Service Blueprinting Workshop
The focus of the board is to help your team build service blueprints together at varied depths of detail.
What is a blueprint?
A blueprint is an operational tool that visualizes the components of a service in enough detail to analyze, implement, and improve it. Blueprints show the orchestration of people, touchpoints, processes, and technology both frontstage (what customers see) and backstage (what is behind the scenes).
We have built this template to help remote and dispersed teams build a picture of their current state or to be services. At Xero we have used this series of templates for over 180 hours of workshops in many countries with over 100 people participating - so we think it works well!
Included in this board are ice breaker activities, a context canvas, an empathy map, action plans (a concept we created to capture the service transitions needed to change from current state, to to-be state) and a workshop feedback matrix. We’ve included two bespoke service blueprint templates, one simplified and one more detailed so pick the template that best works for you!
Key reasons to use a blueprint
Visual and transparent - Visualising services through blueprints helps us to understand all the moving parts —their interconnections, dependencies and relationships to products. Visually communicating this knowledge to collaborators and stakeholders takes what was an abstract concept and make it tangible and easier for you to tell that story
Aligning end to end working cross-functionally - blueprints provide a common understanding of how your services are functioning. This is particularly valuable when teams, working groups (locally and globally) come together to deliver on a service vision. Blueprints help ensure that, once built the pieces of experience correctly fit together as intended.
Identifying opportunities - by having visibility of the people, processes and technology, it's very easy to identify what’s working well and what’s not. Blueprints can easily enable us to map how internal processes and procedures are causing pain to the customer and internally. By having this view, blueprints create a single roadmap across go-to-market streams to operate in experiences, not silos or departments.
Prototyping - Service blueprinting is a great process for quickly prototyping service delivery in low fidelity. Service blueprints can be used as canvases to capture insights and explore business feasibility and operational viability for different solutions. Blueprints can also be used as scripts to facilitate and visualise the customer flow and architecture of the service experience.
Level of zoom: helicopter to microscope
The blueprints are designed to be read at different levels of zoom– from a macro level, ‘helicopter’ view to a microscopic, detailed, view.
The helicopter view is enough information to outline the audience group, episode and steps they need to take to complete actions.The most-detailed, microscopic, view is at a touchpoint level. At this stage you can see specifically how a customer interacts with your product or service, the teams or people involved with that interaction and where it sits among the wider objective that the customer is trying to achieve.
The blueprints are living documents in Miro, they are digital in order to remain accurate. It's your responsibility to keep them this way so that they remain useful to us now and into the future.
This template was created by Xero.
Get started with this template right now.
Crazy Eights Template
Works best for:
Design Thinking, Brainstorming, Ideation
Sometimes you just need to get the team’s creative juices flowing for a brainstorm—and get them thinking of as many ideas as they can, as fast as they can. Crazy Eights will do it in a hurry. Favoring quantity over quality, this sketch brainstorming exercise challenges them to come up with eight ideas in eight minutes, which leaves no time to second guess ideas. It’s perfect for early stages of development, and it’s a team favorite for being fast paced and fun.
Website Flowchart Template
Works best for:
Flowcharts, Mapping, User Experience
A website flowchart, also known as a sitemap, maps out the structure and complexity of any current or future website. The flowchart can also help your team identify knowledge gaps for future content. When you’re building a website, you want to ensure that each piece of content gives users accurate research results based on keywords associated with your web content. Product, UX, and content teams can use flowcharts or sitemaps to understand everything contained in a website, and plan to add or restructure content to improve a website’s user experience.
iPhone App Template
Works best for:
UX Design, Desk Research, Wireframes
Incredible percentages of smartphone users worldwide have chosen iPhones (including some of your existing and potential customers), and those users simply love their apps. But designing and creating an iPhone app from scratch can be one seriously daunting, effort-intensive task. Not here — this template makes it easy. You’ll be able to customize designs, create interactive protocols, share with your collaborators, iterate as a team, and ultimately develop an iPhone app your customers will love.
Communication Roadmap
Works best for:
Roadmap, Mapping, Planning
The Communication Roadmap template enables teams to plan and execute effective communication strategies. By outlining key messages, channels, and stakeholders, teams can ensure consistent and targeted communication throughout a project lifecycle. This template fosters alignment and transparency, enabling teams to engage stakeholders effectively and mitigate risks associated with miscommunication.
Icebreaker Template
Works best for:
Icebreakers
There’s no better way to kickoff a meeting or workshop than by building comfort and familiarity between your guests — to put them at ease and get them ready to participate and collaborate. That’s just the kind of human connection that icebreakers create, which make them great for remote gatherings or introducing new team members. There are many icebreakers to choose from, including: Describe yourself in one word. Share a photo of yourself as a baby. And if you were an animal, what would you be?
Purple Sector Empathy Map
Works best for:
Market Research, Research & Design
Purple Sector Empathy Map is an innovative tool for exploring user experiences. By visualizing users' thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, you can create more engaging and user-friendly products. Ideal for teams focused on user experience.