PRODUCTHEAD: Bad service! *Sit*

product cars #

every PRODUCTHEAD edition is online for you to refer back to

---

tl;dr

Bad services can arise from not realising the service and the user need have drifted apart

GenAI shifts the focus from shipping products to stewarding living systems that are continually learning and adapting

---

hello

This week I’m returning to service design. Where product management concentrates on the detail of the the specific user need a product seeks to satisfy, and how the product works in harmony in its context, service design considers the bigger picture: how a collection of products, services, physical and digital interactions all work in concert to allow people to achieve something.

I write this not to make product management seem simplistic in comparison, rather to emphasise that a product may be complex and nuanced in its own right and that it is always part of a broader system, most of which is often outside of our direct control.

The talk and article I’m sharing with you this week both reflect on the state of service design. Speaking at the design conference From Business To Buttons (FTBT), Lou Downe looks at the responsibility of service designers to create the conditions in their organisation that allow good services to happen. Towards the end, they reference the CIA Simple Sabotage Field Manual (1944, p. 28), which describes some gems for disrupting efficient work, such as:

“When possible, refer all matters to committees, for “further study and consideration.” Attempt to make the committees as large as possible — never less than five.”

It’s a dispiriting fun game to see how many of the suggestions occur naturally in your own organisation.

Complementing this, Joe Heapy explores how AI is fundamentally changing the nature of service design. He suggests that as intelligence becomes embedded in our systems, we must move from managing products to stewarding services. Because these AI-driven systems are not wholly predictable can change underneath us unexpectedly, the designer’s role must shift towards governance and human judgement. Without this systemic oversight, Joe warns that AI agents will simply “misunderstand faster, at scale”.

Speak to you soon,

Jock

---

---

what to think about this week

Bad services: Why services fail and what we can do to make them work

It can be hard to work out why great ideas don’t get implemented, harder still to do something about it. Despite their best efforts, most organisations are still struggling to deliver good services. This talk from Lou Downe demystifies the reasons why services fail and discusses practical next steps on the future role of service design in solving this problem.

[VIDEO] 90% of service design is creating the conditions for services to happen

[Lou Downe / FBTB 2024]

When services think for themselves

Organisations that struggle to extract insight from customer data due to brittle architecture and unclear responsibilities will fall further behind. Their AI agents will not magically compensate; they will simply misunderstand faster, at scale.

Preventing the present from quietly becoming something nobody intended

[Joe Heapy / Medium]

---

---

recent posts

Startup to Scale-up Club Q&A – 13th Jan 2026

I joined Anton Kooll again, along with co-panellists Maarten Ectors, Mario Tomic and Eugenio Galioto for Startup to Scale-up Club. We covered topics including:

• recommendations for automated infrastructure monitoring;
• safe presentation of medical data in Femtech apps;
• trade-offs of cloud versus local AI deployment for agricultural technology;
• the risk of patronising, gender-based marketing in Fintech; and
• the value of building a trustworthy community over superficial personalisation.

“Do’s” and “don’ts” for startup founders

[I Manage Products]

Are developers vibe coding themselves out of a job?

And is the increasing reliance by junior developers on AI coding assistants storing up a generational skills shortage for the future – ‘professional debt’, if you will?

So simple, anyone could do it. Wait – don’t fire me

[I Manage Products]

Cloud computing for non-technical product managers

To understand how cloud computing works, we’re going to start with the basic building blocks and work our way up.

And why is it a cloud anyway? (All is revealed)

[I Manage Products]

PRODUCTHEAD is a newsletter for product people of all varieties, and is lovingly crafted from an absent alternator.