Guy: one, the first draft of anything is shit.
Guy: Welcom to Service Design Principles. I'm Guy Martin, joined by the author of the Service
Design Principle series of books, the founder of the Swiss Innovation Academy and Service design
Practitioner. The effusive aniele CatalanottoD
Daniele: Hi Guy, it's such a pleasure to be here with you.
Guy: Me too. each episode we're going to look at one of the principles from from your book
Service Design Principles 1 to 100. And today it's principle number one. The first draft of
anything is shit. Now, some listeners may recognize this as a quote from Ernest Hemingway,
the recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954. But it's since become a bit of a
foundation of service design. Why is that, Daniele.
Daniele: So I think in Service Design often what we try to do is we try to put out stuff so that
we then see how people react to it. And what we know is that basically whatever we show to
people, people will always tell us the same thing. Oh, interesting. But and then do you have
a lot of information about all this stuff that you did wrong? And so it's kind of this
realization that whatever you do and whatever you put out, even if you worked on a lot of it,
it's still a first draft for people who see it, and therefore it's still something that is
pretty shitty. And therefore understanding that helps us to go in a way that we say, Let's move
the first draft much further, much nearer to to us and not wait too long because we know it's
going to be shit for people anyways. And so it's just being the first thing that we want outside
and then have people react to it and which we know they will say it's shit. And from that we
can then improve based on their feedback.
Guy: So it's kind of like giving the liberty to just get started. Like,
Daniele: Exactly.
Guy: don't don't have any excuse to delay.
Daniele: Yeah. You know, it's kind of this thing where you say, Anyways, it will be shit. So it
just just go, you know, because it's okay, you know, And it's it has kind of this is a very
liberating thing when you when you tell somebody, ah, you know, we will not show it. You know,
it's like when you say when you record something and you say we we're going to record it, but we
not going to publishing it.
Guy: Right.
Daniele: And then what happens is people are very free, you know, and they express all the
things. And then maybe at the end you say, now we have the recording, would you like us to do
something with it? And it was quite good that yeah, it was quite good, you know. So sometimes
it just takes out depression.
Guy: Righ. And actually, it's it's. It's kind of the intent is relative, right? It's not that,
the first draft is shit in isolation of everything else, because it could actually be
quite good, that first draft. But in relation to what you're going to end up with, your final
result, t final draft, after you've done all of the revisions and editing in comparison, maybe
it looks a bit shit.
Daniele: Yeah,
Guy: So I think that's a trap I've fallen into where I think, okay, well my first draft is
pretty good. Well, I don't need to revise it. Right. But that's not the purpose.
Daniele: I would say, you know, as any rules, you know, these services and principles,
sometimes people say they are rules which, which is a thing that I don't like so much because for
me they are kind of like starting points and little provocations. You know, they are
formulated as like little advices, but as with every advice, you know, when your mum told you
to not do something, you know, sometimes you just did the opposite and you learn something
from it. But having heard your mom saying you to not do something sometimes was very good for you
to, to then learn by yourself. And so here I wouldn't say that in every case, you know, the
first draft is shit, but by believing it, it definitely helps us to put stuff out. And it
happened to me that, you know, the first draft was in fact a very good solution. But knowing
that, believing that the first draft is shit pushed me to make a second draft, pushed me to
make another proposition.
Guy: Right.
Daniele: And then when people just come back and say, you know, the first one was the right one,
you have then the confidence that indeed it was the right one because you had you have tested a
few things. You have tried to improve A maybe you come back to the first idea, which is okay,
but you then have the confidence of knowing it's a good one because I've tested enough and the
danger of not having that sentence or that idea in your mind is you're going to do something and
you're going to believe it's perfect.
Guy: Mm hmm.
Daniele: And so you're going to assume it's going to be perfect. And so you invest money,
for example, in marketing and stuff. And then but your idea isn't that perfect.
Guy: Right.
Daniele: And sometimes yes, sometimes no. So believing it's always shit is maybe easier to to
manage that than believing it's always great and
Guy: Mm
Daniele: being
Guy: hmm.
Daniele: disappointed 99% of the time.
Guy: Right. Makes perfect sense.
Guy: So I guess for people listening, maybe there's an action they can take here If they're
delaying starting something, If they're sort of putting things off or if they think, oh, I'm not
quite good enough at this yet or something like this. Maybe just go draft something, make that
first shitty draft. Start editing it. Doing a second draft can only happen once you've done
that first one. So get that
Daniele: Exactly.
Guy: out of the way
Daniele: And share it.
Guy: and share it?.
Daniele: Yeah. You know, and there is the this is the one thing that I've learned is like
people often think they should only share the final version.
Guy: Mm hmm.
Daniele: But there is so much more today to to get from sharing that first shitty draft
Guy: Okay.
Daniele: because this is something that I've learned, which is, you know, the principles that
you've read in the book.
Guy: Mm hmm.
Daniele: They came out as blog articles first, you know, without proofreading, without me even
rereading the article back in
Guy: Right.
Daniele: the days, I would just write it in one go and hit publish. But then what happens?
Because it was just for me to say, I have this idea, I'm going to put it out in the world. And
I'm and so I have a kind of like a way to find them back,
Guy: Mm hmm.
Daniele: which was good. But then what happened is these first draft, you know, people started
to react to them. Peo started to say, Oh, this is quite interesting. Oh, I would add this. I
would add that. And then it started to for me to realization, Oh, this could be something more
than what I thought.
Guy: Mm hmm.
Daniele: And so putting out the first draft usually also gives you also a bit of a of a kick
because other people recognize what could be the value of it. If there was a second draft. If
what if if there was a third draft. But you know sometimes I don't know. You know, I was limited
in my in my imagination by saying this would be a blog article, but then people coming back to
it and saying, Oh, this is quite good, this is quite good, this is quite good, this is quite
good at this. Okay, now I have enough to make a book called It could be a book, you know, and
that's kind of why I'm saying not
Guy: Yeah.
Daniele: not only do
Guy: Mm
Daniele: a first
Guy: hmm.
Daniele: draft, but also share it because people would react to it and show the hidden value that
you don't realize because we are all evaluating ourselves.
Guy: Okay. I wouldn't have shared my first draft, But maybe that's something I need to to start
doing. Is I would usually write the first draft and go, okay, that's out of the way. I can throw
that in the bin. And now I'll go on with my revisions and then I'll share the revision. what
you're saying makes make sense. You get feedback very early and you can you can change direction
early in the piece if you need to. and also get the validation, I guess, to say, yes, it is a
good idea. It is. You're in the right direction, so maybe you don't need to throw
Daniele: Yeah.
Guy: it out. So that's very insightful.
Daniele: And sometimes sharing doesn't mean it's shared with the world. Sometimes sharing means
just sharing it with a co-worker, with a friend,
Guy: Right?
Daniele: you know, That's obviously the level of sharing is also dependent on on on how how
dangerous it can be to share. You know, sometimes
Guy: Mm hmm.
Daniele: it's it's might not be as smart as to share everything. You know, if you're building a
service, you don't want to impact the lives of people who write that way with something that
that isn't perfect,
Guy: Mm hmm.
Daniele: obviously, but share it already with a small group of people who you trust and who
trust you. They can give you some very good feedback that you don't imagine.
Guy: thanks Thanks Daniele and thanks to everyone listening. And we'll see you in the
next episode, which is principal number two.
Daniele: thanks, Guy. Was a pleasure.