Service Designer

Main Purpose and Function

The Service Designer partners with and is embed in divisions across the City as part of a product and service-driven approach, employing Human Centred Design with a focus on User Experience and Agile development techniques to support the people, processes and technology needed to modernize municipal services.

This role leads, facilitates and mentors teams in service design activities, helping cross-functional teams understand the current state from a user-centered perspective and identifying opportunities for improvement in business processes as well as customer and employee experience that shape the target state service vision.

The Service Designer drives the delivery of a consistent, citizen-centric approach across city products and services that supports the organization’s overall business objectives and Customer Experience strategy. They make recommendations on City and Technology Services processes and policies to support strong usability and accessibility on assigned products and services, and steward those through their lifecycle to ensure they are continuously improved to deliver value to customers and staff audiences while increasing operating efficiency for the City.

This position has access to confidential information and makes recommendations for changes in methods, tools and procedures that may impact operational areas.

Specific Duties and Responsibilities

• Lead end-to-end service design initiatives across digital and in-person channels, guiding cross-functional teams from discovery through implementation and continuous improvement.
• Facilitate alignment, ecosystem mapping, problem definition, journey design, service blueprinting, prototyping, and implementation planning.
• Creates and maintains service blueprints, customer journey maps, user research protocols, and other relevant design frameworks and templates.
• Lead the development and governance of a City-wide service design system, including reusable frameworks, patterns, templates, and standards to ensure consistency and scalability across services.
• Champion adoption of service design standards, providing mentorship, enablement, and structured training to embed practices sustainably.
• Define and steward the long-term strategic roadmap for service design practice across the organization, aligning digital transformation, policy, and operational modernization initiatives.
• Define and embed trackable service performance metrics and success indicators for service design initiatives, ensuring clear linkage between design decisions, operational outcomes, and citizen impact.
• Plans and coordinates the design, development, prototyping, usability testing and implementation of new solutions for improved service delivery.
• Facilitates design and ideation workshops with affected groups and project teams to design, iterate, and refine digital services and experiences.
• Performs business analysis to identify process efficiencies and areas for improvement.
• Collaborates with program and product managers to co-create service prototypes and implement service solutions.
• Reviews service design aspects post-implementation to assess performance of newly implemented processes and practices; develops process improvement objectives, critical success factors, key performance indicators, including measurement and target metrics to facilitate ongoing and continuous improvement.
• Participates in business planning activities including the development of business case submissions and support of service improvements, operational strategies and coordinates service design engagement processes.
• Conducts user and industry research and gathers insights to inform decisions and service improvements, contributing to data-driven, evidence-based design processes.
• Introduces new and innovative perspectives to the City of Vancouver’s services through application of industry best practice service design methodologies.
• Leverages data in storytelling to influence and advocate for intentional and results-driven design decision recommendations.
• Provides integrated service design delivery advice to senior management and executive-level partners
• Regularly reports on the status of initiatives, insights, and outcomes to upper management and cross-functional teams.
• Participates in project and advisory committees to provide service design advice/expertise.
• Plans and leads concurrent service design initiatives; coordinates with clients, affected groups and partners; identifies potential problems and develops mitigating strategies appropriately; expedites initiative progress to support partner business needs.
• Negotiates and builds relationships, working in close collaboration with executives and senior management, clients and various affected groups across the organization to resolve critical, strategic and operational issues and to deliver on major project objectives while ensuring that both business and customer needs are met.
• Lead service pilots, oversee deployments, and ensure iterative refinement based on evidence and performance outcomes.
• Facilitate adoption and change management across affected groups to ensure successful integration of new services and processes.
• Uphold principles of usability, accessibility, privacy, security, reconciliation, and inclusive design.
   

Qualifications

Education and Experience

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Design, Human-Computer Interaction, Business Analysis, Strategic Management, Organization Development, or equivalent education or experience.
• Minimum of 5 years of experience in a service design, user experience or customer experience role, with a demonstrated portfolio of work.
• Experience with Microsoft M365 suite and other relevant design and analytics software.
• Experience communicating complex ideas to senior leadership.
• Experience in developing, implementing and establishing processes.
• Experience delivering and supporting omnichannel technology products and services.
• Experience delivering within an Agile scrum framework.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

• Ability to apply human-centered design to enhance service delivery in a public or private context.
• Ability to conduct thorough research, synthesize findings, and create actionable reports from usability testing.
• Ability to facilitate collaborative workshops and driving consensus across affected groups for service improvements.
• Strong business analysis skills with a focus on process optimization and service efficiency.
• Ability to work collaboratively in multidisciplinary teams, with a proven ability to juggle multiple priorities simultaneously.
• Project management skills and experience managing end-to-end service design initiatives.
• Knowledge of Agile delivery approaches, human-centred design methods, and iterative development environments, comfortable with fast-paced work settings
• Analytical and evaluation skills to know the data needed to inform decisions, and how to interpret and evaluate that data once acquired.
• Ability to use data to measure service impact, track KPIs, and create reports that inform strategic decisions.
• Ability to create detailed service design blueprints, user journey maps, storyboards, wireframes and other design frameworks.
• Ability to solve complex business problems and build relationships
• Excellent critical thinking skills, able to assess options against risks and benefits
• Considerable knowledge of municipal business processes
• Excellent oral, written and presentation/facilitation skills, with ability to communicate at all levels within the organization to technical and non-technical groups
• Considerable knowledge of business process design and documentation methods
• Results-oriented and ability to work independently and as a member of a team.
• Ability to manage multiple priorities and respond to requests in a timely manner.
• Ability to establish and maintain effective working relationships with a variety of internal and external contacts and team members to provide advice, information and assistance.
• Ability to manage interpersonal conflicts and differences.