Title: Better user-developer communication in service development by collaborative physical modelling

Authors: Pia Helminen; Samuli Mäkinen; Mari Holopainen

Addresses: Department of Industrial Engineering and Management and Department of Engineering Design and Production, Aalto University, P.O. Box 15500, FI-00076 Aalto, Finland ' Department of Engineering Design and Production, Aalto University, P.O. Box 17700, FI-00076 Aalto, Finland ' Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, Aalto University, P.O. Box 15500, FI-00076 Aalto, Finland

Abstract: Making the service use experience visible and facilitating the communication between the users and the provider organisation are persistent challenges. We present a proof of concept for utilising a physical modelling approach called collaborative physical modelling (CPM) to reveal the different stakeholder interpretations of a service and to extract these interpretations in a format that can be easily shared and compared, thus facilitating user-developer communication. To demonstrate the use of this method, CPM is used in three differing cases. Our proof of concept brings relief to managers who understand the need for involving users in the service development but who are constantly bound by limited resources. We encourage managers to take advantage of this low-cost, time-efficient and easy-to-adopt physical modelling approach before jumping into more complicated and resource-intensive methods.

Keywords: service development; user-developer communication; physical representations; collaborative physical modelling; CPM; user involvement; service management; user involvement; services.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSOM.2016.074054

International Journal of Services and Operations Management, 2016 Vol.23 No.2, pp.169 - 186

Received: 09 Aug 2014
Accepted: 27 Aug 2014
Published online: 04 Jan 2016 *

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