Design Thinking for Digital Service Transformation Training Course

Course overview

Digital service transformation often stalls because teams begin with platforms, process maps or migration plans before establishing what users are trying to accomplish and where the service fails. IT, data and service teams need a disciplined way to move from ambiguous complaints—such as slow onboarding, repeated calls, abandoned applications or poor self-service uptake—to evidence-based service improvements. This course equips participants to frame digital transformation as a service design challenge, balancing user needs, operational constraints, data, technology and measurable business outcomes.

Participants apply design thinking to a realistic digital service case from discovery through prototype and implementation planning. They learn to define service challenges, map stakeholders, conduct and synthesise user research, develop personas and journey maps, identify moments that matter, generate solution ideas, prioritise concepts and test low-fidelity prototypes. The course also connects design decisions to digital delivery: service blueprints, accessibility requirements, product backlogs, success measures and experiment plans. Participants gain methods they can use with business stakeholders, delivery teams, service operations and technology suppliers.

Teaching combines concise instructor-led demonstrations with facilitated workshops, peer critique and practical use of Miro, Figma and Jira. Each participant works in a team to redesign a defined digital service, producing a service transformation pack containing a challenge statement, research insights, journey map, service blueprint, prioritised concept, prototype, test plan and implementation roadmap. The final day focuses on presenting a defensible recommendation that can be taken into discovery, product planning or a transformation governance meeting.

The course is suited to professionals who contribute to customer-facing, employee-facing or citizen-facing digital services and need a repeatable method for turning service evidence into delivery decisions.

Course objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Frame a digital service challenge using problem statements, assumptions and measurable outcome hypotheses
• Create stakeholder maps that identify service users, operational teams, decision-makers and technology dependencies
• Plan and synthesise user research using interview guides, observation notes and affinity mapping
• Develop evidence-based personas and current-state journey maps for priority service scenarios
• Construct a service blueprint linking user actions, frontstage interactions, backstage processes, data and systems
• Generate and prioritise service concepts using How Might We questions, idea selection criteria and impact-effort scoring
• Build and test a low-fidelity digital service prototype using task scenarios and structured usability feedback
• Produce a service transformation roadmap with backlog themes, success metrics, risks and experiment actions

Benefits of attending

Target competencies

Who should attend

• Digital Transformation Managers — who must turn strategic transformation goals into user-centred service initiatives
• Product Managers — who need validated service problems and prioritised opportunities for product roadmaps
• Service Designers — who need to connect customer journeys with operational processes, data and technology
• Business Analysts — who translate stakeholder requirements into service improvements and delivery backlogs
• Customer Experience Managers — who need evidence-based methods to improve end-to-end digital interactions
• IT Delivery Leads — who must align platform, integration and agile delivery decisions with service outcomes

Requirements and prerequisites

This is a foundation-to-intermediate course. Participants should be comfortable discussing a business process or digital service and should have basic awareness of how websites, apps, workflow systems or customer portals are delivered. Familiarity with agile terms such as backlog, user story and sprint is helpful, but not essential. Participants should bring a laptop capable of accessing a modern web browser and, where possible, a current service challenge from their organisation. No previous design qualification, coding ability, UX research experience, Figma expertise or specialist analytics tooling is required. Complete beginners should expect structured guidance through each method before applying it.

Training methodology

The course uses a single digital service case to connect each method into a coherent design process. Instructor-led sessions demonstrate techniques such as interview planning, affinity mapping, journey mapping, blueprinting and prototype testing; participants then apply them in small teams using Miro and Figma templates. Short case discussions examine service failures across channels, operations and technology. Facilitated critique sessions require teams to justify choices with evidence and constraints. The final workshop converts the tested concept into a practical transformation roadmap, including backlog themes, owners, metrics and next-step experiments.

Course outline

Day 1: Framing the digital service challenge

• Digital service transformation versus technology replacement
• Design thinking stages for service improvement
• Service ecosystems and value exchange
• Problem statements and outcome hypotheses
• Stakeholder mapping and influence analysis
• Assumption mapping and risk prioritisation
• Defining research questions and service scenarios

Workshop: Teams select a digital service case and produce a challenge statement, stakeholder map, assumption map and initial research plan.

Day 2: Researching users and current service performance

• Qualitative interview planning and consent principles
• Contextual inquiry and task observation
• Service data signals and behavioural evidence
• Interview guide design and probing techniques
• Affinity mapping and insight clustering
• Persona development from research evidence
• Needs statements and jobs-to-be-done framing

Workshop: Teams conduct simulated stakeholder interviews, synthesise findings in an affinity map and create an evidence-based persona.

Day 3: Mapping journeys and service operations

• Current-state customer journey mapping
• Moments that matter and service pain points
• Emotions, effort and channel-switching analysis
• Service blueprint layers and lines of visibility
• Frontstage and backstage process mapping
• Data, integration and platform dependency mapping
• Accessibility considerations using WCAG 2.2

Workshop: Teams create a current-state journey map and service blueprint that identify priority breakdowns, dependencies and accessibility risks.

Day 4: Designing and testing service concepts

• How Might We questions and opportunity statements
• Divergent ideation and structured brainstorming
• Concept selection using desirability, feasibility and viability
• Impact-effort prioritisation and decision criteria
• Task flows and digital interaction patterns
• Low-fidelity prototyping in Figma
• Usability test scripts and observation notes

Workshop: Teams prioritise a service concept, build a clickable low-fidelity prototype and run a structured peer usability test.

Day 5: From validated concept to transformation action

• Interpreting usability findings and iteration decisions
• Service outcome measures and leading indicators
• Experiment design and hypothesis tracking
• Opportunity solution trees and backlog themes
• Writing service-focused user stories and acceptance criteria
• Transformation roadmap sequencing and dependency management
• Executive storytelling with service evidence

Workshop: Teams refine their concept and present a service transformation pack containing the prototype, test findings, metrics, backlog themes and phased roadmap.

Tools & standards covered

Miro, Figma, Jira, WCAG 2.2

A typical training day

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in the East Africa Time zone, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

How you can take this course

Certification

Participants who complete the full five days receive the Skillset Development Certificate of Completion, stating the course title, course code, dates and delivery format — suitable for professional-development records and employer reimbursement.

Frequently asked questions