Challenge:

After successfully showcasing the value of service design through a proof of concept (POC), Amtrak Innovation faced the challenge of scaling this new approach across the enterprise. Leadership recognized that an uncontrolled or poorly coordinated rollout could lead to fragmentation, confusion, and failure to integrate with existing processes fully. Key uncertainties included how to establish initial governance for journey management, how to integrate service design and journey management with Amtrak’s existing methodologies, and how to ensure it complements the current use of tools. Amtrak Innovation needed expert guidance to design a controlled, cohesive expansion and further prove the value of service design and journey management practices.

Journey Governance: The organizational structures, roles, processes, and associated cadences that support a journey management practice.

Approach:

Harmonic Design was brought in to provide strategic consulting to Amtrak Innovation, offering as-needed advice to tackle critical uncertainties and ensure a smooth rollout of service design practices. The approach included:

1. Governance design: Harmonic helped define an initial governance framework for journey management, ensuring clear roles, responsibilities, and processes were established from the start to foster alignment across teams as the organization matured in its usage of journeys. This governance approach—journey stewardship—would help the organization move more confidently towards its ultimate goal of an integrated journey management capability.
2. Methodology integration: Harmonic provided insight on how service design could be optimally integrated with Amtrak’s existing methodologies, such as the SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework) and Strategic Foresight. By mapping service design and journey management principles and practices to familiar processes like value stream mapping and lean portfolio management, the consulting team ensured Amtrak’s teams could adopt the new approach without disrupting their established workflows.
3. Tool integration: Harmonic worked with Amtrak to understand how a journey management platform such as TheyDo could integrate into existing workflows and technology ecosystems. By connecting these tools and workflows, the organization could enhance cross-functional collaboration and existing practices with customer-centric journey management practices.
4. Proving value for future adoption: Harmonic helped Amtrak develop a strategy to showcase the ongoing value of service design to secure organizational buy-in further. This strategy includes using data-driven metrics to demonstrate improvements in customer satisfaction, operational efficiency, and overall team alignment.

Outcome:

Harmonic delivered several strategic recommendations, models, and processes that our stakeholders can leverage as they pioneer service design and journey management practices within the organization. One outcome of this effort was increased alignment between journey management and service design capabilities and the organization’s broader strategic objectives. By establishing a clear roadmap for integrating these methodologies into existing frameworks, such as lean portfolio management and product management, Amtrak gained confidence in its ability to mature journey management amidst the complexities of a large organization. Additionally, Harmonic collaborated with the Innovation team to co-create a structured approach for organizing journeys across channels, segments, and service lines, enabling them to build a comprehensive journey atlas over time. This clarity on key integration points also highlighted potential roadblocks, ensuring proactive measures could be taken to prevent challenges that could hinder the success of journey management.

Impact:

Greater alignment with strategic objectives: Greater alignment of journey management and service design capabilities with the organization’s strategic objectives, ensuring long-term cohesion across functions and opening pathways to influence decision-making from a more customer-centric and service-oriented lens.

Increased confidence in journey management: Amtrak stakeholders now clearly understand how to evolve journey management within the organization’s complex structure and track progress effectively.

Improved clarity on journey organization: The organization is equipped to build and expand its journey atlas, driving consistency and collaboration across departments.

Key integration points identified: Potential barriers between journey management, Lean Portfolio Management, and Product Management have been identified, allowing Amtrak to address them proactively and ensure smoother implementation and coordination across these practices.