Blueprint

OUTCOMES

• Depict the mechanisms, interactions, steps and actors of a service in its entirety

• Understand cross-functional relationships and align front-stage and back-stage processes

USING THE TOOL

Detail the stages of the product and the experience surrounding it to communicate, collaborate, investigate, refine and plan the implementation of the service. Map all stages horizontally and all actors (including non-human actors), vertically. Use multiples of this tool to detail one process.

A Blueprint is a table that shows the entire process of a product/service in as much detail as you require, by displaying all the activities that happen at each stage, which roles are involved, as well as what systems, technology and interactions are used. This can be used to analyse existing services for yourself by identifying hotspots of issues or it can help communicate and collaborate with stakeholders and partners. This tool is also essential for understanding the relationship between the front-stage and back-stage and for delivering a detailed plan for refinement and delivery.

1. First list all the actors involved in the process on a vertical axis with the user at the top and all the subsequent actors arranged beneath them as their role becomes more ‘backstage’.

2. Then list all the steps required to deliver the service on the horizontal axis. 

3. Depending on what the Blueprint is for, you may want to include rows that depict channels of communication or other ‘touchpoints’ such as apps, AI and software or organisations and other technology.

4. At the intersections between each actor and step detail any action.

5. The resulting matrix represents the flow of actions each role needs to perform along the process. Highlight the actions the user can see (which is called ‘above the line of visibility’), and the ones that happen back-stage (called ‘below the line of visibility’).

good sequence

Prototype Testing > Blueprint > Build a Deployment Plan

Tips

• Use this to analyse an existing service or specify a well-defined concept (but it is not an ideation tool)

• You can also dedicate a row in the Blueprint to visualising the main activity happening at each stage

• If you are using this as a tool to collaborate, it can be very impactful to create a large scale, long, horizontal Blueprint and ask participants to examine all the stages