Public sector organisations in Scotland recognise the need to develop and improve their service offerings in this difficult and changing economic climate. A few organisations are engaging with service design thinking to innovate how they identify, design and implement new service offerings to their customers. Organisations working with service design consultants have been part of the answer, but when the projects are handed over to the client, they are not always implemented with the anticipated level of success.

The Product Design department at Glasgow School of Art has worked with Skills Development Scotland on a number of service design projects over the past four years. Over that time projects have been proposed, developed and implemented and we are seeing a trend that defines key elements that need to be in place for service design projects to be successful. For projects to be implemented successfully, there needs to be a sufficient number of staff that can understand and interpret service design thinking and methods. Can we recognise an organisation's capacity for implementing service design? What are the internal factors that influence behavioural change?

Through their engagement with SDS the authors have identified a number of areas that affect how design thinking and practice was adopted and how it influenced cultural change within the organisation.

This conference presentation focuses on Skills Development Scotland’s journey to embed service design inside their organisation to produce new services around career guidance and skill development within Scotland. Skills Development Scotland is a non-departmental public body which implements policy set by the Scottish Government. The journey began in 2008 when the nascent organisation used a design approach to establish its delivery model. This presentation outlines the journey SDS has taken and discusses the challenges encountered to date. The presentation is based on research carried out by Stuart Bailey on the outcomes of student-client projects since 2008 and work with staff within SDS and on research work carried out by Sarah Drummond during her Masters in Design Innovation. During this period we were able to work alongside the organisation and will use the perspective gained to reflect on the importance of design to Skills Development Scotland and the ways in which it can be embedded inside the organisation.