teaching. I got to know
about Futurice in the year 2001, while I was still
a student. Futurice was a small company at the
time, “garage size”, so to say. Futurice was mostly
coding software at the time. After a while, clients
started requesting concept-creation processes
from Futurice, and the company’s orientation
changed. By that time, I had switched careers and
started working for the company.

One of the most memorable client cases I worked

with was with the Finnish postal service, Posti. It
was way before we outlined the LSC tools. After-
wards I discovered that the task was so hard that
it made us really delve into the user´s needs, and
work in a manner we later defined as belonging
to the lean service creation process.
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

62

At the time, Posti was interested in digitizing

parts of their delivery process for morning news-
papers. We realized there was no way we could
succeed with the project sitting in our office and
trying to figure out the best solutions. We had
no idea what the work of a newspaper deliverer
entailed. So we did night shifts, following them at
their work, on their delivery routes.
We tried to understand, for example, how they
use address lists and building keys while holding
newspapers, what the lighting was like in the
corridors – all the little details involved in their
work.
Before we got to know their job through obser-
vation, we thought we had some good ideas for
them, but afterwards we realised how wrong we
were. We knew nothing about newspaper deliv-
ery, and for me, as a designer it would have been
a catastrophe to design a service that might have
made the daily work of thousands of people de-
livering newspapers more stressful or more time
consuming.

After the initial insights into the delivery process,

I designed the layout, and the coders made dum-
mies out of them in a fast pace without inter-
grating them to the system of the client. Then we
tested the dummies, iterated, and tested again.
Probably tens of iterations in all.

Afterwards, I realized that several elements from

the Lean Service Creation prosess were already
there, in our approach in the Posti case. For
example, the key issue of bringing the business
proposition and the user needs together, in the
same process. A systematic way of researching
user insight, a cross-functional team, agile way of
working, continuous validation, experimenting,
 63

testing and interaction with all the stakeholders

throughout the process – those elements are a
vital part of the process we know as Lean Service
Creation today.

When several clients requested projects that

needed tools like these, “the package”, now
known as LSC, came into being. The reason it was
developed at Futurice rather than at some other
company working on software and digital servic-
es has to do with Futurice’s culture and values.
Futurice’s autonomous culture, low hierarchies
and decision-making principles provided the
foundations for Lean Service Creation to grow.

Over the years, Futurice has developed the LSC

process into a systematic programme that is very
down-to-earth, hands-on, concrete and easy to
use. It has been tested in several business sectors
and in dozens of companies. It has proven itself
both useful and helpful.

As you know, the LSC process combines the

methods of developing lean, agile and design
thinking in a unique way, and it is this combi-
nation that makes it valuable. If you look at its
elements, you realize why.

The difference from design thinking, for exam-

ple, is its business orientation. In the LSC process
you never lose sight of the business objective.
With designers it’s often the case that they love
the customer’s problem so much they end up
ignoring the business problem, despite the fact
that it’s the very reason the project exists. Or they
trust their gut feeling too much. LSC is a tool for
testing whether your gut feeling is right or wrong.
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

64

“One of
the best
experiences is seeing
how the group finds a shared
language and is able to work
in a structured manner,
with visible goals, which it
achieves.”
Juha Pesonen
 65

The agile working methodology and Futurice’s One of the advantages of LSC from a staff view-
Lean Service Creation process are somewhat sim- point is that the process gives participants a
ilar. Like the agile process, LSC proceeds in steps. context in which to shine, to show off their skills
You come back to your initial ideas, iterate, and and abilities. During the programme, it is normal
develop them further. The cycle of iteration is for the participants to glow with excitement,
actually very close to the agile process. But agile, everyone is filled with enthusiasm. Participants
too, is just a method. It doesn’t have the business with various backgrounds discover that they get
context built in. more out of themselves than they ever thought
they would. And that the process adds to their
What it has in common with lean thinking is the skills and abilities, rather than diminishing them,
ideology of failing fast. You avoid making point- as some might fear.
less investments in products that won’t solve real
problems or fulfil actual needs. In a way, you could One phase that quite often causes tension is
call it risk management. But in comparison with when the company’s decision processes collide
lean development and the Lean Startup philos- with the LSC process. Middle-management hier-
ophy, the Lean Service Creation process that we archies and responsibilities can become obstacles
have developed at Futurice allows you to concen- to the process. On the other hand, the LSC pro-
trate much more on the customer at every stage. cess can reveal inefficiencies in the company that
might otherwise have remained hidden. In some
One of the most surprising discoveries over the organizations, the management has allocated
years has been the flexibility of the tools: you can space for LSC programmes, letting them function
create a campaign for a political party, to dis- like internal startups within the corporation.
cover a way to reach the voters – or, for example,
plan a landfill site, using the same tools. It’s truly It has been necessary to come up with tools to
remarkable the range of things you can create integrate the LSC programme into the organiza-
with LSC. tion’s management systems. So far, Lean Service
Creation has been a tool for the development
For me, the most profound lesson has been trust- team. Now, we are about to introduce tools for
ing the process. I never imagined myself to be a the management team as well.
process-oriented person. I have been a designer,
someone who is innovative and imaginative. But I have coached LSC programmes ranging from
in the end, the ideas are the easy part. Falling in one-day crash courses to schemes that last
love with them is a major temptation. The pro- weeks, months or years. One of the best experi-
cess makes you validate your ideas from all the ences is seeing how the group finds a shared lan-
relevant angles. Yet it leaves you room to use your guage and is able to work in a structured manner,
capabilities and gives you space to form insights with visible goals, which it achieves.”
throughout the various phases.
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

66

Client Case: Janne Mikola, Product Manager at Telia

Consistency
and

Telecom company Telia uses Lean Service

Creation tools on a wide scale in the
organization. The benefit of a shared tool
is consistency and transparency: everyone
knows what is being done and why.
 67

Customer
Focus
at Scale
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

68

“TELIA IS A prominent telecom provider in the corporation. It spurred a lot of enthusiasm, every
Baltics and in Nordics. These days, we use the team worked hard on their concepts and demos,
Lean Service Creation process at a large scale even competed with eachother. The implementa-
throughout the company, and the importance of tion of the demo phase was almost like a game,
the tools have been recognized at the top level. there was voting and prices and so on. For us it
There might be approximately ten LSC programs really worked, it lifted the spirits and brought
ongoing in Telia as we speak. And, at the moment people together. The collaboration between
we are launching a LSC process that we steer by people who hardly knew eachother was superb.
ourselves. We have created a lot of new compe- All ideas were treated equally, everyone had the
tence within the company with LSC and are now courage to speak up.
able to operate on our own. Obviously, it makes
us extremely proud to be able to say that. Iteration was at the core of the project. At each
phase, we had the possibility to pivot, change
My first encounter with the process was the crash direction if needed. And we did, after a mutual
course, one day deep dive into the system. It decision. We had an investor meeting regular-
was perplexing at first, and I did not really get it. ly, in order to introduce new findings and the
The concept idea we worked on was something assumptions that had changed, new possibilities
we came up with just to learn the process. The for piloting concepts, and of course, for feed-
relevance of Lean Service Creation hit me, when back. This was very unusual for the corporation.
we started working on an existing, actual project, There was nothing formal in the process, and the
a real problem. decision making process differed radically from
the traditional one. It was a pure development
At the time of our very first LSC course, the project backed by the management.
company had launched an inner startup working
model with its own management structure and After having finished the LSC course the big
steering group. There were three teams working question was, how to move on. We had worked
within that program with lean service creation our way through the canvases and had come
tools, and I was in one of them. Our aim was to up with the MVP, the pilot. My role was to figure
renew some of our key business areas, a b2b net- out, how to organize the actual development of
work formerly called Datanet. During the program the concept after the LSC course was over. More
we developed a highly advanced version of it, canvases for that phase would have been needed.
called Telia SD-WAN, which has turned out to be The solution I came up with, was to go back to
a huge success in our service offering for b2b cli- the most important achievements we had made
ents. To describe it simply: it is a faster and more in the process, the major findings and slice each
efficient network for companies for internal use. one of them into a separate development item
to go forward. Recently, as I have heard, Futurice
Essentially, the Lean Service Creation process has created more canvases to cover this part of
made us feel like a real startup within a big the process as well.
 69

“Essentially, lean service

creation process made us
feel like a real startup in
a corporation.”
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

70

There are two major advantages in the Lean Once I got familiar with the process, it surprised
Service Creation process. First, it prioritises the me how widely used most of the tools are. It is
voice of the customer in creating new services. not about Futurice pulling developing tools from
The second is that all teams do it in a similar their sleeve, it is about compiling classic, well
manner. To have a consistent way of focusing known processes together. So if there is someone
on the customer is immensely important for a who doubts these methods, I would encourage
large corporation. It brings certainty, clarity and them to get to know the origin of the tools. They
transparency. are known worldwide, but not in the way Futurice
uses them.”
For us, Lean Service Creation is not a process
with a start and an end, but rather the way we
work at Telia, an essential part of it. To co-create
with our customers, to test fast and iterate is
always the way we initiate new things. Also, we
use the tool box in various ways, sometimes we
might pull out one specific canvas, and work only
that one phase. Recently, for example, we wanted
to test whether the positioning of two of our cus-
tomer products was optimal. We worked on the
business model canvas to find out.

Telia is a multinational telecommunications operator and service provider in the Nordic and Baltic countries. The publicly
listed corporation has a turnover of 2,4 billion euros. The Finnish company employs approximately 3 000 people and has a
turnover of 1,29 billion euros
 71

“It is a sneaky way to

bypass status prestige and
to force everyone to work
together with the focus on
the customer. Encouraging
collaboration is good, but a
method that forces working
across silos and functionalities,
disregarding hierarchies, is
even better. The method and
the process are the great
equalizers.”
Jaan Orvet, Futurice
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

72

VOICES FROM THE INSIDE:

Jaan Orvet, Head of Global Creative at Futurice

Get Naked
and
Listen
The Lean Service Creation process starts with
getting rid of all your preconceived notions
about your idea and your audience. It also
means cutting through the bullshit on an
organizational level, getting past the titles, the
hierarchies that can interfere.
73
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

74

“NOT ALL BOSSES are good leaders. But all organ-

isations have people who are seen as the true
leaders. Hierarchies have previously prevented
them from using their capacity to develop the
business. In lean and agile processes, teams work
autonomously, which enables a new level of
collaboration.
Of course, that’s not the whole picture. The
goal and intentions have to be stated in all agile
processes. Autonomy without purpose or direc-
tion is just anarchy. There is no place for that.

Our task is to bring together what the client’s

audience wants and what the company – our
client – wants. Sometimes we get challenged,
sometimes the outcome of the creation is some-
thing none of us had imagined. But if a company LSC has much in common with the design meth-
is not interested in focusing on the needs of their ods I used previously. In LSC I can recognize my
audiences and in really listening to them, maybe values of humility and a human-centred ap-
their first step should be to use LSC to under- proach.
stand themselves. LSC was half of the reason I joined Futurice.
I felt I couldn’t evolve my thinking from where
‘Listen’ is the sticker slogan on my laptop. it was. By practising LSC I am joining a bigger
Listening is at the heart of design. But it has to movement. I am seeing the evolution of – pres-
go both ways. There has to be a dialogue. It’s not ence, actually. If you allow this thinking to have
about what I say, it’s a conversation. In the same presence in your professional life, you will benefit
way, LSC is not a dogma. There are enough of from it. And you will see when it is relevant and
those already. when it is not.
75
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

76

“‘Listen’ is the sticker slogan

on my laptop. Listening is at
the heart of design. But it has
to go both ways. There has to
be a dialogue. It’s not about
what I say, it’s a conversation.
In the same way, LSC is not a
dogma. There are enough of
those already.”
Jaan Orvet, Futurice
 77

Tools, services and interactions are no longer

stuck behind a sheet of glass. That is excellent,
because screens were such a strain from a de-
signer’s point of view.
So now we are no longer working to the screen
all the time, as we were just a moment ago, it
makes all environments equal: everything every-
where is a touchpoint with customers.
That is why people and ethics come first, not
the screen. We are at the point where we can
start over: We can create services on human
terms.”
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

78

INTERVIEW WITH Jussi Aho, CEO at Fira

Communicate
and
collaborate
– then define the future
 79

Jussi Aho is known as a disruptor in the

construction business – so far, mainly in
Finland. Fira, the company he runs, has
introduced groundbreaking services ranging
from co-created buildings to whole-building
pipe renovations done in a fortnight. Interaction
and future orientation are the focal points of his
strategic thinking.
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

80

What are the key elements of success

in a bold digital transformation? Or of
bold new business ideas in general?
A good quality interaction is at the core of
success in transforming any company or organ-
ization. The way a company is managed should
enhance it. Learning, which is vital in any trans-
formation process, depends on the quality of the
interaction.

The will to innovate has to be embedded in the

culture of the company. The culture has to be
oriented in the same direction: taking care of
current operations and looking for new ideas
and breakthrough innovations. Organizational
silos are the antithesis of a culture like that.

How important is the organization’s

structure – or the management model?
Whatever you do, you have to keep in mind the
goal of the company. Digitalization gives an
opportunity to multiply the company valuation
by developing the scaleability of the business.
When you are launching new services or prod-
ucts, you have to understand how these products
or services are connected to this goal, and then
decide on KPI´s. Are you aiming at a world-class
breakthrough? If so, the company needs world-
class dynamics to drive the process, and KPI´s
are also very different.

We have defined a structure that we call Fira´s

Strategy House to identify out how to achieve
our main goals and scalability our business. It´s
not only to make incremental changes, but to re-
ally bend the curve and enable disruptive things
to happen in our business.
 81

“When you are launching

new services or products,
you have to decide on the
goal and the key elements of
success. Are you aiming at a
world-class breakthrough? If
so, the company needs world-
class dynamics to drive the
process.”
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

82

The answer depends on the company’s goals. If

your aim is merely to run the business, you need
a different organizational structure than if your
aim is to disrupt your own business and scale it
internationally.

How do you outline a future-proof

strategy?
A modern strategy involves a two-way thinking
process. It is essential to develop your cur-
rent business, but what is even more crucial is
changing the angle of approach and envisioning
where you need to be in, say, 5 or 10 years, and
then identifying steps from the future back to
the present. In that process you end up outlining
your transformative services and products.

How central is the idea of co-creation to

the strategy?
This originates in the idea of individuality, of
offering our clients customized services. We
introduced the concept of the “service engineer”,
who is the first face customers see when starting
a project with us. They then define the custom-
er’s needs together. Involving customers in this
process means being able to design a customer
path through the project. One common reason
the construction business is mostly incapable of
listening to clients’ needs is that they have no in-
terface, physical or digital, for that involvement.
 83

When do you know if your strategy is a

success?
Again, it all depends on what you are aiming
at. You have to define your must-win battles.
Once you know your goals, you have to align
the entire organization with them. That’s where
your abilities as a leader are tested. You have
to create a smarter community throughout the
company, a communication-oriented commu-
nity. That in itself promotes a smarter way of
doing business.
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

84

Client Case:

How
Jukka Helin, Head of Digital Customer Experience at Vapo (presently at Kela)

to
Change
and Never
Turn Back?
The digital transformation in Vapo, a Finnish
heat and fuel company, was launched when
the top management started investing in
growth. Lean Service Creation process enabled
the shift in thinking: from a fuel production
company to a service oriented one.
85
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

86

“ENGINEERS MIGHT BE excellent at solving prob-

lems, but are they really good at solving the “What does
it mean
problems that need to be solved or interrogating
the problem itself? How brilliant are they at see-
ing causes and effects and broader connections?

when peat is
In other words, we might be excellent at problem
solving, but are we good at stepping out of the
box entirely? We also need to be aware that we

turned into a
all have our own ideological and experiential
baggage when we start working on new ideas or
making changes.

Philosophers would spend time questioning

whether the entire process makes any sense, or
service?”
if anything does, for that matter. I see this as an
injection of the humanities into computational
science – gently questioning the question itself
throughout the process.

Developing new ideas is a process that requires

good intentions, and the drive to make things
happen. During that process you have to be ex-
tremely flexible about what the solution or end
result might turn out to be.
That’s where Lean Service Creation comes in.
 87

It is fair to say that this way of working is noth- Prior to that, we had launched digital platforms,
ing new, in the software business it has been for instance, a web shop for all of our services.
the standard for ages. Simply because of a lack Our business is very straightforward: we burn
of resources it has been necessary to slice the peat in the furnace that heats a building or an
process into small modules and to try things out entire city.
before moving on. This is has been at the core of But now the question was a more profound
software development, but it hasn’t been called a one: What does it mean when peat is turned into
method. a service? This, for example: You install sensors
in the peat silos to gather data, how often peat
So, obviously, I am more interested in what can transports are needed, then you customize and
be gained from the process than in the process streamline the order and delivery process, and
itself. develop the best digital applications to make
And to be able to achieve anything valuable it easy, seamless and cost efficient. Once you
with this, the executive level has to grasp the are thinking about your business as a custom-
thinking behind Lean Service Creation. What is er-need-based service, a variety of opportunities
being done, and to what end. open up.

At VAPO, an energy production company, the It has now been one and a half years since
digital transformation was initiated by top man- we started practising Lean Service Creation to
agement. After a few tough years with declining generate these new business opportunities. This
profits, multiple organizational changes, layoffs is a fairly short time in the company’s history. I
and public criticism of our ecological profile, am very proud of what we’ve achieved: We have
our top management began investing in future learned to listen to our clients and their needs,
growth. They put effort into recruiting scientists and to collaborate on new business ideas based
and digital talents, developing sustainable energy on them in a new, iterative way. The entire execu-
solutions, and outlining the transformation of the tive team has been involved in and committed to
business. At that point, there was no talk of the all the LSC projects and the whole programme.
method needed to support the change.
87
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

88

“Engineers might be excellent

in solving problems, but are
they really good at solving
the problems that NEED to
be solved or questioning the
problem itself?”
Jukka Helin
 89

The question now is: Will it stick? It’s always easy

to go back to the way things were, so to speak:
make a business plan, draw up a budget, and
then the executives make a decision.

In fact, I think, agile development and the wa-

terfall method both play a role in organizations,
but it is obvious that the waterfall approach is
much easier in the traditional sense: you make
decisions that determine what will happen, when
and how much cash you are going to use, who is
responsible, and what’s in it for me. In traditional
thinking the waterfall method exists to minimize
risk, but the real way to minimize risk is to have
a continuous process where you continually
test out your idea, in small modules, and make
assumptions as you go on based on those itera-
tions.”

Vapo is a Finnish heat and fuel company, the world’s leading peat industry company, and a pioneer in bioenergy
development. Jukka Helin currently works as Group Manager at Kela, social insurance institution of Finland.
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

90

FLASH VIEW:
Kristian Luoma, Head of OP Labs

Danger
The

Tools
with
 91

“The danger of tools is

that you start to believe
it is the tool that delivers
the end result. Tools are
mainly about what and
how, but the why is the
most important. If you are
able ask the w question
with a tool and challenge
your way of working, it will prove its usefulness. Using an
adequate tool draws your attention to the problem: what is the
problem you actually should start solving. It serves you well in
a market that transforms and where customers have unmet
needs. The tool forces you to be empathetic to understand and
define them.

The question is after defining the problem, how do you turn

our guess into insight, that is solid. Where does the process
lead you? Where are you aiming at? The tool does not free you
from thinking, and it certainly is no silver bullet. You need
to turn your guesses into facts. LSC is a petri dish for that
purpose.”

OP Financial Group is the largest bank and insurance operator in Finland. OP Lab is their digital innovation accelerator program.
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

92

INTERVIEW WITH JOHN OSWALD, Global Head of

Advisory at Futurice

LSC is a
Movement,
Not a
Method
John Oswald has built a career in scaling
design methods in large consultancies. He sees
Lean Service Creation as a movement that
aims to make companies “future capable”.
Conceiving of LSC as a methodology misses the
point, Oswald argues.
 93

What is your goal as a Global Head of

Advisory?
Broadly speaking my mission is to inspire, coach
and connect teams across different countries
where Futurice is already established. I want us
to be a team that collaborates and invents new
practices. My aim is for Futurice to continue to
reinvent this new profession of business design,
to explore what technology and design can do
when combined with empathy. You can only in-
spire clients by helping them join the dots.

You have a background in consulting

and design in large global organizations.
How do the dots connect in your career?
I have no education in design whatsoever. I am
so pleased to be able to work with a company
like Fjord. They took a risk with me. We created
a concept of business design that concentrated
on human-centred problem solving. To succeed
in that, we need to have empathy built into our
organizations. That inevitably leads to organiza-
tional change.

Fjord was acquired by the global consulting

agency Accenture, and the process gave me an
awareness of how broken consulting had become.
It had lost its way. The way it was being done was
actually to derisk innovation for clients, despite
the fact that problem solving should embrace a
creative mentality. Accenture hired me essential-
ly to change that. So I grew the business design
function to 13 studios, recruited 400 people over
four years. Then I started to worry it was getting
too safe again.
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

94

What led you to join Futurice in the first

place?
The prospects for Futurice are very appealing,
there is a lot more free thinking and experi-
menting than in consulting, design or software
companies in general. I love how everything here
is open source; there is both push and pull to
develop things.
I met Tuomas Syrjänen, the CEO, two years ago
through a mutual colleague. The more I caught
up with Tuomas, the more I thought this compa-
ny was really interesting. At Fjord I was already
starting to look at how companies can help or-
ganizations evolve, help them have a living busi-
ness, so to say. The way I see Futurice is like a
continuation of that, a social experiment, which
seeks to bring out the potential of the human be-
ings in the workplace. Futurice really encourages
decision making and courage at work.

How does Futurice compare to

competitors from your viewpoint?
Futurice has a very organic approach to technol-
ogy. Service-oriented software houses can often
be too conceptual in their approach. At Futurice
we can build pretty much what we want. You do
bring things to life, and that forces you to tighten
up your conceptual thinking, not only onto a
more realistic level, but it actually opens your
mind. I think it is easier for a technology compa-
ny to get into design than vice versa.

I have evolved my thinking at Futurice. The way

Futurice practises the LSC principles is inspiring.
It works. I can see it.
 95

“Our mission Futurice works on the fringes of consulting,

design and technology – it is the new essential

is to develop
profession. We could be articulating a broader
movement that has a culture with deep roots in
humility and ethics.

the ways We might be working on a client project and have

quite a lot of impact on the entire organization.

humans and
You act differently when you work well together,
everything in business is different when you’ve
got each other´s back.

machines Our mission is to develop the ways humans and

machines cooperate in order to develop society.

cooperate What is the core of Lean Service Design?

in order to
There is a huge risk of seeing it as a method-
ology. It is not a methodology at its core. It is a
mindset involving problem solving and collabo-

develop
ration. A more accurate label would be to call it
“lean change enablement”, since it is a mindset

society.”
that helps conduct experiments that themselves
evolve entire ways of working.

Thinking about new services is important, we

just need to broaden it out to think about, not
just digital products, but machine learning, vir-
tual reality, and so on. We are on the cusp of an
immense change. We might know some of the
answers, but we haven’t designed them yet.
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

96

One could say that LSC is not a product. We sell

LSC projects and coaching to our clients, which is
nice and useful. But there is a lot more scope for
our movement. We need to evolve LSC. We need
to help companies grasp what it means to be
future capable within organizations, and we can
also help them with lean organizational ethics,
for example.
Organizations might approach us with ques-
tions like: What kind of products will we be
launching in 5 to 10 years?, which is fine. Helping
with particular products that can go wrong is all
very practical, but you need a bigger framework to
help organizations become future capable. And
there are several entry points for that challenge.

Corporations often claim that their aim

is to develop future-proof business
concepts. What is your take on that?
It is total bullshit. Nothing can be future proof,
but we can build organizations that are future
capable, harness the right technology, and use it
in a meaningful way. We can help the organiza-
tion to learn continually, so that people will be
inspired to lead and change things.

What is the significance of having an

innovation strategy?
Clients are more scared than ever. Everyone was
excited 15 years ago: Let’s get on the web and do
things. Now there is so much more uncertainty.

Innovation strategy for me has an image of execu-

tives trying to figure out what is the right message
for the board of the company, rather than trying to
find the right questions to ask about the future.
 97

Innovation strategy is a contradiction in terms. You mentioned that you read a lot.
Strategy is a word that has become highly com- What books would you recommend to
moditized. The traditional approach is that you future-oriented change agents?
do a lot of benchmarking, “hypnotize first and First, Reinventing Organizations by Frederic Laloux,
proof later”. You align the Board of the company an important book for all organizations. Second,
with things that are not offensive to anyone. The Cluetrain Manifesto, this is a view onto the
changing world by some of the real founding
Innovation is the opposite. It means discovering, forces of the internet: Rick Levine, Christopher
not what people need now, but what their un- Locke, Doc Searls, and David Weinberger, written
spoken needs are, then iterating on continuously at the turn of the millennium. Third, a piece of
iterating on what you learn. wonderful fiction by Dave Eggers, called the Circle
Thought Experiment. Fourth, Purity by Jonathan
Franzen, one of the great storytellers of our time.
The book shows the humanity behind all the
progress, and paints a very realistic picture of
just how damaging some of what we do on the
internet can be.

Why is it important to read fiction?

I often think we are better professionals the more
fiction we read. *
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

98

“LSC is a mindset
involving problem solving
and collaboration. A more
accurate label would be to call
it ‘lean change enablement’,
since it is a mindset that helps
conduct experiments that
themselves evolve entire ways
of working.”
John Oswald
 99

John Oswald on customer experience in financial

services at a Futurice seminar in London, October
2017.

“It’s easy to be seduced by beautifully designed cus-

tomer experiences and apps. However, as companies
like Uber are painfully discovering, customer experi-
ence needs to be sustainable. This means remember-
ing that customers, employees and ethics intersect
and that delivering a great customer experience
must not come at the expense of a great employee
experience.
We are all in this together and the brands that
deliver best in class customer experiences must be
similarly ambitious when it comes to ensuring and
delivering a great employee experience. Customer
experience isn’t purely a customer-facing mission –
people are our greatest assets, here to deliver it, in
the first place.
From exposure to 4 000–10 000 ad messages a
day, to checking our phones 1 500 times a week, we
consumers have ever-increasing claims on our time.
Outstanding customer experience should avoid add-
ing to the noise and aim to be attention saving rather
than attention claiming, a phrase I’m borrowing from
Trendwatchers.
A key focus needs to be on finding ways to quietly
solve consumers’ pain points or problems in the
background.”
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

100

Four
things to
remember
- Notes for a random LSC user
 101

1.
LSC brings structure and focus
to service creation, but leaves
room for creativity

THE WORLD is full of tools for service creation, but creation process and helps them to focus on the
most of them only help you with a certain phase right questions at the right time. This is typically
or task (take a business model canvas for an what people are looking for: simple tools that
example). What I like about LSC is that contains a guide the process, but don’t take too much atten-
curated set of canvases that walk you through all tion, so that the team can focus on what’s really
the steps needed for creating and/or developing relevant - the content.
services and products.

What people love about LSC is that gives both

structure as well as focus on the entire service
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

102

People sometimes ask if they really have to

use all the canvases, or complain that a certain
canvas is missing something. We at Futurice do
our best to remind them that LSC should not be
a seen as something fixed and rigid. Instead, it’s
a starting point, a base where teams can bring
customer-centricity, multi-disciplinary and trans-
parency to service creation.
 103

2.
LSC is all about iterative
development and learning to
appreciate ‘good enough’

ONE OF THE cornerstones of LSC is constant on producing working software and maximis-
iteration and learning. This is why LSC itself is an ing the work not done, LSC helps teams to get to
example of iterative development. I don’t think it things done.
ever will be finished. At the same time, what I like
most about LSC is that it teaches teams to settle
for good enough to get things done.

At least for me, having a background for perfec-

tionism, one of the most liberating things about
LSC has been that sometimes good enough is bet-
ter than perfect, because ‘it’s ready and working’.
When new teams start using LSC they are often
surprised that we move so fast, act on things, and
ask for user feedback long before we are ready.
But as the Agile Manifesto pushes teams to focus
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

104

3.
LSC is practical and
empowers people to
take action

MOREOVER, while most organisations and leaders

know in theory that they should be custom-
er-centric or get their team to work in a more
lean way, what they often lack is the concrete
tools that help them bring these principles into
action. This is why LSC has become so popular
both among our clients as well as universities
that teach it: it is concrete and leads to action.
 105

4.
LSC is no silver bullet

IT IS GOOD to remember that, as the name sug- For a company to really become iterative, cus-
gests, LSC is a toolset for lean service creation. tomer-centric, and transparent as a whole, a lot
Originally developed for the creation of services more has to change than the service and product
and products, it fits best for service and product development process. The organisation has to
development and also quite nicely for creating rethink its structures, practices, and processes –
and developing processes in a lean way. and how all of this is led and managed.

It’s no silver bullet that will solve all of a leader’s, This is why we at Futurice are increasingly focus-
organisation’s or even a team’s troubles and chal- ing on client projects where we not only coach
lenges. Instead, it will support the team to create teams but also their leaders to drive a more pro-
services and products in a lean way. found change in the organisation.

Eeva Raita, Head of Culture Advisory at Futurice

L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

106
 107

The
Canvases
Lean Service Creation
the Handbook 2.0

Hanno Nevanlinna
Juha Pesonen
Risto Sarvas
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

108
 109

Dear Reader

Lean Service Creation (LSC) goes back to 2013 when one of nce in a while we find ourselves contemplating what’s
our clients, instead of asking us to deliver an app for them, behind the success. Perhaps LSC got one thing right from the
wanted us to teach them how to create digital services. beginning it’s not reall about the tools and the methods,
That’s when the first set of tools and canvases, combining it’s about people t’s what ou ma e out of it is not
lean principles, design thinking, and agile philosophy, were something ou ust download off the internet and plug in
put together as a package for our clients to utilize. Feels like The real power of LSC is that it has been designed with great
a century ago! respect to the people facing the challenge of creating a new
business. And we want to do it together with you. So, please
Now, in February 2018, over 15 000 printed LSC books have pretty please give us feedback, join our events, be in touch,
been distributed, and countless more downloaded. LSC and help us make LSC better.
has been taught directly to thousands of individuals, it has
become the cornerstone of digital transformation in com- [email protected] and www.leanservicecreation.com are
panies, such as Wärtsilä, Telia, BMW, Tesco, and Posti, and always there to listen. Join the Facebook group and the
it is even being taught in universities. Most importantly, LSC LinkedIn community as well. With respect and gratitude to
is utilized for what it was originally intended to do: helping all you innovators, creators, and change agents out there
teams achieving success in business critical projects! who are making LSC into something bigger.

Nowadays, LSC has a steady team behind it at Futurice. In On behalf of the whole LSC team,
addition to the original creators of the package, there’s
Eeva Raita, Salla Heinänen, Lina Yassin and Mirkka Länsisalo Risto, Hanno, and Juha
developing LSC coaching, and Nelli Myllylä curating LSC com-
munities. Not to mention our dear friends & colleagues both
inside and outside of Futurice, who have been invaluable
with their suggestions and feedback. Have a careful read at
the credits section to appreciate the communal effort!
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

110

What is Lean Service

Creation?
 111

LSC AS A SET OF TOOLS design, research, marketing and so on. LSC makes it possible
To put it simply, LSC is a set of canvases in a loose order of for you, your team, bosses, stakeholders, sub-contractors,
preference. The goal is to provide you and your team with a customers etc. to have an equal ground. No one can hide be-
checklist, and a way to organise the answers. The canvases hind their own jargon (not the bosses, not the experts) and
are designed to be physical posters on a wall so that your everyone is given a voice to give feedback and to be creative.
team can collaborate, discuss and work together in the same
physical space. LSC AS A COMPANY CULTURE
Imagine a group of people sharing the same language for
LSC AS ACTIONS AND BEHAVIOUR tools, actions, and thin ing That’s when our whole com-
As described above, the canvases are more than passive pany culture begins to transform. Transform to what? LSC
questions and tools. LSC encourages certain actions and implies an organisation that is reactive to change, rapid in its
behaviour. The canvases gently push you to create concrete iterations, and constantly learning. And because of all this,
results: to facilitate co-creation, give and receive quality it is successful in creating new business. To achieve this, LSC
feedback, experiment, try out and prototype, fail fast, iter- supports a new type of leadership, where both top execu-
ate and learn, tackle problems step-by-step, turn abstract tives and grassroot experts are leaders because they are fol-
things into something tangible and show, listen and talk to lowed and respected. And these leaders make mistakes and
others. learn from them, they get their hands dirty when required,
they trust people and help them succeed.
LSC AS THINKING AND ATTITUDE
nce ou adopt tools and actions ou probabl find LSC AS SOCIAL CHANGE
ourself re ecting on our old wa s of thin ing That is the What is one of the major forces shaping our societies? ICT
point! implies a specific mentalit eware of functional innovations, products and services that create new business.
silos. Aim for multidisciplinary teams and give all experts an That is why the people who have the skills, tools, and
equal voice. Rock beats scissors and concrete results beat thinking to create new business have a lot of societal power.
a pre defined process e holistic, see the bigger conte t This power should be equally available to everyone – not
Embrace uncertainty. Co-design with customers. Maximise solely to a small group of educated professionals. That is why
realism to overcome self deception lwa s validate uild, we actively make LSC open, free, and available so that any-
Measure, Learn. Have an open and curious mind. Have fun one anywhere can learn, apply, and create new products and
while working. Go home, kiss your spouse, and give your services, and shape the society via Lean Service Creation. We
Mom a call (i.e., there are more important things in life than would like you to join the movement!
LSC :).

LSC AS A SHARED LANGUAGE

It is easier to change yourself than to change others. To get
your team (or your whole organisation) to truly collaborate
you need a shared language. LSC is designed to be your
lingua franca between business, data science, programming,
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

112

From Whom, Why: How?

Treat Lean Service Creation like a friend of yours who The canvases here can’t do your job for you but they give
has been in your situation many, many times. And like a you a starting point, a rough outline, specific questions
true friend, LSC is ready to ask you difficult questions and to answer and concrete actions to do.
push you outside your comfort zone.

WHO HAVE USED THE CANVAS SET AND THE CANVASES WORK BEST AS:
HOW? • A comprehensive checklist that you have looked at your
• Product development teams in traditional service from all angles.
organizations while starting to use new kind of • A simple step-by-step process to introduce into a
customer centric and e perimental wor ow multi-disciplinary team to create a shared language
• Experienced service designers use the set to remind and a common methodology.
them of business uestions and more technical issues • A visible, fast, and easy way of communicating your
• Business people use it to operationalize a customer- work to other people and encouraging them to give
centric core into their wor quality feedback.
• Engineers use the canvases to integrate design • n eas toolbo to adapt and appl to different t pes
thinking into their agile work methods and of services and different e isting wor cultures
architecture planning • A proven tool to create new innovative services fast,
• Start-ups use it to communicate their ideas and to see e cientl , and holisticall
where to go ne t • A step-by-step way to introduce and teach how new
• R&D organisations use it to form a shared language business is created in the digital era.
and an agile and customer centric wa of wor ing
 113

WHAT IS NEEDED TO GET STARTED?

• Some basic knowledge of product and service

development. The more experienced you are, the faster
you adapt the canvases to work best for you.
• A creative and result-oriented mindset. The tools will
never create awesomeness by themselves. At the end
of the day, you an your team have to create the success.
• A humble attitude. You must be ready to throw away
your darling ideas. You have to be able to listen to your
customers and colleagues. You have to be ready to
accept irrelevant and sometimes stupid feedback.
• Be humble and ask yourself: are you building a new
business or building your ego?
• ens of different color ots of different si e stic notes
of different colors and si es
• Tape, scissors, paper, empty walls, rulers, glue, and a
room where all this comes together. Basically, go visit a
kindergarten and see what they have there :)
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

114

Lean Service Creation

set of Tools
TOOLS FOR
This is how all the canvases MANAGEMENT
are interconnected.

SERVICE VISION
SPRINT
 115

GROWING IT HUGE

DEFINING AND
BUILDING THE
MVP

TOOLS FOR TEAMS

DAILY WORK
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

116

LEAN SERVICE CREATION CANVASS

BREAKDOWN

TOOLS FOR TEAMS DAILY WORK FOR MANAGEMENT

 117

SERVICE VISION SPRINT Iterate until success criteria from management passed

DEFINING AND BUILDING THE MVP GROWING IT HUGE

When doin bigger feature

changes use relevant set
of SVS canvases.
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

118

IT’S ALL ABOUT

TEAMWORK!

The whole idea of LSC is to give multidisciplinary groups of

people the tools and the mindset necessar to ourish as a
team. These tools will help groups to focus on the right top-
ics, to iterate continuously, and to get to know one another
as real persons in order to become an effective team

ou reall can’t overemphasise the importance of a positive

team spirit in creative work. Nor can you ignore the fact that
all teams encounter struggles, testing the limits and patience
of each team member. In such situations, it seems easier to
stomp ahead with the project instead of challenging what
the team is doing and improving the ways in which the team
is working together. The problem with such an approach is
that not only is teamwork as important as the project goals
are now, in fact, it is a necessity for success.

The following canvases are here to help you improve team-

wor on a wee l and dail basis and to ma e our team’s
progress visible for others.
119
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

120

WEEKLY :)

The “Weekly Smile” -canvas, helps you and

your team to take the time to get to know
one another.

Draw your smile and tell us how you feel. Encourage your the upcoming tasks you’ve got on your to-do list, or wander
team to share what is going on in their lives, both private off topic
and professional. We human beings are an undivided
whole egative life e periences outside of wor can affect A team member could for example draw a downward smile
our mood and work performance. And that’s ok! No-one’s and explain that their one-year-old baby was ill and kept
expecting you to be Superman. them up the whole night t’s up to ou how graphic ou
wanna be
This part might sound li e the gooe stuff , but our team
is all you’ve got! So make sure you do your absolute best to The important thing is to ta e care of one another s there
keep them motivated. something that you or another teammate could do to
support the tired colleague? Also remember to keep in mind
NAME the big picture ne or two sleepless nights here and there
might be fine, but several in a row is alarming
In most cases this is pretty obvious. But if you are working
with a new multidisciplinary team full of people you’ve never HOLIDAYS
met before, it might be good idea to snap a photo of each
teammate – If it’s OK with them! Note down your upcoming holidays on the canvas so they’re
visible! t’s so eas to forget that an essential team member
WEEK 1, 2, 3... is ing off to awaii in two wee s time anaging absences
in advance allows the project to run smoothly and also lets
Draw your smiley on a sticky note. Tell your teammates how the luc vacationist to en o his time off without interrup-
ou’re doing e concise and time e cient oncentrate on tions
your moods and the reasons behind them – don’t spell out all
TOOLS FOR TEAMS DAILY WORK 121
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

122

WEEKLY LSC BOARD

No matter what, it’s just human nature to
slip back into old habits. So once a week do
a sanity check with the Weekly LSC Board. It
helps you to focus on the essential.
Go through the canvas together with the team and keep it TRANSPARENCY Your team should always aim to be as
short! Have you heard of stand-up meetings? Standing up transparent as possible. Even though you as a team know what
will increase our e cienc s the wor advances wee you are doing, that doesn’t mean that other people enjoy the
by week, remember to keep the dialogue open with your same visibility. In their eyes, you are consuming a lot of money
business owners and resources, randomly changing direction from one week
to the other. Transparency is key in gaining the trust of your
TECHNICAL ISSUE Identify the most critical technical organisation. Communicate pro-actively and regularly. Share
issue each wee on’t hide it, don’t forget it a e it visible what ou’re doing and wh the validated ustifications behind
and, most importantly, address it! your actions. Not just in the beginning but also at regular
intervals throughout the project. Use this part of the canvas to
BUSINESS QUESTION Think from the perspective track your progress. Do the relevant stakeholders know what
of a venture capitalist in point an new opportunities or we are working on and why? It’s a subjective opinion, so be true
challenges that ou might’ve pic ed up along the wa re to yourself.
there any critical business issues that the whole project is
dependent on ould ou be willing to bet ou grandma’s LAST/NEXT RETRO Retros are no good if you don’t hold
savings account on the project? the sessions regularly. If they’re visible on the board, you’re
more likely to have them. You’re never too busy to have a retro.
END-USER ISSUE What is your biggest fear with It doesn’t take long.
regards to the user need, usability and value proposition at
the moment? LAST/NEXT USER TEST Frequent testing should be a
part of your team’s DNA, giving you the chance to recalibrate
BIGGEST FEAR / LIMITATION What keeps you on-the-go. If you postpone testing, you might end-up
awake at night? What holds you back or limits your work this cementing features that do not deliver end-user value!
week? Fix it and stress no more!
LAST/NEXT DEMO Demos give you deadlines, they
VALIDATION fre uent uild easure earn c cle make your work visible, generate trust and share your learnings.
means that ou’re alwa s validating our h potheses, Schedule your demos in advance to get the right people to
decisions and implementations hat are ou validating attend.
currentl f ou find ourself standing in the wee l meeting
without anything to validate, you are doing something LAST/NEXT PERSONAL GOAL SHARING
wrong re ou sure ou aren’t ma ing some assumptions SESSION Sharing your personal and learning development
about our end users that ou’re ust not aware of goals with the team can help realize those goals. Your team
members can help you take more responsibility in some topic if
they’re aware you want to do so.
TOOLS FOR TEAMS DAILY WORK 123
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

124

AGILE BOARD
Agile methodologies have their own ways to
hold a weekly and daily tasks organized and
visible. Usually it’s some kind of a board in the
project room’s wall.
The most important function of an agile board is to visualise IN PROGRESS
for the whole team what we’re working on, how the work In progress means that really is actively working on the task.
is proceeding and who is responsible for what. It helps the If you stop working on it, Remove it. Who is working on which
team to see the bigger picture and where they can be of tas se color coding, magnets, or whatever prop oats our
help to one another. In the wider context, the agile board boat to indicate who’s doing what? As a rule of thumb: max
links with the backlog. Product owner has the prioritized list, two items per team member. Taking on a lot of parallel work
but it is always the team that autonomously pulls some of might loo nice on the board, but is proven to be ine cient
the highest ordered items to be worked on the sprint. Context switches are poison for the teams velocity.

Keep the team focused on the right tasks and track the TESTING
progress. To be honest this canvas is way too small for real Before the stories and tasks are done, they have to be tested.
project work. It’s basically a placeholder for your teams own Always do the tests as soon as possible. If not, you end up
favourite way – Scrum board, Kanban, whatever feels best building on unvalidated work.
for the team. – Do it yourself: use white board, magnets,
masking tape, magic paper. If you have a multi-site team, it DONE
might be good idea to go digital. If you are not familiar with Whoo! You guys are progressing. Stack completed stories
agile tools, do some googling: “Scrum board”, “Kanban”, and stories here. Be honest with yourself and the team.
“agile board”! Prepare yourself mentally. Something you considered to be
ready might get re-assigned to in-progress. You never know
STORIES what might come up.
A good story is a high-level description with essential infor-
mation for the team to work on. We recommend cutting the DEFINITION OF DONE
implementation work to small stories that bring clear value You’ve successfully completed your task, implemented the
to the customer or your business. Remember the KPI’s. The new feature and it seems to be working. But is it really done?
team is not a feature factory. eople might have ver different perceptions of what e actl
constitutes as done. Have you, for example, done integra-
TODO tion, performance, stability, user acceptance and regression
Cut the stories into pieces and smaller tasks. There should testing, as well as refactoring, release notes, code reviews,
always be a step small enough to do with couple of spare and user documentation? It’s not that you need to necessar-
hours. Achieving tangible goals is motivating even if they ily do all of the above. Just be aware that done is a relative
were small. concept! The important thing is to create clear, shared rules
that are visible to all team members at all times.
TOOLS FOR TEAMS DAILY WORK 125
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

126

RETROSPECTIVE

LSC is not just about iterating the concept

you are working on, it’s also about improving
the way you work together as a team.

There are man different wa s to hold a retrospective e’ve LESS / STOP

included a couple of twists and turns in our version that we This the place for the stuff that might be bugging ou hat
hope ou will en o evertheless, it might be a good idea should the team do less of or stop doing entirel
to change the retro canvas from time to time to eep things
interesting TODO
fter ever bod has contributed their opinions, vote which
emember that a retro does not and should not have to be of the changes ou will focus on ne t, and who is
a long meeting hen ever bod nows the drill, ust give a responsible for implementing them on’t choose too man
short update and ad ust our improvement focus together development topics at the same time t’s also a good idea
s alwa s, a few minutes in silence before ever bod shares to add the suggestions to the gile board, where the ’re
their thoughts visible

KEEP DOING DONE

emember to state the obvious The things that ou as a hen the ne t retro starts, first go through what happened
team are doing well ot ust the bad stuff that needs to to the last retro’s selected todo items ow well did the pro-
be improved posed changes wor re the done or should ou continue
with them
MORE OF / START
Thin about what the team should do more of hat new elect one change that was reall good and add it to the
wa s could help ou be more productive and en o wor ing etro iamond canvas up ne t
together
TOOLS FOR TEAMS DAILY WORK 127
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

128

RETRO DIAMONDS

Sharing is caring. When your team has

made proven improvement to your ways of
working, why keep it to yourself? Share your
learnings!

Add it to this canvas so that you will remember it yourself Our Greatest Retro findings
better and our colleagues from different teams can learn You probably decided to do some changes in the previous
from your crown jewels. retro. Which one of those changes turned out to be the best
By having these publicly visible you will also communicate one? if you did multiple really good changes, add them all!
actively that you are constantly developing the core, your
team.

As always, a few minutes in silence before everybody shares

their thoughts.
TOOLS FOR TEAMS DAILY WORK 129
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

130

EXPERIMENTING

If you were working on something obviously extremely ut all the stic notes on this first column Tal them over
di cult and complicated, li e the first landing on the moon, brie Then vote on which ones ou thin are most critical
would ou ust assume that our calculations are right, the
gear wor s smoothl , operating in the ero gravit goes as HOW TO EXPERIMENT
ou assumed and the astronauts are read for the mission, You can do this step with all the assumptions or just the most
cause the loo fit and smart o ou wouldn’t ust put the critical ones. However, it is better to write down all the as-
pieces together and start the countdown nstead ou would sumptions before planning the experiments. An experiment
cut the process into pieces and start step b step e peri is a simple, fast, and inexpensive way to get maximal knowl-
ments with the engines, hardware, human factor and so on edge (learning) about your assumption. A good experiment
needs some creativity: it is so easy to fall into traditional
This canvas will help ou focus on what is meaningful and methods that are often too cumbersome or heavy. For exam-
critical in getting our business up and running This is the ple, “We assume that our client organisations are willing to
antidote for idiotic corporate culture where ou should install new wi fi to their venues low and heav e peri-
follow the o cial process steps no matter what ccord ment et’s have a mar eting research agenc conduct a
ing to our orporate nnovation rocess we should build a stud about it ast and ine pensive e periment e , we
protot pe, because we are in phase although we all now the venue managers ’ll pic up m phone and call
can see from this canvas that the most critical thing is to test three of them right now to see what the thin about it
the value proposition ll in all ou should be doing what is
important, not what is in a process SUCCESS CRITERIA
The problem with assumptions is that they are your own
OUR RISKIEST ASSUMPTIONS assumptions t is e tremel important to define the success
t this stage of the process ou have made a lot of criteria before doing the experiment, because often the
guesses and assumptions ome of the assumptions might results from the experiment require some interpretation,
be educated, but for sure there are also some assumptions and… well... we humans love to interpret so that it looks like
that are hard to recogni e n how, it’s time have a loo at we were right in the very beginning.
all those places where ou had to move on rather than spend
da s figuring out the right answer KEY FINDINGS
This is where the most valuable knowledge is gathered. This
This is how it goes gather our team around this canvas is where you write down the things you learned from the
ach person lists one or two critical assumptions on a stic experiment. You will, of course, learn whether you met the
note critical assumption is such that if it is wrong, the success criteria or not. And you will learn lots of other things
whole service vision fails The assumption can be about as well: e.g., about communicating your value proposition,
technolog , business, customer, the pro ect itself, our about technological choices in building the experiment,
organisation it can be whatever is critical for building what about your customers when recruiting them to participate in
ou have planned and our concepts success at this moment the experiment, and so on.
TOOLS FOR TEAMS DAILY WORK 131
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

132

PRE PHASE, THE

MANAGEMENT
TRACK
Through hundreds of pro ects, we’ve gotten a lot of
re uests for different t pes of tools canvases, such as
portfolio management, strategy and leadership to name just
a few.

e’re tr ing to eep the canvas set as simple and compact as

possible, so naturall we couldn’t fulfill ever single wish
In this section we do, anyhow, introduce three new canvases
that should address the most frequent managerial issues
we’ve come across e present to ou anagement
Track.

First of, everybody should know what the goal of your project
is ou’d be surprised how often problems in pro ects actuall
arise from bad briefs. Second, the team should understand
why it is important to achieve the goal, and third, how the
results will be measured on’t mess up a perfectl nice
project with the wrong metrics!
 133

FOR MANAGEMENT
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

134

TRENDS

You can’t plan your each and every move in

the digital future. The world changes way too
fast for that. You can, however, examine the
bigger trends around you and make informed
predictions into the future.

This enables you to form strategies, instead of mindlessly HOW DOES THE MEGATREND SHOW UP
reacting to what competitors are doing, and lead the way. IN ADVERTISEMENT, MEDIA, SOCIAL
MEDIA, ENTERTAINMENT AND PRODUCTS
This canvas is a tool to make the megatrends visible in your
business. It’s a good idea to give this as a homework for the Do the same exercise in the advertisement and entertain-
team and management so the can fill it some da s while ment world These give ou view on what’s happening ne t
doing their daily routines. in the domain. They communicate about the value shifts.

MEGATRENDS TRENDS AND PHENOMENA THAT

Choose the most relevant megatrends for your business and INFLUENCE THIS PROJECT
your clients and add some more if relevant.
o an anal sis of our findings hat brings opportunities
HOW DOES THE MEGATREND SHOW UP and what poses threats to your business/project.
IN THE DAILY NEWS

oo for news that re ect the megatrend in our business

domain and generally. What’s the tone of voice? These give
you glance of what’s already happening.
FOR MANAGEMENT 135
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

136

STRATEGIC BUSINESS
OBJECTIVES

Successful work is always based on having

common ground on what we are doing and
why.

An easy way to give teams as much autonomy as possible BUSINESS OBJECTIVE

is to base decisions on tested facts not on managements ased on the strateg and the findings of the data what ind
opinions. on initiatives we could have to fi the problem or sees the
momentum? There should always be multiple possibilities to
LSC is all about building on validated learnings. That’s why solve the issue. If you end up with only one did you come up
the decision to start the whole design/development process with it before anal ing the situation, before understand-
should be based on facts as well. ing the problem? Having multiple options also helps you to
understand and frame the actual business initiative.
With this canvas you will end up having one or more business
objectives you can start to evaluate, iterate and learn from WHY SHOULD WE DO THIS?
with the LSC core process. Why should we try to solve the strategic issue with this ini-
tiative hat’s good in it oes it enable fast learning with
WHAT IS OUR STRATEGIC FOCUS AREA? modest resources or why?
What part of our strategy are we trying to tackle? Try to be
specific ven though we now that ever thing is alwa s WHY NOT?
interlinked. Tr to prove ourself wrong h shouldn’t we do this Too
long learning c cle ut of our reach oor fit with current
WHAT DATA TELLS US teams knowhow?
After analyzing the data we have of on our customers, prod-
ucts, business, competitors, trends etc. we’ve derived the
following conclusions. Be sure you can show this data and
the conclusions to the team working on the topic.
FOR MANAGEMENT 137
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

138

SUCCESS IS A PROCESS

Especially in the digital world (but not limited

to) the hardest thing for organizations to
grasp is that the service isn’t ready when the
first version is out. It’s an everlasting iterative
learning process. And due to that the key
metrics change during the life cycle.

The most typical problem is that when the MVP is out the CURRENT STATUS
management is just looking at the revenue it’s bringing Where are we now compared to the Success criteria? What
and dooming it as a failure. This canvas tries to create the are we doing and e perimenting efill this wee l
discussion on seeing the different phases and setting phase
specific metrics t should ma e visible the wor needed to ust to clarif per wee ou are filling onl one column at a
create a successful product or service. Fill it up with the most time.
relevant stakeholders.

CRITERIA FOR SUCCESS LEARNINGS AND ASSUMPTIONS

What are we aiming at with this phase? What is the best What have we learnt? What does the metrics tell us? What
metrics to help us guide the work to the correct direction? kind of conclusions can we pull out of it?
What should management follow? Why this metrics? How
does it differ from the ne t phase
ACTIONS
ou can and uite li el should fill this row alread in the What have we decided to do based on the learnings? Be as
beginning of the project. You will need to redo it as the concereate as possible.
project advances. Having some idea of the phases will help
you communicate the long road to other stakeholders. Just
remember to iterate! f ou are in an environment where it-
eration isn’t that acceptable don’t fill more than the current
and ne t phase
FOR MANAGEMENT 139
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

140

SERVICE VISION
SPRINT

This is the core of t’s often called as ust the design

phase but it’s so much more egardless of what ou are
doing: creating a totally new business, making iterative
enhancements to existing service or anything between this
phase you should always do.

After this you will know what your service is all about. You
will have a validated value proposition and a tested business
case.

t’s an iterative process ou should do most of the canvases

a few time as our concept has evolved and focused on’t
move ahead until all your base assumptions have validated.

o wh is the service vision sprint so important t’s the phase

where you get you multidisciplinary team on the same page.
Here you give ownership to all of the team members. You
make the work truly meaningful to everybody as you let the
team members meet the end users, understand their needs,
care and build together a service/feature/business that will
rock.
141
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

142

BUSINESS OBJECTIVE
& CONTEXT
Why is your company doing this? What business
objective are you solving by building this
product or service? This is where you tie your
project to the larger context of your company.
Therefore, it is essential to start off together with the WHO NEEDS TO BE INVOLVED?
manager, who came up with the business need/service/ There are probably other people to keep onboard as well.
product idea in the first place t’s reall important to Who are the internal stakeholders? People from other
consider what is the expected business impact of whatever projects? Any veterans who have earned their battle scars?
it is that ou’re designing t will help ou focus on the Third parties that are essential in providing the service to the
right goals and ma e decisions independentl ou’re not customer? Brand and marketing? Customers will be listed in
ust building an app or a service ou’re tr ing to achieve the following canvases.
something bigger
HOW WILL WE KNOW THAT WE HAVE
WHAT IS OUR BUSINESS OBJECTIVE? SUCCEEDED
hich business goal problem need opportunit of our Imagine yourself one year from now. How do you know that
compan are ou solving This should be an ob ective that you succeeded in achieving the business objective? Number
can be solved in man wa s good business ob ective does of customers rofit Twelve percent growth ame
not impl a pre defined solution medal from the king of Sweden? – Does your boss agree
with this? Next, answer the same questions for one month
WHY IS IT IMPORTANT? from now. Think about the process. – How do you know your
ou should be doing something that has a meaning and cre project is proceeding smoothly?
ates a positive impact when successful ow does it fit our
compan ’s strateg our department’s strateg n WHAT ENABLES US?
other reasons wh this particular business ob ective is more Is there some special resources that gives your team or
important than others company an advantage doing this? – Existing user pool or
infrastructure? Unique data, knowhow or resources?
BASED ON WHAT FACTS?
hat data do ou have to bac all this up acts over opin RISKS, RESTRICTIONS AND THINGS WE
ions This uestion is here for two reasons NEED TO TAKE INTO ACCOUNT
a ing sure we have the facts collected wh we should A limited budget or schedule? Your huge corporate bureau-
do this project cracy? Too many internal stakeholders? Your current business
t gives a common ground for the team and manage is doing too well to support risk-taking? Or perhaps you know
ment transparenc that your team lacks certain skills?
SERVICE VISION SPRINT 143
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

144

IMMERSION
We know. You have lots of ideas and the team
wants to start the fun hands-on design work
from the scratch. – Stop!
Take some time and go trough these questions with the team. are working on, but there has to be a reason why you and all the
Doing your background work properly will save you weeks other people love it. What is the thing that makes it so catching?
of time later. And remember: it’s not a shame to copy and
learn from the best solutions in the market. Discover the best WHAT DATA DO WE HAVE ABOUT THE TOPIC? If you have
solutions around and build on that. been working on the branch for years or you even have exist-
ing service or user pool related to the topic you are working
OUR BEST GUESS OF THE CUSTOMER’S PROBLEM At this on, you most probably have valuable data about it. Exclusive
stage, what is your best guess of the problem that is worth data might be your unique advantage on the market. – Do not
solving for your customer. Don’t worry if you are unsure, underestimate the value of it.
just write down your educated guess. Btw, this is also your
best guess of who your customers are ;) Knowing how your WHAT DOES IT TELL US? What does the data tell you about
customers use your existing services doesn’t mean that you the users? How many are there, how much they pay, how
understand the customer’s point of view, their daily life and often they use your service, how many have left the service
their problems worth solving. and so on oo also the trends of the figures f suitable ou
can use the Growth Hacking canvas to map your conversion
HOW IS THE CUSTOMER SOLVING THE PROBLEM / funnel. What does the data tell you of your old business and/
HANDLING THE NEED NOW? Your business competitors are or competitors business an ou find an business opportu-
not often the only alternatives the customer has in solving nity that you should try to take advance of?
his/her problem. You might be competing for the customer’s
time and attention. The competition might be the customer’s WHAT NEW DATA DO WE NEED? What data would be valu-
friends and a good bottle of wine. Or even better: often a able to have before moving forward with the concept? Should
viable alternative to your solutions is for the customer to just we add better analytics to our current service before trying to
let it be and do nothing at all. That’s a real competitor. guess what to fi s the relevant information trapped to some
other division of the company? Typically there is more data
PUBLIC DEBATE AROUND THE TOPIC What do the papers available than is accessible directly to you / your team. What
write about your topic? What about social media? The confer- data do we need? Do we need to order a market research? Do
ences in your business? This is a great way to understand the some cross anal es of the data we alread have
problems, feelings and current issues surrounding your topic.
Also, your service should aim to bring something new to this WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO TO GET IT? Share the tasks
debate: a solution everyone is craving for. and define who will be responsible a e sure ou get all the
relevant data fast enough so that you really build the next
HOTTEST RELATED START-UPS AND INSPIRING SERVICES phases of LSC on top of hard facts. If there is a 3 week que to
When was the last time you were inspired by a cool new service? the data analyst buy some bun and try to get ahead of the
n our wor n our private life ist the awesome stuff that line. Learn to do the analyses yourself. Do whatever it takes to
inspires you. It might have nothing to do with the service you get the data.
SERVICE VISION SPRINT 145
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

146

CUSTOMER GROUPING

This is the canvas for grouping your

customers. Remember, you can’t get it right
the first time. Refining and re-drawing your
customer groups based on what you learn is
the secret to success.

Start with one group, unless it is bloody obvious that there DESCRIPTION
are two clearl different ones s ou learn more about our Write down three bullet points that describe a person that
customers and their problems, ou probabl find rationale to fits our group Thin it li e this if a person wal s up to ou,
split the group what are the three most important things so that you know
whether this person is in your group or not.
h, and defining our groups b basic demographics is
simpl la ifferent groups have different problems worth PROBLEM (ASSUMED) WORTH
solving ove the problem! SOLVING
rom the customer’s perspective a customer who fits into
COMMON IN ALL CUSTOMER this group, of course) what is the problem s/he has that
GROUPS is worth solving nd if ou haven’t et tal ed to an real
ou can start with this bo or fill it last The point is that person in this group, write down your assumption.
our groups might have different problems, but neverthe-
less, there could be common things among them f the MAIN GROUP? WHY/WHY NOT?
are common enough, perhaps the can all become our The thing that is bound to happen is that you will have more
customers than one group. Unless you have rock solid reasons for work-
ing with several groups at the same time, choose one
GROUP NAME as your primary group. Then write down your rationale: why
up ou better name our group rite it on a stic note, is this the main group and why the others are not. Keep in
ou will change it man times later on nd while ou’re at mind, you can come back to this canvas anytime and make a
it, draw a picture that represents our group r wh not new decision. (Unless you ordered the “LSC Canvases Stone
print a descriptive photo ave fun with it lab pecial dition n that case our decisions might be
well... carved in stone. :P)
SERVICE VISION SPRINT 147
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

148

INSIGHT
Get out of your office and meet some real
people! What you are looking for are insights
about your customers/end users and to find a
problem worth solving.
That’s wh our first interviews are so called problem inter THINKS AND FEELS
views ou are doing our best to see the world from their Every successful service resonates on an emotional level.
perspective and to find a problem that ou might solve for Therefore, you need to understand how people think and
them s for facts and e amples, as them to draw a picture feel about the topics related to the problem domain. What
if need be s wh , as wh again, and then as wh once were the feelings and aspects related on the need / existing
more Then as wh The should tal of the time, ou wa dealing with the problem id ou find something
ust softl guide them and as for clarifications if need be the users really liked or was there something frustrating or
o not, repeat, T tal or as about our solutions or painful? Write in down. If you forgot to ask them how they
ideas for a service The gods of ethnograph shall smite ou felt about things, call them bac ow! nd don’t forget to
if ou present a solution at the problem interview stage! m do that for the next interview.
mediatel after each interview, write down the three most
important findings ow man should ou interview tart SURPRISED US
with five ee also the end of this boo let There we have What unexpected things you learned? Something new? This
added a special cheat sheet for doing good interviews is pure gold: this is you learning about your customers!

INSERT PHOTO HERE THE USER NEEDS A WAY TO

ou met real people right et it show! s the interviewee Make a conclusion: what do you think they actually needed?
if it’s to ta e a photo of them n authentic snapshot a be the said the need coffee, but ou thin the actu-
ma es it easier for ou to recall the situation and the person ally need something to wake them up in the morning. Write
ou met t is also a practical wa to show our team and here a good quote of what they actually said. Also, write
the product owner that ou didn’t ust come up with some here an e findings ou thin are relevant
insights and the are based on answers and opinions from
actual people instead RELATED EMOTIONS
id ou find positive feelings or aspects to emphasi e, or frus-
NEEDS + OTHER KEY FINDINGS: trating things or negative emotions or aspects you could tackle?
hat were the important tas s, obs and pain points the
interviewed customers told ou about ow can ou help IT’S IMPORTANT BECAUSE
their dail lives hat did this person reall need hat do hat ma es our findings important s our insight and the
the need to do problem really a real problem worth solving? Do you already
see some unique advantage your company or business has
related to these findings
SERVICE VISION SPRINT 149
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

150

IDEATION KICK OFF

Business problem? Check. Customer

segment? Check. Talked with several people
in that segment? Check. Great!

ow ou are welcome to this canvas, where ou finall have in detail. “What did you do next? Why? How did it go? How
the permission to create ideas for solutions that solve your it could have been better
business problem AND solve the problems worth solving for
your customers. POSITIVE ASPECTS AND EMOTIONS
These are the positive thoughts, feelings, aspects, emotions,
irst fill the inner circle based on the insight from the inter- results etc. that the customer has in getting solving those
views and then brainstorm around them to find large and needs.
small ideas. Do not hesitate to use any good ol’ brainstorm-
ing techniques here, such as How Might We… statements IDEAS THAT SOLVE THE CUSTOMER’S
or other tips’n’tricks for breaking mental logjams hindering PROBLEM
creativity. After you have selected the needs, problems and emotions
you are going to solve, you can start to brainstorm solutions.
USER NEED/PROBLEM deate small or large ideas that fill the user need or solves
From the interviews select the customers needs and prob- their problem The idea doesn’t need to be
lems that you want to solve to reach your original business a full idea, it can ust solve one angle of it ou might even
objective. call them just features.

NEGATIVE ASPECTS AND EMOTIONS IDEAS THAT FIX, ELIMINATE OR REDUCE

From the interview write down the negative emotions THE CUSTOMER’S PAIN
attached to the selected problems and needs. These are the Now try to create ideas that aim to remove or reduce the
negative thoughts, feelings, emotions, hurdles etc. that the negative aspects and other things that cause the negative
customer has in doing or related to those jobs. Remember, emotions.
that these emotions exist independent of your service.
IDEAS THAT TAKE THE BEST OUT OF THE
Sometimes people are so used to their daily routines that it’s POSITIVE EMOTIONS
hard for them to recognize the jobs and aspects which could Focus on the positive emotions and try to ideate how could
be managed more easil To find these routines ou have to you make the most out of the positive emotions. How can
ask questions of concrete situations – for example daily steps you amplify to positive as much as possible.
SERVICE VISION SPRINT 151
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

152

CONCEPT AND VALUE

PROPOSITION
After you have brainstormed and generated
ideas, select the best ideas of all three
groups and form a full concept of them.
You might end up with multiple concepts to choose from. you know the emotions attached and you know how your
After you have brainstormed and generated ideas, select solutions is fi ing the needs, reducing negative emotions and
the best ideas of all three groups and form a full concept of taking the best out of the positive.
them. You might end up with multiple concepts to choose
from. Keep your focus on the customer’s problem, feasibil- CONCEPT NAME
ity, and business potential while creating the concept. You ow it’s time to give the concept a describing name spe-
might want to read over your canvas #1 to remind yourselves ciall if ou have multiple concept ideas it’s good to give it a
what is the business objective you are aiming at. name so you can, as a group talk, about it more easily.

HOW DOES IT WORK? FAKE ADD

Describe how the concept works. What does the customer or The fa e advertisement is our first protot pe ou ta e to
end user do with it and what happens “under the hood” on your customers. It is a perfect prototype to test your value
a rough level. proposition. Use the template to design a print ad that could
be in a newspaper or a bus stop.
VALUE TO THE END-USER
What is the value the solution brings to the user or custom- Choose a picture that is informative and relays the feeling
er? What is the problem it’s solving and how? and relationship you want. Remember, most people only
look at the picture. Brainstorm a good headline that attracts
WHAT MAKES OUR SOLUTION SPECIAL? the right customer to read more.
ow is the solution different than what is alread in the
market? Why our solution is better? Reserve some time for writing the copy. Write it as a letter
to a another person Then, depending on our time, finali e
VALUE TO OUR BUSINESS our advertisement with pen paper or design tools and
ow does this solution fi our business problem hat direct proper brand guidelines Tr out few different approaches
in indirect value does it create? and see how customers understand them f ou find it hard
to explain your solution and the value to your customer
WRITTEN VALUE PROPOSITION in a fake ad or landing page, your concept might be too
You should now have everything you need to write a good complicated!
value proposition: you know your customers need/problems,
SERVICE VISION SPRINT 153
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

154

PROFILING THE CONCEPT

Allright. At this phase you have the idea of
your initial concept ready. Before you start
pouring more cement into your concept it’s
time to slow down for a moment and
have a sanity check. Is the concept still fitting
the original business objective? Is it feasible
considering your resources?

We call this phase The Death Star. It might be somewhat the- When you are done. Use time to discuss and justify each
atrical but it reminds you that you have to make decisions. one’s opinions n general ou might consider the outer circle
Are you really ready to proceed? Should you iterate, or even as the positive side and inner end as the negative ut it’s
kill the concept and take several really up to you. There are not strict rules or thresholds on
steps backward. In the words of Obi-Wan Kenobi: “That’s no what is good enough. If you want, you can set the thresholds
moon...” in advance when you have set the goals for the project.

A. VALUE PROPOSITION D.VOTE

To ensure that everyone are on the same page, add the value hen ou have filled the profiling tool ou have a picture of
proposition here. the concept oes it fill the goals and e pectations o ou
all understand what the concept is? Is it doable? Should you
B. HOW DOES IT WORK? proceed with the concept? Discuss and vote. Or discuss and
Describe the concept shortly. List the key functionalities, let the leader/product owner make a well-informed decision.
solutions and required elements whatever they might be emember! t’s not a shame to iterate t is a sign of courage
to make sure the whole team is talking about the same to go back and admit that you are smarter now than you
concept. were before.

C. PROFILE THE CONCEPT

irst start filling the star e democratic and forget each
other’s rank and status. Start with silent work. Let everyone
mark his/her own estimates on the scale.
SERVICE VISION SPRINT 155
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

156

CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT
A product is much more than just interaction
between the user and the interface. Consider
yourself lucky if your customers like your
value proposition so much that they go
through the effort of getting your UI in front
of their faces.

A good service is a continuous cycle of getting new leads and something valuable worth trying. Is it a brochure, a landing
turning them into happy customers. A successful service is page with valuable information, a free trial, a discount cou-
one that succeeds in helping customers take the next step pon, or a personal visit from you?
in the cycle by becoming advocates for your service. To keep .
that c cle turning and not churning, ou need to define PURCHASE
activities, resources and partners. The customer should by now have a good idea of the value
you are proposing for them. How do you make them buy
AWARENESS your service? What are they thinking at this stage and what
Where are your customers? Where do they go to when are their alternatives? How can you help them make a
the problem worth solving rises? Do they call their niece purchase decision? Remember, sometimes there is no money
or nephew? Do they search for an answer from Google? moving at this stage (e.g., your service is free of charge, or
Do they pick up a manual? Maybe ask Facebook friends? free to download). This is really about the decision to acquire
– Whatever the answer, you should be there where your the service and the decision to start using it.
customers are, and when they are in the right mindset. That
is when they should become aware of your service. Write USE
down 2–3 most important places/ways and how you catch Yay! They did the purchase and you are on the right track.
their attention. owever, it doesn’t end here ow ou need to deliver the
promises you have made in the value prop. To put it simply,
ENGAGEMENT you need to get them to use your service! Write here what
Now they’ve heard about your service. Great. But you happens the ver first time the use it irst impressions are
need to get them to engage more with the service, to do important. »
something that makes them think that your service might be
SERVICE VISION SPRINT 157
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

158

CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT

USE MORE another These are our answers to the problems identified in
They say that a huge majority of mobile apps are used only the hat prevents trac
once. So how do you get them back to your service again
and again? Plan a way to make the service an integral part of KEY ACTIVITIES?
their work/life/thoughts/actions! At this stage you have a good idea of how your customer
journey (ideally) goes from one step to another. Look at the
ADVOCATE journey and now identify the most important activities you
How to change the customer to your sales person? If the need to do to keep that circle rolling. Actively monitoring
customer really loves your service, she is probably willing to search keywords in Google? Service desk at the brick-and-
share and recommend it to other people. Save your market- mortar o ce elivering the product to the customer’s
ing costs and find a strateg to reall ma e it viral! home? Getting credit-card payments for your service? It is
usually good to separate the activities to keep the service
WHAT PREVENTS? wor ing, and the activities to build the service in the first
You can look at the customer journey as a circle with two place.
trac s The first trac is listing the obstacles that currentl
ma e it di cult for our customer to move from one phase KEY RESOURCES?
to another. They can be thoughts, feelings, prejudice as What are the most important resources you need to have
well as physical obstacles, missing touchpoints or lack of (or already have) to keep the circle rolling? Your existing
functionality. customer base in your CRM system? Data on actual use? A
trusted brand? A working distribution channel? A working
WHAT ENABLES? billing/invoicing relationship with the customers?
This is the second track of the circle. List here how you will
make it easy for the customer to go from one step (phase) to KEY PARTNERS?
another These are our answers to the problems identified in ouldn’t it be nice if ou could do ever thing ell, often
the hat prevents trac ou can’t and more often ou shouldn’t a be there is an
existing business that does not compete with you but has
WHAT PREVENTS? a working delivery channel or a fantastic customer rela-
You can look at the customer journey as a tionship, or just the perfect brand. Or maybe they are your
circle with two trac s The first trac is listing the obstacles suppliers that provide you with the gadgets or raw materials.
that currentl ma e it di cult for our customer to move Whatever the case, list here the partners plus the key activi-
from one phase to another. They can be thoughts, feelings, ties and resources they bring to your customer journey circle.
prejudice as well as physical obstacles, missing touchpoints
or lack of functionality.

WHAT ENABLES?
This is the second track of the circle. List here how you will
make it easy for the customer to go from one step (phase) to
159
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

160

BUSINESS MODEL &

MARKET SIZE

This is the canvas for seeing if this makes

any sense from the perspective of costs and
revenue. Sometimes people like to jump into
these questions earlier than this.

This is the canvas for seeing if this makes any sense from vices and your revenue is indirect? And what is the model of
the perspective of costs and revenue. Sometimes people getting that revenue: monthly subscription, one-time fee,
like to jump into these questions earlier than this. Howev- pay-per-use…?
er, we believe that there lies a danger of calculating the
business without having a good enough understanding of HOW ARE CUSTOMERS PAYING TODAY?
your customers and the actual thing you should build for HOW MUCH?
them. Like all the questions in these canvases, some answers If you have found a problem worth solving, then people are
might require lot of work. Therefore, you have to use your already dealing with it somehow – if not, the problem you
judgment in balancing between “best guess” and “accurate have found is probably not big enough to be a true business
data”. Start with your best guesses and then dig deeper only case. Anyway, often they already pay something to someone
on the most critical ones. at some stage of their current solution. And remember: Time
Who pays whom? How much? is money!

Yes, as simple as that. How much do your customers pay and

to whom? Maybe they pay your partner and not you directly? WHERE AND HOW DO YOU ANCHOR THE
a be our service is free a be there are different prices PRICE PERCEPTION?
for premium and basic levels? When Apple introduced the iPad, did they say that it was like
a smartphone but bigger and more expensive? Or did they
WHAT IS THE REVENUE MODEL? say that it was like a laptop, but lighter and less expensive?
Where do you get your money? Directly from the paying You get the point, right? »
customers or from your partners in a revenue sharing model?
Or perhaps your service boosts the sales of your other ser-
SERVICE VISION SPRINT 161
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

162

BUSINESS MODEL &

MARKET SIZE

To do this, you should have a good idea of the existing solu- COST STRUCTURE?
tions that people have and the price perceptions they have Best things in life are free, but running a service is not one of
about related services et i mo potif mo them. What are most important costs? – Salaries, adver-
martphone apps ocial networ ing tools trategic tising, fuel for trucks, service and upkeep of your backend,
digitali ation consulting da royalties for IPR owners...? It is usually good to separate
development costs and the running costs to see how much
TOTAL ADDRESSABLE MARKET? it takes to make it happen and how much it takes to keep it
So how much are there people who fall into your segment? running. Again, start with your guesstimates and then dig
Three, 3 000 or 3 million? Total addressable market is abso- deeper when needed.
lutely everyone who could buy this. What is your market?
Local, national, global? KEY ELEMENTS OF EBIT?
EBIT is earnings before interests and taxes. In other words,
POTENTIAL TARGET MARKET? our profit, which is revenue minus costs imple, isn’t it
The fact of the matter is, not everyone will buy your service owever, there are sometimes e elements that in uence
or product The might get the competitor’s product, the the EBIT more than others. Is there some cost that changes
might not have the money at the moment, or whatever. This depending on, for example, the weather? Is there a revenue
is your educated guess of how many customers you actually stream that has better margins than others? Is there some
could get, if all goes well. Yes, it is tricky to estimate, but just element that ou should optimi e more than others
do it.

1ST YEAR SALES:

The first ear, how much will ou sell ow man customers
and how much revenue? What is realistic? Can you commit
to this?

PLAN FOR 1ST MONTH SALES:

here do ou go first ho are the most potential first cus-
tomers that you should sell this to? Does the time of the year
matter e g , hoc e fans have a different emotional mindset
off season and on season how man customers and how
much revenue?
163
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

164

VALIDATION
So we have a concept and in the old world
we would now start to apply for financing for
the implementation. But in the LSC model we
need to go and test if our assumptions are
correct, and does the concept rock or not.

Guess which approach saves more money? Keep in mind: HOW TO VALIDATE YOUR CUSTOMER
don’t aim to prove you have a great concept, aim to proof it GROUP’S WILLINGNESS TO PAY
sucks. Be honest to yourself and put your baby to the test. s the customer’s problem such that the she is willing to pa
for it ow much on’t guess, validate! nsert our plan
HOW TO VALIDATE YOUR VALUE here. Use fake selling, interviews etc.
PROPOSITION
Take your value proposition and test it. Don’t ask for mere RESULTS
opinions about it but instead measure the effects se the Insert your results from the three tests here. Be honest to
fake ads, user interviews, live landing pages, prototyping, pi- yourself!
loting or whatever it takes to validate your value proposition.
CONCLUSION
The best way to know if your solution is crap, is to get the What kind of conclusions do you draw from the results?
customers give you something of value. Will they pay real
money to get it? Really hand you over 10€, not just say that VOTING
they would? Or perhaps they agree to a pilot study? Or they As a team, vote on your opinion about the conclusions. Two
give you their contact information to take part in further dimensions: have the tests been extensive enough and was
interviews? However, often at an early stage it is enough to it a success or not as a test? Did it get validated or not? If you
see whether the customer understands your solution at all :) get con icting responses ou need to discuss them

HOW TO VALIDATE YOUR CUSTOMER SHOULD WE PROCEED?

GROUPING? As a team, vote if you should proceed or iterate or kill the
In order for the business to rock you need to have a wide project.
enough customer base. Place here your plan for estimating
the customer group for your value proposition. Interviews,
Polls, etc are good tools.
SERVICE VISION SPRINT 165
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

166

DEFINING
AND BUILDING
THE MVP
fter the ervice ision print it’s time to start building the
service irst ou need to define what’s the ver first launcha-
ble version of the service and what kind of metrics should you
be following.

When you know what to build just do it. But do it using all
the team tools described in the first section of the handboo
Use the weekly :) to follow your team moods and to create
empathy. Use retrospectives to evolve as a team. Slice up the
work using agile methods (Scrum, Kanban,...). And then have
the weekly meetings where you make sure that you are still
validating and not doing agile in a sandbox.
167
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

168

MINIMUM VIABLE LOVABLE

PRODUCT

What is the minimum you have to build for

an MVP to be valuable to your customers,
your own strategy and the business
objectives?

We’ve had countless of hours of debates about what exactly re uirements ou wrote down in the usiness ob ective
an MVP is and what it should be. Is anything built for an Context phase. What was the business objective, strategic
experiment an MVP or does an MVP have to be something goal, validated learning or whatever reason made this pro-
“bigger”? In a nutshell, we wanted to re-name the concept ject important? What do you have to achieve with the MLP
to spare you the interesting, but sometimes less fruitful for it to be meaningful for your company needs?
discussions that the term inspires ;)
There might be other aspects you have to take into account
Really, we want to emphasize that the MLP should focus in the MLP: regulation, your company brand, data protec-
on building the minimum that your customers will fall in tion, etc. If you decide to take a risk and cut corners, you
love with. That being said, it’s pointless to build a MLP that should do it intentionally, not out of ignorance.
doesn’t bring enough value for your own strategic/business
goals. MINIMUM IMPLEMENTATION?
ou have now defined the minimum value to our customer
USER NEEDS? and your business the MLP has to deliver. Taking both into
The MLP doesn’t help you validate your value proposition or account, what is the absolutely minimum you must do to
product mar et fit if it doesn’t provide real value to the end make it happen?
user. So it has to be lovable. Make a prioritized list of the as-
pects and values you must, at the very least, deliver to your Minimum really means minimum: if a feature or investment
customer. Don’t make a long list of features. There is only can be left for later, leave it.
one way to really prioritize: it has to be a numbered list.

BUSINESS GOALS AND REQUIREMENTS?

There was a reason why your company started doing this
pro ect in the first place, ecall the business goals and
DEFINING AND BUILDING THE MVP 169
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

170

MVP BACKLOG

We’ve had countless of hours of debates

about what exactly an MVP is and what it
should be. Is anything built for an experiment
an MVP or does an MVP have to be something
“bigger”?

In a nutshell, we wanted to re-name the concept to spare model of your service (we have no idea what people would
you the interesting, but sometimes less fruitful discussions actually pay for this). Or perhaps the business question is
that the term inspires ;) about your competitors.

This canvas is the tool to move from planning to executing. END USER VERIFICATION?
You have your assumptions in the Experimenting canvas and Do you have the segment right? Are these really the people
you have the features for the MLP (i.e., MVP). So let’s list that ou will target first ave ou validated our value
them into an actionable backlog (i.e., a fancy todo list). This proposition enough re ou tal ing the customer’s lan-
canvas is the antidote for endless planning and analysis: you guage?
simply list the things to be done to get the MVP out there.
ote! This is not a technical bac log for building stuff ere THE BACKLOG
you list all required actions, and they might include asking The most important thing about a backlog is not how it is
for more budget, contacting potential partners etc. structured. The important thing is that it is actually followed
and things get done ere is our first bac log to get ou
TECHNICAL ISSUE? started. List here the tasks (or user stories) to be implement-
Look at the Experimenting board, and transfer from that ed in your MVP. Then in the To Do part list the name of the
board the most burning technical issue (assumption) at the person who is going to do the task. When the person starts
moment. What technical assumption is both most important doing it, move it to the In Progress column, and when it is
and most probably be the trickiest to implement or is the done, move it to the last one. This helps the team to see who
biggest question mark? is doing what, and it helps the individual to see what needs
to be done. It is good practice to have a limit on how many
BUSINESS QUESTION? tas s one person can have in progress at the same time
Again, look at the Experimenting board, and transfer from Otherwise you lose focus and nothing gets done. In the long
that board the most burning business question (assumption) run, your backlog probably grows and you need to build a
at the moment. It might be about your company’s business new one that is bigger and takes up a whole wall. However,
(we do not have funding), or it might be about the business start with this and you have a running start.
DEFINING AND BUILDING THE MVP 171
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

172

WHAT TO MEASURE?

You can use this canvas in the very

beginning or here at the end. The point
is to make you define the metrics of your
work, and give you clarity and focus.

VALUE PROPOSITION METRICS and how will you know that you have succeeded? Should
e write here the problem worth solving ou have identified ou measure revenue, profit or costs s our business goal to
for your customers. Your value proposition should address acquire new customers? Or perhaps your business goal is to
this problem. In other words, what should you measure to raise the profit margin of the core service of our compan
help you make sure your value proposition is understood
and speaks to your customers? Or even better, that they
accept or buy your value proposition? Sometimes it might be
measuring the recommendations (e.g., net promoter score),
a survey every week, or regularly interviewing a handful of
customers.

SERVICE METRICS
Start by writing here most important part of your service.
Have a look at the Customer Engagement canvas. Have a
look at the Most Lovable Product canvas. What is the most
important element at this stage, and how do you measure
it? Awareness and clicks on your web ads? The amount of
downloads? Purchase decisions? The recommendation tool
you built?

BUSINESS METRICS
o bac to the ver first canvas, the usiness oals and imi-
tations canvas. What is the business problem you are solving
DEFINING AND BUILDING THE MVP 173
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

174

GROWTH HACKING

When you go live with your service, you finally

get actual, hard data. Real users, real actions
and real business. Now the main thing is to
continue iterating the service to make it rock,
and then grow it huge!

hen ou go live with our service, ou finall get actual, goal for the phase, mark that as well.
hard data eal users, real actions and real business ow
the main thing is to continue iterating the service to ma e it B. THE WHY
roc , and then grow it huge! h isn’t the conversion ow better h are we losing us-
ers? The analytics might only reveal that there is a problem,
The same wor ow applies to this phase as well uild, but not the reason behind it f ou don’t now the reason
easure, earn onstantl conduct e periments and you need to do some research. User tests and user interviews
validate our assumptions a e changes to the service and are typically a good way to start.
measure the effects nd if the changes ou did don’t have
the desired effects, a good idea t picall is to roll bac to the C. MOST CRITICAL BLOCKER RIGHT NOW
previous version The same rule applies not onl to digital here to focus ne t t pical setup is that as ou don’t get
services but also to ever thing from ph sical products to enough users through the funnel you (or the management)
process enhancements want to increase marketing. But if you have a problem say
in registration process, e tra mar eting won’t ust be about
ove our data, now it, breath it and above all be interested spending money but creating huge amount of disappointed
in the wh behind it The fre uenc with which ou should customers.
use this canvas depends on our release c cle
o carefull select the most critical issue to focus on first,
A: VISUALIZE YOUR ANALYTICS figure out a solution, ma e an e periment out of it and
tart b mapping our anal tics ood idea is to draw it so measure the effect
that ou can ma e the progress visible This helps to create
trust towards the rest of the organi ation raw the per-
centage of people moving from one phase to another rite
down also the actual amount of users usage f ou have a
GROWING IT HUGE 175
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

176

Credits
The canvases have been put together, iterated, modified,
and/or actively used by Hanno Nevanlinna, Juha Pesonen,
Risto Sarvas, Eeva Raita, Nelli Myllylä, Mirkka Länsisalo,
Mari Piirainen, Yrjö-Kari Koskinen, Anna Kolehmainen, Suvi
Numminen, Tuomo Laine, Oleg Grenrus, Oskar Ehnström,
Heli Ihamäki, Antti Partanen, Sebi Tauciuc, Salla Heinänen,
Janetta Ekholm, Kalle Tuomi, Jussi Hacklin, Anastasiia Kozina,
Virpi Vaittinen, Jaana Olsson, Magno de Santana Silva, Ville
Tervo, Minna Mustakallio, Altti Rautalahti, Ilkka Auer, Anniina
Lehtinen, Pikka-Maaria Laine, Liisa Korpela, Luiz Soyer, Barry
O’Reilly, OP Saksa, and tens of other experts who have con-
tributed in making LSC better. You know who you are <3

Lots of love and kudos to people from Helen, The Guardi-

an, Posti, Telia, Helsinki City Museum, Veikkaus, Wärtsilä,
Gumtree, OP, Finnish Museum of Photography, City of
Tampere, Tesco, Vapo, Cramo, Finpro, BMW, Tekes, and nu-
merous other organisations with whom we have used Lean
Service Creation.

Thanks to all the fantastic Aalto University students from

the Digital Service Design course! Also, enormous gratitude
to the people at University of Oulu, EIT Digital, University
of Lapland, Laurea University of Applied Sciences, Häme
University of Applied Sciences, Tampere University of Applied
Sciences, University of Tampere, Metropolia University of
Applied Sciences, Tampere University of Technology, Haaga-
Helia University of Applied Sciences, and all our fabulous
clients, collaborators, and everyone else who has used these
tools and given us valuable feedback.

We want to make this the best and most usable toolset out
there, and share it to everyone for free.
 177

Appendix 1

LSC Interviewing Cheat Sheet. hat did ou thin when ow did ou then
• Use a lot the words why, how, and what.
• Let them speak! Roughly 20% of you talking and 80%
W R the interviewed.
A good interview is a discussion, not an interrogation. Build
trust by having a relaxed and friendly atmosphere.
LOOK OUT, IT’S A TRAP!
• Introduce yourself and other interviewers, and their eople are friendl and ou’re a nice person Therefore, the
role in the interview. want to please you with their answers, and tell you what
• Tell the reason and theme of the interview on a broad the thin ou want to hear umans, can’t live with them,
level. can’t live without them evertheless, here are a few tric s
• Tell what will happen to the answers: who will see on’t show our cards on’t tell them what ou assume
them, how will you use them etc. or what you think is a good solution for their problems (the
• Remind that all answers and comments are important, solution interview is for that
especially criticism. • Avoid questions that reveal what wouldbe the answer
• Remind that you are there to learn from the inter- you are looking for.
viewed person, that s/he is the expert here. Remind • on’t generali e, be specific
also that there are no right or wrong answers. • Leave a few seconds of silence between their answer
• Start with questions that are easy to answer so that you and your next question. They might continue with
get the conversation owing interesting stuff to fill the silence
• For example, age, job title, job, where do they live, in • ct stupid s them wh
what kind of a house
FINALLY
R OF Remember to thank them for their time and valuable com-
The goal of the interview is to see the world from his/her ments.
perspective, and to understand what problems, needs, de- • Use the opportunity: ask them a permission to inter-
sires, wants etc. there might be. Be prepared to dig deeper view again and if they know anyone that you could
than the first obvious answer Tr to figure out their motives interview.
and rationale for thinking, doing or feeling in a certain way. • Immediately after the interview: write down three
What are their underlying goals & motives? things that you found interesting or popped into your
• Ask for concrete examples: “Tell me about the last time mind during the interview!
you...”
• Avoid questions that can be answered simply yes or
no. Ask open-ended questions, such as “Why do you...
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

178

About the authors

HANNO NEVANLINNA
anno is one of uturice’s founders and has been an integral
part of steering the agency from a startup to an internation-
al company that creates award-winning services and has
o ces in ma or cities in four different uropean countries
t uturice he has founded the compan ’s design team and
worked as head of HR as well as Director of Culture.

JUHA PESONEN
A humanist by heart and inclination, Juha has worked
on hundreds of innovative and demanding B2C and B2B
projects, putting his concept and UX design know-how to
use in helping major European companies thrive in a rapidly
changing business environment and weather the disruptive
storms of mobile technology and digitalisation.

RISTO SARVAS
Risto lives a double life. Most of his waking hours he helps
large corporations engineer their work culture in this
blissful age of digitalisation. He is an adjunct professor at
Aalto University where he constantly learns from his clever
students. Risto has lead a research group and a design team,
he has won teaching and design awards, and he has created
international art exhibitions as well as radical business
innovations.
179
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

180
181
L E A N SERVICE CR E AT ION

182
183