Capturing the breadth of value creation with science fiction storytelling: Evidence from smart service design workshops

In order to tackle today's grand challenges in society and reach sustainable development goals, innovation needs to take a comprehensive look at value creation and human well-being. Social systems theory suggests that value creation and well-being can be addressed from the perspectives of various functional systems that attribute meaning on the basis of different social operations, such as economy, health, art, etc. On the example of smart services as a key digital technology, we study how science fiction affects the number of these functional systems referenced in design. We compare smart service design activities performed during eight ideation and prototyping workshops. Half of the workshops used a conventional value proposition canvassing approach to address customer tasks, pains and gains. The others used science fiction plots for dramatic storytelling about smart services. Overall, 29 separate smart service design projects were performed during the workshops. Using qualitative content analysis, references to different functional systems are identified. The findings indicate that science fiction inspires references to more functional systems and highlights tensions between different forms of value creation and aspects of well-being that are essential for tackling grand challenges.