Lead Service Designer

About The Role

We’re looking for a Lead Service Designer, you will be reporting to the Head of Service and Organisation Design and supporting them in leading a stable and knowledgeable practice.

On client projects, your deep expertise means you’ll support teams as a project director and manage or maintain the quality of the design work delivered. You’ll work as part of multidisciplinary teams, including others in DT Design and across TPXimpact as well as associates and client teams.

You’ll support running the practice effectively as a line manager and mentor.

• Lead the service design dimension of client work as a lead practitioner or Project Director
• Support business development activities, including leading work for proposals and sales bids, and contributing to pitches and client presentations.
• You are comfortable having difficult conversations with others about where a project is going, where the risks and challenges are
• You are capable of proactive and reactive communication including facilitating difficult discussions with diverse senior stakeholders
• You co-design and contribute actively to Community of Practice activities you can lead and inspire in a community environment while coaching/mentoring more junior members of the team
• You line manage others in your practice which includes helping individuals address their goals and objectives, contributing to mid/end of probation reviews, supporting the Head of Practice with performance related processes
• You know how to adapt your approach to different clients depending on their organisation cultures, design maturity and appetite for change
• Foster a culture of collaboration and continuous improvement on teams and across TPXimpact
• You can confidently communicate the story of our work and the the value of user centred design to our clients effectively
• Build trust with teams and clients to create the right conditions for design to be successful in organisations
• You can coach client teams
• Continuously maintain and update skills and knowledge to stay current within your relevant field of expertise

Budget: DT Design Level 10

Key performance indicators for the role:

• Individual utilisation: 90%
• Business development (through sales to new and existing clients)
• Client satisfaction and quality assurance

Problem solving responsibility and complexity:

• Bringing direction and leadership in complex and ambiguous delivery spaces
• Adapting quickly to fast changing situations
• Medium/high, providing project direction (delivery) and providing practice specific support on client projects, including holding ambiguity with the ability to adapt to fast changing situations

Change management requirements: medium/high

• Effectively managing change within client project or programme environments through iterative improvements, strategic guidance and compelling storytelling

Internal / External interactions

• Managing delivery and client relationships directly when on small projects where no delivery support is available
• Contribute to sales activities (bids, public speaking, blogging)

• Public speaking at local and national events
• Able to visualise and communicate strategic thinking and impact of change through engaging storytelling
• Experienced in project directing and can apply a range of leadership techniques successfully manage the team’s delivery and manage the client relationships
• Able to create and lead initiatives to create and deliver business cases to surface opportunities and next steps towards service transformation and service led organisations
• Experienced in business models, understanding operating models and organisational models
• Experience in public sector and consulting environments
• Leads/mentors other designers
• Knowledge and have a perspective on changing technology landscape and being adaptive and responsive to approaches needed to be taken when understanding systems, data and skills

• Project direction: ability to manage ambiguity, lead strategic approaches to vision setting, problem framing, plan work and deliver outcomes
• You can map complexity within a system and organisation; relationships,…