The Art of Responsible Service Design / KA McKercher / Ep. #220

I crossed a line...

Recently, while working on redesigning our online community platform, my excitement got the better of me. I dove headfirst into prototyping a few things in the backend system.

"How hard could it be, right?" (Keep this line in mind throughout the rest of the email.)

Sure, I know a thing or two about programming, and if everything else fails, there's always AI to help out, right?

Well, the honest conclusion a few days later, when we brought in a true expert developer, was that I had no clue what I was doing.

Before the developer could implement the updates properly, we had to undo all the changes I had made. So we lost time, not once, but twice.

The silly thing is, this seems to be a habit I can't shake.

And I see it a lot around me as well: saying yes to challenges that are better left to experts.

Of course, there are many situations where being confident and experimental gets things done.

Instead of waiting and debating, we build a prototype and iterate from there.

Frankly, this approach is encouraged and celebrated in our design process.

But... there's a major pitfall.

In the story above, the cost of my "how hard can it be?" approach was lost time.

That's unfortunate but not something that will cause any major, long-term damage.

Now, imagine working in a context where the stakes are much higher.

Where you're intervening in people's lives. Where your solutions impact the well-being of communities. Where your approach has the potential to reduce—or increase—systemic inequalities.

KA McKercher, our guest in this episode, argues that in those scenarios, we can't just rush in and take on every project that comes our way.

Because when we do, and we go in with a beginner's mindset, chances are high that we might end up causing actual harm to the people who need help the most.

In those situations, losing time on a project is the least of your worries. There are clearly much bigger stakes at play.

So the tough question becomes: How do we know which challenges are a good fit for our skillset and which ones should we say no to?

Especially when we want to do good and contribute to a positive outcome in those high-stakes challenges.

Having the self-awareness to know you limits and limitations is a sign of maturity and professionalism.

If you care about growing your self-awareness, this is a conversation you don't want to miss.

--- [ 1. GUIDE ] ---

00:00 Welcome to Episode 220

04:00 Good intentions are not enough

06:30 Why this matters

09:00 Lived experience aligning to design

12:30 What's good enough?

14:30 What is co-facilitation

16:30 Emotional curiosity

20:30 Being conscious of the water

27:00 What to do

30:30 Is it a yes or no?

35:00 Intentions

38:30 What's within the scope

41:00 Material based practices

45:30 Impostor syndrome

48:30 Reviews on the article

50:00 Hoping the conversation evolves

52:00 When it's out of your scope

54:30 When to step away

58:00 Question to ponder

--- [ 2. LINKS ] ---

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/ka-mckercher
• Ethical Curiosity with Trans and Non-Binary Clients by Lucie Fielding (book)
• www.BeyondStickyNotes.com

--- [ 3. CIRCLE ] ---

Join our private community for in-house service design professionals.

⁠https://servicedesignshow.com/circle