Service Challenge

What service do we want to focus on?

Overview

Before jumping into redesign, it’s helpful to first pause and ask: What is the challenge we want to address? In this step, you define a clear service challenge—a goal for what you want to make better for people. You may start from many issues or problems, but here you capture the one challenge you will focus on. This process helps your team define a clear, shared starting point. It doesn’t have to be perfect or final—just enough to begin with purpose.

You’ll note down the service area you'd like to focus on, who the service is for, what people are trying to achieve, what context they’re in, and who is involved in delivering the service. From there, you’ll write a simple “challenge statement” that captures the core of the problem.

Open in Google Slides

⏱️ Time: 45–60 minutes

👫 Participants: Project team and relevant service staff (3–6 people)

🛠️ Materials: Service Challenge worksheet (printed or digital), markers or post-its

Context

Use this tool at the very beginning of the redesign process. It’s especially useful when your team is working with an open brief and needs to choose where to focus. This is your first attempt at defining the challenge—and you can always refine it later.

Recipe

1

Name of the service

Be specific about which service you’re focusing on (e.g. “building permit applications”, not just “public information”).

2

Identify the users

Who uses or is affected by this service? Users can be external (for example, citizens, businesses) or internal (for example, staff using an internal system). Choose one user group to focus on, and try to think of specific groups or situations, not just “citizens”.

3

Describe user objectives

What are users trying to do or achieve when interacting with the service?

4

Note the context

What circumstances shape how the service is experienced? (e.g. access, timing, location, devices, rules)

5

List the providers

Who delivers, manages, or supports the service?

6

Write your initial challenge

Try to capture the core challenge in one sentence.

• Focus on a problem, not a solution

• Be specific enough to explore, but not overly narrow

• Be simple enough to act on

Results

A simple and shared definition of the challenge you’re exploring. It gives you a clear starting point for planning your discovery work.

Tips

• Don’t try to make it perfect—just make it clear enough to get started.

• Avoid framing the challenge as “getting users to adopt our solution”.

• If your challenge covers too many services or actors, try narrowing the focus.

• Good challenge statements often start with: “We want to understand why…” or “We want to improve the experience of…”

---

Share Your Experience

We'd love to hear how you're using this tool! Please share your examples and feedback to inspire others and help improve the Booster. Submit your example today and be part of our community.