Deciding What Matters: A Service Design Lens

Delivered by the Service Design Academy (SDA) in partnership with Charity Leadership Scotland, this session explores how service design can help charity leaders take a fresh look at their services and make better strategic decisions.

In a sector where resources are limited and demand continues to grow, leaders need to make difficult choices about where to focus time, funding, and effort. Service design provides a practical way to understand how well current services are delivering on your mission and the outcomes you want to achieve.

Rather than focusing on creating new services, service design helps organisations understand what is working well, where there are gaps or inefficiencies, and where changes could have the greatest impact. It helps leaders identify what to improve, what to invest in, and what may no longer be delivering enough value to continue. 

By bringing together insight from service users, staff, and partners, service design supports more informed decisions, better use of resources, and stronger alignment between strategy and day-to-day delivery. It can also reduce risk by helping organisations test and learn before making significant changes. 

Ultimately, service design helps charity leaders make confident, evidence-based decisions that strengthen services, improve outcomes, and ensure resources are focused where they will make the biggest difference.

Who is this for?
•    Charity and voluntary sector leaders shaping organisational strategy
•    Heads of service, operations, and transformation
•    Policy and decision-makers seeking more evidence-based approaches
•    Leaders looking to align mission, delivery, and internal capability

Takeaways
•    Understand the role of service design in strategic leadership and decision-making.
•    Explore how service design can help charities evaluate and prioritise existing services.
•    Gain insight into using lived experience and evidence to inform organisational choices.
•    Learn how service design can support confident decision-making in complex and resource-constrained environments.

About the Service Design Academy (SDA)
The Service Design Academy supports organisations to design and deliver better services through practical, people-centred approaches. With a strong focus on real-world application, SDA works with leaders and teams to build the confidence, skills, and mindset needed to tackle complex challenges. For charity leaders, SDA offers a way to strengthen strategy, improve outcomes for communities, and create more effective, sustainable organisations through service design.

The Service Design Academy would like to offer a 10% discount for their online Discover Service Design and Introduction to Tools and Methods courses to all who have booked their place at this event. The discount code will be emailed to you upon booking.

*Please note that Charity Leadership Scotland events are only open to CEOs, Chairs, Vice-Chairs, and senior managers of Scottish voluntary sector organisations.