Bruce Prendergast began to take a user perspective whilst working in the police service. Moving to transformation roles at DEFRA and then HMRC, Bruce is now part of a growing community network of Service Designers in government, sharing good practice. 

If you did not start out as a Service Designer, where did you start out?

I started out as a Police Officer. For ten years I was involved in operational work. Then, through a quirk of fate, I ended up in a meeting with some senior colleagues who were wrestling with some performance issues and found that I had a view on how these might be resolved. This led to my moving into the business analysis field, to create an effective approach ultimately adopted by the police service. 

How did you first discover Service Design?

I started doing service design without realising whilst still working for the police service, particularly in relation to being part of changing the model of the police service from responsive to proactive and working with partners and communities to try to solve community problems.

We took a user perspective, working with other agencies. Together, we looked at the front and backstage actions and the support network needed. This was transformative. I had not yet heard the term service design, but that is what we were doing. 

Where and how did you begin working as a Service Designer or focusing on Service Design?

Soon after I joined DEFRA I started working within the Digital team on Common Agriculture Policy post the EU exit. I was trying to modernise government digital services, looking at the whole process from start to finish.

I was lucky enough to work with a brilliant service designer in that space, where I saw them applying service design tools in a methodical way, with a clear focus on the users and on building what was needed to deliver for them, in as efficient a way as possible.

I realised that service design was something I’d already been doing in some respects, but this was taking it to a more advanced level where you could achieve even more. There is a synergy between business analysis and service design in terms of looking at new ways of working. I am now a service design advocate, I would like to see it taken beyond the digital space and applied much more widely in government. 

How have you developed your Service Design skills and knowledge?

Once I realised that service design was my focus, I wanted to make sure that I really understood it. So, I completed the training to become a certified Service Designer through AssistKD, with Jonathan Hunsley as my mentor. I further developed my skills and knowledge by applying them in my work, using the service design toolkit with my team.

I now lead a team of Service Designers and champion service design. I’m part of a growing community network of Service Designers in government, and other HMRC digital teams, sharing good practice as we are all on a similar journey. The recent IRM Service Design (Europe) conference (part of the Business, Change and Transformation Conference) was useful for connecting with other service design professionals and seeing how the toolkit is applied in different contexts. 

Which Service Design skills are proving to be the most valuable to you?

The main tool for us at this early stage in our service design journey is understanding the Cultural Pyramid. This shows us the context we are working within, helping us identify levers to embed ourselves within the organisation. We want to make sure our value offering is realised through people becoming aware of and fully utilising our service. It is still early days. 

How is your Service Design career progressing? Any major milestones?

I would say that the Service Design conference was a milestone, as was building a team capable of delivering service design, with that skillset. We are now working towards gaining buy-in from our organisation, and already people are seeing the difference it can make to the efficiency of the business.

It is great to have a network of service design professionals in place within our organisation and beyond, with fellow service designers to reach out to, sharing ideas and good practice. 

Where are you now in your career, and how do you feel about it?

Service design gives you such a well-rounded understanding of the business and of your customers, how the business works, and how to offer value to customers. I feel that as a Service Designer I can see the context from customer perspectives through to systems supporting the customers, as well as taking a strategic view. This is a great position to be in. 

What are you planning to do next?

I am enjoying the strategic element of my role at HMRC but I also enjoy driving and enacting the change, and shaping it. The next step is building capability. I would like to see how far we can take the transformation and how much more we can achieve as recognition of service design grows. 

Where do you see yourself in 10 years’ time?

Let’s see what happens! There’s lots of potential and plenty of growth and challenge ahead. I believe that always looking for new ways of working and innovation can bring opportunities that you can’t even imagine. 

What advice would you give to people interested in a career in Service Design?

If you like research, shaping new things and interacting with people you should absolutely look at service design as a career path. There’s a big future in service design, it is an area of growth. AI will increase the need for human interaction and creativity, so service design will be important because it is about research and empathy and understanding customer needs. There’s a choice of routes in, you could start as a Junior Service Designer, or you could be a business analyst and then move into service design from that strong foundation. We often try to encourage BAs to go into service design.