learn through the services you want to improve.
A practical service design programme for civil servants and public-sector professionals developing their skills in Austria.
Building on my experience delivering the Service Designer apprenticeship in the UK, I’m looking to bring this approach to Austria: structured learning, real organisational projects and coaching throughout.
The aim is to help people understand a service challenge, work with those affected and develop improvements they can explain, test and take forward.
Building on experience in the UK.
The people I train and coach connect service design theory with real challenges in their organisations. They conduct research, make sense of evidence, develop ideas and test their thinking, with teaching and feedback supporting their progress.
My role combines curriculum development, teaching, project feedback and skills coaching. I help learners understand the methods, choose when to use them and explain the decisions they make.
That experience is the foundation for the programme I’d like to develop in Austria.
Through my work, i teach and coach professionals undertaking the level 6 service designer apprenticeship, including civil servants and people working in local government.
bringing the approach to austria.
The starting point is an approach I know through practice: learning the methods, applying them to live work and receiving support as the project develops.
The curriculum would be adapted with partners to reflect Austrian administrative structures, organisational responsibilities and the experiences of people using public services. Language, delivery format, duration and project scope would form part of that conversation.
This is a proposal for professional development informed by UK apprenticeship delivery. It would have its own locally agreed structure and outcomes.
I’d like to work with Austrian public-sector partners to develop a programme for civil servants who are new to service design or beginning to use it in their roles.
service design for public service
Understand the service
Explore service design principles, research ethics and inclusive research. Understand the experiences of people using and delivering a service, alongside its organisational and policy context.
Define the challenge
Bring research findings together, map the current experience and identify barriers. Develop a clear problem statement supported by evidence.
Develop and test ideas
Work with others to explore possible improvements. Create prototypes, test assumptions and use feedback to refine the approach.
Prepare for delivery
Connect the proposed improvement to the people, processes and systems needed to support it. Develop practical next steps and consider how outcomes could be evaluated. Accessibility, cultural context, stakeholder involvement and reflection would run across the curriculum.
What you could take back to work
The proposed programme would help you develop:
A clearer understanding of your service challenge, grounded in research.
Confidence choosing and applying service design methods.
A record of your evidence, decisions and learning.
A practical plan for taking your work forward.
You’d work on a challenge that matters to your organisation, with teaching and coaching to support you along the way.
Any wider implementation would depend on the project’s findings, organisational decisions and available resources.
What Service Design Means for Public Service
Making school admissions easier to navigate
At North East Lincolnshire Council, teams used research with parents and community organisations to understand barriers to school admissions.
Their work informed clearer communications and improvements to the parent portal through testing with local families.
Reducing repetition in housing support
Teams explored a housing assessment process where residents were repeatedly asked to share the same information.
Their project examined how the service and its supporting processes could work together more effectively, with accessibility and people’s circumstances central to the work.
Developing confidence in maritime services
At the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, teams applied her learning to projects including research into seafarers’ training records and the Merchant Navy medals application process.
These examples show how professional learning can develop alongside the services people are already responsible for improving.
Let's Shape This Together
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Let's Shape This Together ✶
Are you introducing service design in your organisation, developing an emerging team or looking for a practical way to build public-service capability?
I’m interested in speaking with civil servants, public-sector learning teams and potential delivery partners in Austria.
We can start with the challenges you’re facing, the people you want to support and what a useful first cohort could look like.