Ben Holliday

This is my blog where I’ve been writing for 18 years. You will find posts about digital transformation, design and leadership. You can also find me on Bluesky, less frequently now on X (formally Twitter), and on LinkedIn. In 2022 I published a book for TPXimpact, Multiplied.

Latest posts and feed

Bookshelf – 2020 into 2021

Ready for everything, or ready for anything?

Sinking sand

Mezzanine levels for service design

As-is for service design

Could-be-anywhere-ness

The design mindset and how organisations manage uncertainty

The prototyping mindset

Simplify your slide decks

Dead wood is distracting

The push and pull of giving design feedback

Fingerprints

Creativity is putting all the balls in the paddling pool

An introduction to service modelling

New and changing patterns for digital working

Map making

The link between hypotheses and telling stories

Never read something cover to cover, except for pleasure

Living in the future: reflections from Services Week 2020

2019 and the end of a decade

Most read and shared posts

Everything is hypothesis-driven design

Everything can be seen as hypothesis-driven design. How to write down and test assumptions.

Asking the right questions to frame the problem

This is something that many teams struggle with. These 5 questions will get you started.

Service design starts with user needs

An approach to understanding user needs. From Leading Service Design at UX London 2017.

Seniority in design. Are you a senior designer?

The first in a series of posts about seniority in design. What makes a senior designer?

Comparing service design and business design

How service design can bring a new set of approaches and focus to organisations.

How to use service patterns in your organisation

How to work with service patterns to deliver consistency and quality of design at scale.

New models for service ownership and leadership

New questions about how we design, develop, maintain and improve whole services.

New and changing patterns for digital working

Thinking about how we can move from remote to more digital and asynchronous ways of working.

An introduction to service modelling

Exploring a way for organisations to create, test, and scale the design of whole services.