Service Designer

Johns Hopkins University seeks a Service Designer  for its newly launched Bloomberg Center for Public Innovation (BCPI) focused on public sector innovation, government transformation, and civic engagement. BCPI will become a globally recognized organization focused on advancing the art and science of public sector innovation, especially among local governments. Specifically, BCPI will advance research, engage students, and support local governments around organizational, program, and policy innovation.

Working closely with BCPI’s Digital Director and broader leadership team, the Service Designer will play a critical role in deploying design-based innovation approaches to support the development and delivery of BCPI’s programs and provide technical assistance, training, and coaching to city practitioners participating in BCPI’s initiatives, with a particular focus on initiatives within digital transformation. The ideal candidate will have a strong background in service design methodology including research, synthesis and framework development, idea generation, prototyping, and testing. They will also have experience in designing and delivering impactful services that leverage technology. Ultimately, this role will be able to shape BCPI’s approach to service delivery in the civic sector.

The new Center is committed to addressing structural and entrenched racism and recognizes the public sector’s role in perpetuating these legacies. We are looking for a person committed to dismantling structural and entrenched racism and addressing these issues, both as we build a new organization and advance this work in communities.

Interested candidates should submit a resume, cover letter including a short point-of-view on design and its role in government, and link to their portfolio and/or PDF of work samples.

Specific Duties & Responsibilities:

• Support a global community of practice of government practitioners by:
• Developing templates, tools and methods that governments can share and use to improve service delivery
• Identifying systemic interventions in complex, multi-stakeholder government services
• Creating visual frameworks – like journey maps, service blueprints, ecosystem maps – that help bring clarity to complex challenges in human behaviours, relationships, workflow and processes, and drive decision making
• Visually map where digital products could be leveraged to improve service delivery
• Support our team and city practitioners in agile ways or working, including a high-proficiency in using tools like Slack, Figma, Mural, Google Workspace, and AWS.

• Stay up-to-date with latest trends in public and digital innovation and develop materials spreading best practices and cutting-edge research, approaches, and methods to effective service delivery
• Champion the use of design-based methodologies throughout BCPI’s programs and advocate for cities to understand the needs of residents and deploy intuitive interactions and easy-to-use customer experiences
• Help connect the dots between BCPI’s programs and initiatives to help the Center create seamless experiences for city leaders and expand and improve programming
• Prepare reports, summaries, presentations, visuals, and other work products for dissemination to BCPI’s leadership and external partners

Minimum Qualifications (Mandatory):

• Graduate Degree in Instructional Design, Instructional Technology, Education, or related field
• Three years of professional level experience in course design and development, faculty training, or program/course assessment/evaluation required
• Significant additional related experience may substitute for advanced degree

* Applicants who do not meet the posted requirements but are completing their final academic semester/quarter will be considered eligible for employment and may be asked to provide additional information confirming their academic completion date. 

Preferred Qualifications:

• Five years of experience or more preferred (instructional design, “strategic design” or “business design” or “product design” experience
• Experience conducting user research and translating results into actionable insight
• A clear understanding of the types of challenges municipal governments typically face preferred, either through direct experience working in government or in organizations that collaborate closely with governments
• A customer service orientation and interest in and commitment to building strong relationships with clients and leaders in the civic sector to understand their work and perspectives
• Demonstrated experience in working with people from diverse backgrounds and a commitment to engaging with a wide range of digital specialists, subject-matter experts, and BCPI partners
• A strong preference for work experience with local government and the civic sector and an understanding of the public sector
• Demonstrated experience applying equity-centered design frameworks to past projects
• A history of using service design and/or product design to inform and scale digital transformation efforts, particularly in large bureaucratic organizations. This includes identifying and implementing digital solutions to improve public services
• Demonstrated use of modern technologies that help us work collaboratively, but help you produce independently, such as Adobe XD, Adobe Creative Suite, Sketch, Figma, InVision, Trello, Asana, Confluence, or JIRA
• Ability to manage multiple projects simultaneously and meet tight deadlines
• Demonstrated effectiveness in coordinating with subject matter experts
• Ability to work both cooperatively within a team and independently
• Ability to work on multiple projects concurrently
• A commitment to a collegial workplace

Special Knowledge, Skills & Abilities:

• Superior organizational skills and ability to set priorities and respond quickly as priorities change
• Strong interpersonal skills with an ability to build good relationships with peers and to interact with diverse stakeholders
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills and ability to collect and synthesize information and provide summary reports
• Excellent content creation and writing skills
• Knowledge of design-based innovation methodologies, including expertise in determining when and how to use specific approaches, frameworks, deliverables, and facilitation methods