Management of Service Innovation Projects: A Case Study from a German Financial Services Provider

The ability to design innovative services is becoming an important capability for organizations in the 21st century. Information technology plays a major role as an enabler for a broad range of innovative services, and IT organizations need to design services in collaboration with business units to address evolving customer requirements. This paper offers an exploratory case study on the application of a design methodology at the intersection of business and IT, focusing on a German financial services provider that sought to develop new IT-based service innovations. The key finding of this case study is that while processes, methods, and tools are important for managing service design, socio-technical aspects such as context, environment, team management, and project setup also are essential for the successful design of innovative services. The current literature provides rudimentary guidance in these areas, yet a thorough description of these factors and their integration into a service design methodology has not yet been documented. Based on the findings of the case study, we suggest further investigation of the roles played by factors such as environment, team management, and project setup, as well as of the ways in which these factors can be incorporated into methods to facilitate more effective service design.