Rosenverse
Making the system visible: The fastest path to better decisions

This video is only accessible to Gold members. Log in or register for a free Gold Trial Account to watch.

Log in Register

Most conference talks are accessible to Gold members, while community videos are generally available to all logged-in members.

Making the system visible: The fastest path to better decisions

Gold
Thursday, November 20, 2025 • Advancing Service Design 2025
Share the love for this talk
Making the system visible: The fastest path to better decisions
Speakers: Ben Reason , Aline Horta , Majid Iqbal and Fabiano Leoni
Link:

Summary

When messy systems become visible, performance follows. Legalese turns into service blueprints; enterprises are modeled end-to-end; teams rally around a single source of truth; and AI opportunities are mapped to real workflows. Our panelists will review the day’s case studies and unpack how to shift behavior, accelerate agreement, and keep metrics honest.

Key Insights

  • Making invisible organizational systems visible enables teams to identify root causes and accelerate progress.

  • White space risk, the gaps between roles and functions, is a key challenge that visibility helps reduce.

  • Service design is transitioning from a supportive role to strategic leadership in complex initiatives.

  • Scaffolding—temporary frameworks or hacks—acts as a leadership tool to drive change without perfect processes.

  • Service design tools like journey maps and blueprints function as knowledge graphs that can enable AI applications.

  • Designers serve as mediators or 'design diplomats,' helping resolve tensions and align stakeholders on shared goals.

  • Human facilitation and critical thinking remain essential despite automation pressures, especially for co-creation.

  • Visual and artistic skills must be combined with strategic intent to effectively communicate and influence.

  • The metaphor of mandalas and scaffolding reflects the temporary but structured nature of service design interventions.

  • Ethnographic storytelling remains critical to capturing system complexity and could be augmented by AI as an assistant ethnographer.

Notable Quotes

"Making the invisible visible makes things move forward and create alignments."

"White space risk is about the surprises that happen between organizational boundaries and roles."

"Service design is not only supporting but leading – it’s about having opinion and data to lead change."

"Scaffolding is about hacking and doing things differently, not lowering the bar but delivering value continuously."

"Service blueprint is a knowledge graph – it gives AI intent and helps AI be more useful."

"Designers act as mediators and neutral parties to get stuck projects unstuck through design diplomacy."

"Critical thinking is our strongest asset, not just automation or AI."

"Art and visuals help represent what people cannot see, but only with strategic intention and understanding."

"The mandala metaphor reminds us not to be emotionally attached to deliverables; sometimes you build to throw away."

"Storytelling helps surface machine quirks and failures that aren't documented—AI as assistant ethnographer has great potential."

Ask the Rosenbot
Mackenzie Guinon
M.C. Escher’s UX Research Career Ladder
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold
Sheryl Cababa
Expanding your Design Lens with Systems Thinking
2023 • Advancing Research 2023
Gold
Maria Giudice
Empowering change: Reigniting purpose, passion and impact in research
2025 • Advancing Research 2025
Gold
Rachel Posman
"Ask Me Anything" with Rachel Posman and John Calhoun, Authors of the Upcoming Rosenfeld Book, The Design Conductors
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024
Gold
Kristin Taylor
Building Bridges Across Organizational Silos
2022 • Civic Design 2022
Gold
Dave Hora
Research in the Face of Complexity: New Sensibility for New Situations
2025 • Rosenfeld Community
Victor Udoewa
Research in the Pluriverse
2023 • Advancing Research 2023
Gold
Peter Boersma
How to Define and Maintain a DesignOps Roadmap
2023 • DesignOps Summit 2023
Gold
Robert Fabricant
Shifting dynamics: The evolving relationship between researchers, participants, and organizational systems
2025 • Advancing Research 2025
Gold
Stephen Anderson
Puzzled? How to Coordinate Humans for Complex Challenges
2021 • Enterprise Community
Farid Sabitov
Theme Four Intro
2022 • DesignOps Summit 2022
Gold
Michelle Morrison
Culture Design
2020 • DesignOps Community
Louis Rosenfeld
Welcome / Housekeeping
2023 • Enterprise UX 2023
Gold
Smitha Papolu
Theme 3 Discussion
2019 • Enterprise Experience 2019
Gold
Luca Rager
Empowering Gaming at Scale: How Xbox Builds Powerful, Automated, and Distributed Design Systems with Sketch
2021 • DesignOps Summit 2021
Gold
Tom Armitage
Day 2 Panel: Looking ahead: Designing with AI in 2026
2025 • Designing with AI 2025
Gold

More Videos

Kyria Stephens

"Government cannot be the only solution—we needed community groups, nonprofits, and for-profits all involved."

Kyria Stephens Marlon Kerner

Power to Heal: Civic Design in the Aftermath of Tragedy

November 17, 2022

Sarah Brooks

"Community and ‘the phone a friend’ are what get you through the hardest parts of working in government."

Sarah Brooks Jennifer Pahlka

Fireside chat with Sarah Brooks and Jen Pahlka

October 21, 2021

Greg Nudelman

"Hands-free control with bots is critical to avoid dangerous distractions, like driving."

Greg Nudelman

Designing Conversational Interfaces

November 14, 2019

Taylor Klassman

"Michael wasn’t trying to replace in-lab usability studies or in-person ethnography, he was expanding research modalities."

Taylor Klassman

The Evolution of UX Research Platforms

March 10, 2026

Jemma Ahmed

"I would prefer not to is the kind of world many of us find ourselves in right now."

Jemma Ahmed

Theme 1 Intro

March 10, 2026

Louis Rosenfeld

"Imagine a world where research bots at IBM talk to the Rosen bot to give you better guidance on interpreting research."

Louis Rosenfeld

The Rosenbot and the Rosenverse: An AMA with Lou Rosenfeld

June 5, 2024

Liza Pemstein

"I want to encourage excitement about research and gradually mold people into better researchers."

Liza Pemstein Jane Davis

Scaling Research Via an Ops First Model at Clever

March 27, 2023

John Calhoun

"Measuring wrong can cost you half a billion dollars, but also what you measure and how you measure matters a lot."

John Calhoun Rachel Posman

Meters, Miles, and Madness: New Frameworks to Measure the (Elusive) Value of DesignOps

September 24, 2024

Chloe Amos-Edkins

"Remote research methods can cast a wider net, but some briefs still require on-the-ground presence."

Chloe Amos-Edkins

A Cultural Approach: Research in the Context of Glocalisation

March 27, 2023