The Service Organization

How to Deliver and Lead Successful Services, Sustainably

Kate Tarling

• Publisher: London Publishing Partnership
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN: 9781913019761
• eBook ISBN: 9781913019785
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Government & Business
• Index: Business

All organizations are becoming service organizations. But most weren't built to deliver services successfully end-to-end, and the human, operational and financial impacts are abundantly clear. In the digital era the stakes are even higher, given how rapidly services change. Yet default working practices (governance, planning, funding, leadership, reporting, programme and team structures) inside large organizations haven't changed. Rather than modernize just one service at a time, it's the underlying organizational conditions that need to be transformed — anything less is futile. "The Service Organization" is the result of years of research and consulting, as well as dozens of interviews with executives. It explores significant challenges that leaders will recognize, and turns them into solvable puzzles by providing practical advice and tools that reimagine what the organization does from the perspective of its customers — and it organizes the activity needed to deliver the best outcomes. This book is for everyone involved, from designers to technologists and from operational staff to policymakers and leaders. It includes surprisingly simple and doable, but non-obvious, steps that don't depend on seniority or pay band and that are typically overlooked by even the most progressive professions, teams and companies. Kate Tarling sets a bold, ambitious and practical agenda for all service organizations. Her book is full of behind-the-scenes examples from the global companies, public sector bodies and non-profits that are now delivering and leading successful services. It shows how to reinvent organizations so they rely not just on 'transforming technology' but on putting the success of their services at the heart of how they operate.

Table of contents

• Foreword
• Preface
• Introduction
• Chapter 1
• Redefine your organization by the services it provides
• Distinguish between main and supporting services
• Chapter 2
• Define what’s in a service from the outside in
• Change the language to ingrain services
• Create a consistent framework to describe services
• Chapter 3
• Reveal how services perform in the real world
• Influence with the data you don’t yet have
• Chapter 4
• Shape work and projects for success
• Position the work to improve services
• Chapter 5
• Chapter 6
• Chapter 7
• Chapter 8
• Create plans that change as you learn more about reality
• Embed an approach that de-risks service delivery
• Chapter 9
• Chapter 10
• Steer programmes and portfolios to deliver outcomes
• Develop a clear relationship between outcomes and work in progress
• Assess and track progress towards goals
• Chapter 11
• Revolutionize governance for services
• Control how new work starts
• Chapter 12
• Chapter 13
• Make better services the organization’s strategy
• Position teams and individuals to shape, govern and join up work
• Summary
• Further resources and reading
• Acknowledgements