🚀Designing Your 2026 Project: A Simple Way to Work With Service Design
Over the past number of weeks, we’ve looked at:
Seeing your school as a set of experiences
Mapping key journeys
Listening lightly but meaningfully
Designing small, real changes
Bringing staff with you
Now the question is:
“How do we pull this together into something concrete for 2026?”
You don’t need a huge programme. A small, focused service design project can be enough to set a new tone for next year.
Here’s a simple way it might look.
Step 1 – Choose your 2026 focus
Start with one clear area. For example:
Admissions and new‑family experience
Start‑of‑year routines
Communication about events and changes
Support pathways for students with additional needs
Ask:
Where did 2025 feel most messy or stressful?
Where would a better experience really matter for students, families, and staff?
Pick one focus. Name it. Commit to it for 2026.
Step 2 – Map and listen
Next, spend a little time doing the groundwork:
Map the current journey (from the user’s point of view)
Listen lightly to the people involved (students, parents, staff)
Gather a few key patterns and pain points
You don’t need endless data. You just need enough to say:
“Here’s what’s actually happening.”
“Here’s how it feels.”
“Here’s what keeps going wrong.”
Step 3 – Design a small 2026 experiment
Based on what you’ve learned, design a time‑boxed experiment for 2026.
For example:
A redesigned admissions flow for families applying in 2026
A simpler, clearer communication plan for Term 1
A new, more supportive way of handling one common issue
Define:
What you’ll change
Who it affects
How long you’ll test it (for example, one term)
How you’ll know if it’s helping (fewer calls, clearer feedback, calmer days)
In my work with schools, this is where we co‑design the details together – always with the real constraints of time, energy, and resources in mind.
Step 4 – Test, learn, and share
Once your 2026 project is live:
Collect light feedback (short check‑ins, quick surveys, informal conversations)
Keep an eye on simple indicators (questions, complaints, stress points)
Share what you’re learning along the way
At the end of the test period, you can:
Keep what works
Drop what doesn’t
Adjust what’s close but not quite right
And crucially, you’ll have a live example of service design in your school – something you can build on for future years.
🔮 Looking ahead
You don’t have to redesign everything for 2026.
If all you do is run one small, thoughtful service design project – in one area that really matters – you’ll already be moving your school towards:
Clearer experiences
Calmer communication
Kinder, more human interactions
And that’s a powerful way to step into the new year.
If you’d like support in shaping or running a 2026 project in your school, I’d be very happy to talk.
Whether you're interested in redesigning your admissions process, improving start-of-year communications, or creating clearer support pathways for students and families, we can work together to design a focused, practical project that fits your school's context and capacity.
I offer a simple three-step approach:
Discovery call – We'll discuss your priorities for 2026, identify the area where service design could have the most impact, and explore what a project might look like in practice.
School experience mapping – Together, we'll map the current journey, listen to the people involved (students, parents, staff), and identify clear patterns and pain points.
90-day improvement plan – We'll co-design a small, time-boxed experiment for 2026, with clear goals, realistic steps, and simple ways to measure progress.
This isn't about grand transformation programmes or overwhelming change. It's about choosing one thing that matters, designing it thoughtfully, and making 2026 feel a little clearer and kinder for everyone in your school community.
👉 Head over to the We Can Imagine Service Design for Schools page to book a consultation, or simply reply to this email to start the conversation.
