A Unified Link for Experience Management
A post by our guest editor, John Worthington. USM’s Customer-Provider Interaction Model is an ideal link that can help manage experience across complex service supply chains and networks. Here’s why. Back in the 1980’s we were hell-bent on process. Thi
From Process Baggage to Management Systems: Why USM Isn’t Just Another Operating Model
A post by our guest editor, John Worthington. After nearly fifty years in IT, I sometimes wonder if the weight I carry isn’t experience — it’s baggage. Decades of “process-first” initiatives, endless levels (L1–L5), flowcharts, and frameworks have shap
Bridging Experience Management and Experiential Learning: A USM Perspective on Smarter Service Organizations
A post by our guest editor, John Worthington. In today’s service organizations, we’re inundated with data about customer and employee experiences. We track satisfaction, sentiment, and journey friction points. Yet many teams struggle to convert this ri
Systems Thinking Meets Service Management: USM Through the Lens of The Fifth Discipline
A post by our guest editor, John Worthington. I enjoyed the weekly OSC Meetup and the topic of the double loop model spawned this post. I’m currently re-reading The Fifth Discipline by Peter Senge—a classic that continues to resonate deeply with those
How I Learned to Stop Worshiping Level 5 and Love the Customer Instead
A post by our guest editor, John Worthington. Confessions of an assessor turned rebel We were doing an assessment for a health care provider when the reality began to sink in. Suddenly the conference room was full of huge spider graphs, while we franti
The USM method and RACI
A post by our guest editor, John Worthington. The article Ditch the RACI. Fix the Job Description, by Dr. Janet Sherlock highlighted several problems with RACI matrices. In theory, they’re intended to clarify roles, but in practice, they often introduc
Assembling a Backyard Play Set is not Routine (and a service management truth)
A post by our guest editor, John Worthington. Having done this years ago, I should have known I’d never be home by lunchtime; assembling a backyard playset is not routine. By lunchtime we were on page 18 of a more than 70 pages of “instructions”— mor
Reclaiming Control in the Age of Automation: Why You Need a Service Management Architecture
A post by our guest editor, John Worthington. “Automation doesn’t eliminate the need for service management — it amplifies the consequences of not having it.” As artificial intelligence and automation sweep through enterprises, many organizations are a
Lost in the Service Management Desert?
A post by our guest editor, John Worthington. Get Over the Hump with the USM Method It’s over 100 degrees in New Jersey, and while I’m comfortably seated in my air-conditioned office, my brain—poor fool that it is—is overheating on the USM method again