www.ijdesign.org

International Journal of Design Vol.5 No.2 2011

S. Clatworthy

of experience the consumer notices”( Fortini-Cambell, 2003, p.

63). However, here there is only the recognition of the importance

of touch-point co-ordination within integrated marketing with no

guidance as to how innovation processes can achieve such goals.

In CRM, the focus is on using technology to organise

and automate relationships with customers and prospective

customers. It is typically centered upon automating and integrating

interactions, often with a focus upon efﬁciency rather than upon

the customer experience. Payne and Frow (2004) describe

CRM as “a management approach that seeks to create, develop,

and enhance relationships with carefully targeted customers

to maximise customer value, corporate proﬁtability, and thus,

shareholder value” (Payne & Frow, 2004, p. 527).

Within CRM research the term touch-points has been used

within a context of maximising proﬁtability and shareholder

value. Technology is used to organize, automate, and synchronize

business processes, principally sales activities (Payne & Frow,

2004, Hogan, Almquist, Glynn, 2005). Recent developments in

CRM practice show a new attention being paid towards touch-

points as part of the customer experience (Choy, 2008). Again, the

importance of coordinating (or even orchestrating) touch-points

is mentioned in CRM, but there is little or no guidance as to how

this can be achieved.

There is a clear lack of literature to provide methods,

approaches or case studies describing how a project team can work

to achieve the goals described in the literature. Much literature

covers the importance of touch-point orchestration (Payne &

Frow, 2004, Holmid, 2008, etc), however, there is little literature

available regarding how this is done, how this could be done

or how this should be done. Holmlid (2008) states: “For design

management the challenge becomes one of both coordinating

multiple service channels, and the coordination between service

channels” (Holmlid, 2008, p. 7). There is therefore a clear need

for assistance that helps project teams achieve these two goals.

However little or no research exists to help project teams with

the

what

and

how

of touch-point orchestration and innovation.

The work presented here, therefore, describes a methodology to

assist cross-functional teams when working with touch-points.

Further, through analysing the methodology in contexts of use in

professional innovation projects and via evaluations of its value

in use, this research goes some way in answering the questions

previously raised.

Context of This Work

At the Fuzzy Front End of the Service

Development Process

The fuzzy front end (Smith & Reinertsen, 1998) describes the

phase at the start of the NSD (New Service Development) process.

The NSD process is related to the New Product Development

process (NPD), and refers to the speciﬁc differences encountered

when innovating in services rather than products. NSD literature

is limited in quantity and quality in relation to the well researched

NPD process. Service Design, as part of NSD is barely mentioned,

in contrast to the increasingly rich documentation regarding the

role of product design in the NPD process.

The fuzzy front end phase of projects has come into

focus during recent years, being described as the most important

part of service innovation by innovation managers (Allam &

Perry, 2002; Allam, 2006). This is because the earliest phases

of the development process offer the greatest opportunity for

transformational innovation. Approximately 66% of life-cycle

costs are decided during this phase, whilst only about 5% of

development costs are utilised (Berliner & Brimson, 1988).

Kelley and Storey (2000) summarise its importance in this way:

While previous management disciplines have rationalised and

routinesed the back end of the new service development (NSD)

process, the front-end of the process remains a knowledge-

intensive black art that appears, from all industry studies available,

to be consuming an increasingly large portion of the total concept

to cash-ﬂow cycle time. (p. 45)

The fuzzy front end is increasingly being focused upon

by designers as they are given a more explorative and open

brief (Sanders & Stappers, 2008). This phase is also seen as an

opportunity to lift design up to a strategic and tactical level of an

organisation. Clearly, in terms of methods, there is a critical need

to develop means to achieve this. Such methods are also important

when it comes to building links and supporting innovation in the

cross-functional teams that are now used in most development

projects during new service development.

Cross-functional Development Teams

he process and tools described in this paper are aimed at assisting

cross-functional development teams, where the teams, together

with designers, explores the project mandate and develops ideas

through workshops. Cross-functional development teams are now

used in most development projects. Such teams include relevant

stakeholders representing different functional areas within (and

from outside) an organisation, across diverse disciplines. This

article does not question the relevance of cross-functional teams

in an innovation perspective while recognising that opinions are

divided regarding their effectiveness in innovation processes

(de Jong & Vermeulen, 2003; Ancona & Caldwell, 1992; Sethi,

Smith, & Park, 2001). However, since the majority of commercial

innovation projects utilise cross-functional teams, this project has

chosen to develop tools to support such teams as part of the new

service development process.

Challenges facing cross-functional teams include the

development of team collaboration, internal culture and team

communication (Shikhar1 & Colarelli, 2009), as well as the

achievement of a common understanding and shared vision

of the object of development (Molin-Juustila, 2006). Cross

development teams therefore provide rich nests of knowledge and

situated experience; however, without clearer methods for getting

at this knowledge during the initial work at the fuzzy front end

of innovation processes, service design practices and research

will be restricted. To meet these challenges, a large research

and development project called AT-ONE has been developed.

This project is one of very few that addresses support for cross-

functional teams at the fuzzy front end of services. It is, however,