[00:00:00] Marc Stickdorn: Welcome to This is Journey Management. My guest today is Neil Williams, who leads service design at Cathay Pacific in Hong Kong. Neil actually started with service design in museums, which is surprisingly a good training for an airline, as we will hear later. Neil spent the last four years building journey management inside Cathay.

[00:00:23] Marc Stickdorn: We'll talk about his four-level journey structure, his gardening rule for helping teams get started, and why journey maps often work best when they're printed out, stuck on a wall, and discussed together in a room. Neil, welcome.

[00:00:43] Marc Stickdorn: Welcome to This is Journey Management. Today with me is Neil Williams from Cathay Pacific, based in Hong Kong, and we're actually doing the recording out of your daughter's bedroom, which I absolutely love. Neil, welcome.

[00:01:05] Neil Williams: Hi, Marc. Uh, yeah, welcome to Hong Kong living. Uh, it doubles as my little office when I'm working from home, which isn't that often, fortunately, 'cause I've got the world's most uncomfortable chair.

[00:01:14] Neil Williams: So hopefully, um, this won't be too painful. I'm under her bed at the moment.

[00:01:21] Marc Stickdorn: It's, I, I... N- Neil showed around the room. Yes, that is Hong Kong living. Yeah, fantastic. Neil, thanks so much for joining today. I'm really looking forward to our conversation. Neil, for those who don't know you yet, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

[00:01:44] Neil Williams: Sure. Uh, okay. Potted history. Um, I'm originally from the UK, uh, from the Channel Islands originally. Uh, lived in London, got sent over here to Hong Kong to work on a project, uh, 23 years ago, and I haven't left yet. So, um, I've shifted quite a lot in my career. I started off working on designing museums and exhibitions, and, um, I kind of pivoted into service design for corporate, mmh, what about eight ocl- eight years ago now.

[00:02:13] Neil Williams: And, um, I've been working with Cathay for four years. Okay. And, um, yeah, it's a really interesting role. I get to meet a lot of people across the organization. Um, way, way loads of people from across the spectrum of the organization, um, touching on everything for the whole travel journey, the whole travel experience, um, which is...

[00:02:34] Neil Williams: gives me a lot of insights into how the organization operates.

[00:02:40] Marc Stickdorn: It's, I, I think it's so fascinating from, uh, coming from designing museums, which is a, a, a very unique practice into your today's role. Like, if you, if, if you look at that, what can you build on giving your, your career and where you're coming from?

[00:02:57] Marc Stickdorn: What are you using today? What did you learn what you're using today? Where do you see similarities?

[00:03:04] Neil Williams: Yeah. I guess the, the big thing is narrative. So storytelling narrative. So that was everything we did was around how do we create an experience, uh, connected narrative as people come through the whole experience end to end.

[00:03:16] Neil Williams: Um, so I think I carry that through in the work I do now with the airline as well, uh, in my previous roles in corporate as well. So yeah, it was interesting, um, transitioning. I, um, I did it quite late in my career after working for a very long time working on s- moving from planning, uh, from design to planning and research for c- the cultural sector into, into corporate.

[00:03:41] Neil Williams: But I think the principle was really, it's always been for me about storytelling, um, and creating a connected, connected narrative. Um, so I think that's been useful for me, um, in, uh, in shaping my approach to service design within, uh, the airline industry as well.

[00:03:58] Marc Stickdorn: We, we gotta talk more about the airline industry and, uh, if, if you follow my, uh, my LinkedIn profile you know my experiences with airlines all over the world, um, not, not being that great sometimes.

[00:04:12] Marc Stickdorn: Uh, so it's, it's something that is close to my heart. I'm really, I'm really curious to learn more. But how did you end up in service design?

[00:04:24] Neil Williams: Um, I crept towards service design. Again, I think from the narrative experience piece. I was doing more, uh, work in, in planning and, um, and actually organizational design around the, the company that I work within as well.

[00:04:42] Neil Williams: Um, I did a master's in design strategy, uh, a little over 10 years ago now, uh, 10, 12 years ago, and that was a real pivot for me, and it opened my eyes to sort of thinking more strategically. I was doing other courses prior to that, uh, short courses, but that was the real gateway for me, and it was where I started to try and apply service design principles to the cultural sector.

[00:05:05] Neil Williams: Uh, getting, uh, interesting work in, in helping clients to shape the experience and not just the, not just the narrative within the, the visitor journey, but the entire visitor journey as well. So, um, that, that was the big shift for me. I, I just essentially moved into corporate to spend more of my time doing that.

[00:05:26] Marc Stickdorn: Fantastic. So last year in 2025, um, you joined me for a workshop I gave on journey management in Dallas, and, um, you showed so great s-slides during that, that I actually asked you if you could share some of these again and talk through how you run journey management, um, within your job right now at, uh, Cathay Pacific.

[00:05:51] Marc Stickdorn: So I'm, I'm really curious, shall we kick off with this, and you just show a little bit how you're working, and then we dive deeper into certain topics there?

[00:06:01] Neil Williams: Yeah. I mentioned before that part of w-what I was interested in was the organizational, um, development. I think that that, to me, is the most import-- most interesting part of service design.

[00:06:14] Neil Williams: I mean, I love doing the customer experience, but I'm also really, really interested in how do we enable that customer experience by working better as an organization. Um, but yeah, we can talk a bit more about that as I go through. So these are some of the slides I think, uh, um, either I shared in Dallas or maybe a slight update, but a slight tweak.

[00:06:38] Neil Williams: But yeah, what I'm seeing now is I think with technology enabling journey management instead of what previously, obviously you know a lot about this, Marc, but previously we were really doing journey mapping. Um, and it tended to be quite fragmented. It was all about the current state and the future state as a snapshot in time.

[00:06:59] Neil Williams: And I think what, what I'm tending to see with technology now is it's really enabling us to move from that to a continuous state and, um, really how we can shift from understanding these moments, um, things on a wall in a room versus things, uh, being archived and left to a continuous state of c- of development.

[00:07:22] Neil Williams: And, and actually what I'm starting to do more and more is bring these maps out, print them, stick them on a wall, review them with people, and they're, they're s- they're clicking. They're getting the idea that, you know, this is not a snapshot. This is part of a continuous process 'cause they're seeing the same map developing and updating over time.

[00:07:42] Neil Williams: Um, it's really, really interesting, and I think a really fascinating time to be working in this area, in this space about the way we can really transform the customer experience and at the same time really bring together teams from across the organization, uh, to see things in a different way that they really didn't get a chance to influence before.

[00:08:00] Neil Williams: Um, the connections across the journey beyond the teams that they were working with and the challenges that they were facing that maybe they couldn't necessarily influence.

[00:08:12] Marc Stickdorn: Customers don't care about silos. Exactly. I think it's, it's just a different view that helps people to align, right? On a, on a shared perspective.

[00:08:22] Neil Williams: Yeah. It's amazing how few organizations really think around the journey, the customer journey. Um, they... Conceptually, they do, but they really don't in reality because they're not looking at it on a day-to-day basis. They're still looking at their platform, their domain, their, their area of expertise, and their area of understanding, and their area of influence, essentially.

[00:08:43] Neil Williams: So that's what I'm trying to do with- within the organization, is help align everybody, um, around what we're doing. I can talk a bit more about, about that with the hierarchy and structure.

[00:08:55] Marc Stickdorn: Fantastic

[00:08:58] Neil Williams: Um, yeah, so I, I think, again, the way I see this working is really the journey management becomes the operating system for change within the organization as much as within the customer journey itself and improving and enhancing the experience.

[00:09:12] Neil Williams: But bringing visibility, bringing change to the organization and the way that we, that we work. Um, it's, uh, it's challenging, but I think it's something that really needs to happen, and I think it's really gonna have a massive impact

[00:09:28] Marc Stickdorn: I, I love how you, how you phrase it as the operating system for change, because change is a continuum, right?

[00:09:39] Marc Stickdorn: It's like we're constantly changing. Can-- Like, can you elaborate on that? How do you use it? Where, where do you see the impact, or where do you see changes in the organization based on this work?

[00:09:48] Neil Williams: Yeah, I mean, it's really down to creating that visibility, uh, and then bringing more and more teams in. So, um, for example, you know, sharing a, a journey for pre-flight booking management with teams that are-- with product teams that are involved in the development.

[00:10:05] Neil Williams: And then, you know, really let- letting them know that this is their view, but it, it's much more expansive than that. You know, customers don't care what channel they're using necessarily. They're not necessarily using our channel at all. They could be using other channels. Um, they could be going through the call center.

[00:10:21] Neil Williams: Um, so there's many, many teams to bring in there, and, and it's, it's their vision as well. It's not just the product team. Uh, we can't pretend that everyone's gonna be going through a perfect flow, um, and they're gonna be using our platforms all, all the time. Um, so it's really bringing visibility to that, and, and that's where I see the change, the opportunities.

[00:10:42] Neil Williams: And again, as I said, um, I think teams understand that, that they're, they're not completely oblivious to all these things. They just often don't have the ability to make-- to influence other areas. So by bringing, um, maps out and showing them, uh, you can start to see... For them, they can start to see who they need to influence or where they need to influence and, and a way to influence those other teams too.

[00:11:10] Neil Williams: So I'm starting to bring multiple maps into, um, prioritization sessions that helps teams see beyond their area, uh, to what, what's happening downstream and what's happening upstream, and then we can start to see the influence, uh, in both directions as well.

[00:11:29] Marc Stickdorn: Great. What, what we're often talking about, like if we implement journey management, is not so much about a design system.

[00:11:35] Marc Stickdorn: It's a decision system that helps the organization to continuously take more customer-centric instead of silo-centric decisions.

[00:11:45] Neil Williams: Yeah, absolutely. It's really high-level prioritization. So where are the areas that we need to focus? Because there's limited bandwidth for everyone. And what I'm finding is often, um, I can't necessarily influence the details, but I can at least influence where teams are aligned on broad prioritization of what they need to focus on.

[00:12:07] Neil Williams: Um, when you get into the details, it gets very granular and, and people have their day-to-day work to do. But they're almost crying out for somebody to show them the broader picture that they can then align with others around.

[00:12:20] Marc Stickdorn: Fantastic. I'm curious, how do you do this? And I know you have some slides to go through on, on how this looks like in reality.

[00:12:34] Neil Williams: Okay. So broad, broad, uh, idea around what, um, what we're trying to do is really connecting teams, as I mentioned. Um, aligning around the experiences again, again, not, not just the, um, just the product domains and the areas, but really around the customer journeys, getting people thinking in that way. And then aligning the goals.

[00:12:56] Neil Williams: So there's a horizontal perspective to it, um, across teams, but there's also a vertical perspective. So aligning expectations around shared metrics, and this is really what drives everything, and I know you've talked about this a lot, Marc, as well. Um, you need to have shared goals, uh, shared metrics in order to be able to drive in, in the right-- in the same direction and, uh, be productive.

[00:13:18] Neil Williams: Uh, and this is, um, this is a big challenge that, um, we're working through

[00:13:26] Marc Stickdorn: And you use journey maps as a, a-a-as a common tissue, right? To bring those different teams together on one vision, so they all look at the same, what we often call boundary objects. So connecting different teams through this tool.

[00:13:41] Neil Williams: Yeah. Yeah, and Harriet, I think it was Harriet at the end of the talk in Singapore last week, talked about the seams between, between experiences, and I think that's really important. What, what are we-- what are the... where are the gaps? Where are the handoffs? What are the things we're missing, um, that we can enhance and improve?

[00:13:55] Neil Williams: Uh, and that's where the journey management piece really, really comes into its own. Um, and again, sort of what are we able to do? We can r-reveal the opportunities across the journeys and across the teams. We can help to prioritize around the work and, um, the, the, uh, around the business and priorities, and then we can measure the impact, and this is the ultimate goal.

[00:14:17] Neil Williams: 'Cause at the end of the day, the, the people living upstairs want to see that we're having a, a real influence and a real impact. So it's that, that from granular to the small things we're doing to the high level, uh, business impacts that really, really matter, I think that we're trying to, uh, shape

[00:14:37] Neil Williams: And just to talk a little bit, a little bit about how. So I, I blanked off some of the, uh, the numbers at the top. They'd be quite small on screen anyway, I think. But what, what we're doing is structuring, um, essentially for the travel experience what we call level zero, which is like the atlas view. This is the end-to-end travel experience, and it covers essentially five different stages.

[00:15:00] Neil Williams: Each of those then is a l-level one journey and looking at this as a... the strategic view, and this is the one that I bring into sessions with people to align around the vision, um, how we benchmark against o-the, the other airlines and other industries as well, not just airlines, but how we benchmark across the spectrum.

[00:15:21] Neil Williams: Um, and then what are we aligning around? So what are our high level, uh, metrics that the different teams are, are striving for, so can we get a commonality around that? The tactical view, level two, gives us a little bit more granularity. So for example, here we can start to break out things like different cabins of travel for the airline or, um, member versus non-member for dig-digital experiences or different, uh, hub versus outport for, for ground experience.

[00:15:49] Neil Williams: So we can start to break that out in a bit more detail. Uh, and then level three is where we get into the nitty-gritty. So this is the working teams that are on day-to-day, um, driving, uh, products and service, uh, objectives. So what that is, is really the levers that, that, that we can pull at the lower level to drive through the different levels towards the vision that we're trying to align on as a continuous state, and that's really where the, uh, the AI element as well is helping to accelerate that.

[00:16:19] Neil Williams: Because if you think about all of these different journeys, I mean, at that high level view, there's so many levels by the time you get to level three. There's so many different journeys, uh, and so much detail that, um, without some level of, uh, technology, it'd be very hard to maintain and, and, uh, and keep that current, that continuous state going.

[00:16:43] Marc Stickdorn: I lo- I love this overview 'cause it breaks down something that is, um, where, where we get a lot of questions about, like how do you build this, this atlas, this overview, and so on. If you look at the four levels you're showing here, does each level speak to a different hierarchy level in your organization as well?

[00:17:05] Neil Williams: Yeah, for sure. So if you think about level three, this is really the, the working team level. Uh, this is... So for example, product, product delivery teams are on the very, very detailed, uh, roadmap items that they're working through for digital, but it can also be for non-digital too. Um, level two, I, I, I'm still working out the best way to position this, but I think it's more like a bridge between, between- Mm-hmm

[00:17:29] Neil Williams: and I see this working for, say, you have two different teams, uh, dif- different teams working on detailed level threes, but then maybe there's an alignment issue where it needs to escalate to a cross-team, cross-team development as well. So that's where that level two comes in. Um, and it also forms a bridge again between the vision and, and the implementation, so it can work in both ways.

[00:17:55] Neil Williams: And then, um, the level one vision alignment. This one's a little bit more stable when thinking about, uh, monthly updates of metrics. But, um, quarterly updates, uh, for things like insights would be for the lower level. And then biannual or annual updates and refresh of the strategy as we, as, as and when we need it.

[00:18:14] Neil Williams: So that, that level one is really around, um, business owner level, uh, and, um, ultimately it would be senior management as well to align, um, on high level priorities. And, uh, so touching on the idea of the, um, the traffic light system here as well, which is a great way to be able to look at, at health and also the prioritization of the more detailed level journeys.

[00:18:42] Neil Williams: So we can come together and we can define which areas we're gonna focus on based on, A, what we're seeing in terms of benchmarking or what we're seeing in terms of, uh, the health of the journeys, or just generally around our strategic direction and where, where we feel we need to prioritize

[00:19:01] Marc Stickdorn: So if we, if we go back to the decisions these journeys allow you to take, um, what I often see is that the, the very high level maps like the, the L0, the L1 maps, it's, it's almost like very strategic decisions to take there, right?

[00:19:18] Marc Stickdorn: Because if you have changes in these steps, that means like you have big changes, often also changes in the organizational structure then. Whereas any decisions on the L3 are rather operationals, are rather details, and often also speak to a very clear segment or to a very clear channel. Um, where do you see most decisions in, in, in your real- your reality, in your context?

[00:19:48] Neil Williams: I-i-in both essentially, but a-as you say, I think it's really is channel specific or working team specific. You know, if we're talking about something like, uh, check-in, we've got online check-in, we've got counter check-in, we've got kiosk check-in. Uh, all of these things can be, um, can be broken out and f- and, and really deep dived within level three.

[00:20:07] Neil Williams: But then we've got decisions, um, ar-around strategic alignment which happen at level one, and prioritization around that level one piece. But at the moment, I'm focusing most on level one, um, because there's so many things we could do. We can't do everything at once, and it's about, also about identifying teams that are ready to engage with working with journey maps as well.

[00:20:35] Neil Williams: 'Cause it's a commitment for them, and it's a commit-commitment for us to support them in that process too. And ultimately, we need multiple journey owners, uh, as when we get down, as we go down through the levels, there needs to be multiple journey owners and people to take on board the process of, uh, of working through the journeys, um, and, uh, reflecting that back to the higher level.

[00:20:59] Neil Williams: And, um, yeah, the, that ownership needs to be shared around as we go through the, the work. Um, but I've-- what I've also found is it's easier to engage people at level one around the strategic direction because that's a piece that everybody can clearly understand and it's a little more stable versus the kind of ongoing work that people are doing.

[00:21:22] Neil Williams: Um, so that's the area I'm focusing on at the moment. Uh, it's early days obviously. We've not been working through this for that long, um, but that's where I'm getting most of the traction and then it's really finding right, the right allies and people to work with that are ready to take, take, take this journey with us.

[00:21:39] Marc Stickdorn: And, and the commitment you're talking about, I, I often see commitment there on two levels, right? There's initial commitment to actually map the journey, which includes research, which might include workshops with the teams, and I know we're getting there as well. Um, but then it's also rather a long-term commitment, right?

[00:21:57] Marc Stickdorn: You talked about journey ownership and so on, and to maintain it, and maybe to use it continuously even for decision-making on this level by this team. Like do, do you see any differences in this commitment? Are they more open to get started with it, but then you, you see it's fading or do they, once they realize the value of it, actually are interested in keeping and maintaining it themselves?

[00:22:26] Neil Williams: I think it's, um... This is a challenge. I think you kind of need to build it or start it. Um, and I've mentioned the analogy before to you, Marc, I think around gardening. Um, you need the gardeners to do the work to, to keep the garden healthy. But I think you need to landscape the garden first. You can't just tell them to build a garden and expect them to go away and do all that work for you.

[00:22:49] Neil Williams: I think the role I see that our team playing is to build the, to landscape the gardens for people and then to, to empower them to help them to be able to garden and maintain, maintain that work, um, because it's too much to ask people to do that alone, I think.

[00:23:11] Marc Stickdorn: And I, I really like this analogy. So the, the landscaping, just to be clear, is actually the journey management system you're showing right now, eh?

[00:23:19] Marc Stickdorn: To, to, like, see where journeys fit and also build the basic structure of the journey, like the initial work to research and so on. And once they have it, teams have it much easier to maintain it because you know it's already fitting in the, in the wider scope.

[00:23:37] Neil Williams: Yeah, there's a few aspects to that. I think there's one thing around the taxonomy, so building the structure, um, and the taxonomy, and actually building out the journey framework, um, at the different levels for the teams and helping them to do that because it's not, it's not easy.

[00:23:51] Neil Williams: And also creating the, the language framework as well, so making sure that the journeys are developed in a-- from a customer lens, and again, not from a product or certain B lens, essentially. That, that it's expansive enough to cover the customer jobs to be done, and it's not focused on the, the jobs that the teams want customers to do.

[00:24:17] Neil Williams: Uh, and I, and I try and frame all of the language around that customer experience like, um, what is it the customer's trying to do at each step of the journey, whether or not we're servicing that right now 'cause that opens up the opportunity space. And I think people see that also, uh, once it's presented.

[00:24:34] Neil Williams: But it's hard to get people to build it out in that way from the start. So a-again, landscaping. You landscape it for them, um, build it out, then it-- that it's, it's much easier for them to work through. And I suppose the other aspect to it is making it easy for them to garden. Um, and that's where are we getting the metrics from?

[00:24:54] Neil Williams: How can we automate as much as possible? Where are we getting the insights from? How can we automate that as much as possible as well to help them and make it easy for them to spend the time in analyzing and, and thinking, reflecting on what they're seeing, rather than spending their time in, in generating and, and maintaining.

[00:25:16] Neil Williams: And I suppose the other thing I would say is even just creating something in the first place is a great starting point. When people start to understand that this is an ongoing process, it might not be entirely up to date, but they can understand that it will... it can be updated. And as we get better at this, it will get easier for people.

[00:25:38] Marc Stickdorn: Great. How do you do this? I know you have some more, some more on that. I'm curious to, to see.

[00:25:48] Neil Williams: What else have I got? Um, okay. Yeah, I mean, uh, the, the ultimate goal with this is really to have this continuous ecosystem, um, and development. Um, tracking pain points, desired outcomes, opportunities, solutions, linking all that together with the metrics and seeing how we're able to influence that from level three all the way back up.

[00:26:09] Neil Williams: Uh, we have-- in the organization, we have quite a lot of granular insights that we can, we can pull. Um, and now we have the opportunity with technology to be able to bring that into one space and really bring it alive. So that's really the goal. And I think one thing that I'm not really showing here, but I want to tap into as well, is what are the SOPs that we have within the organization?

[00:26:31] Neil Williams: Um, if we see a pain point or a desired outcome, is that aligned with SOPs? Sorry, standard operating procedures w-within, within the organization. Um, is there a gap in our standard operating procedure? Is it not performing? Um, can we update that? And will that also have an influence as well? So there's both the customer side, and then there's the operational side, and then the metrics tracking element to it too.

[00:27:00] Marc Stickdorn: Is there a, a specific rhythm you're doing this in? Like I, I know some companies have a very clear like, we have this, this monthly meeting where we look at that, where we take decisions and so on. Do you have any, any regularity in it or, or how does it look like?

[00:27:18] Neil Williams: I'm working on it. Um, not, not so much yet, but the, the principle and what I'm trying to get to is essentially refreshing the, um, the metrics refreshment for most of the metrics is happening now on a monthly basis.

[00:27:33] Neil Williams: Um, when we think about the insights, we're trying to look at refreshing that on a, on a quarterly basis because this is all r- essentially lagging indicators anyway. Um, so we need time to see whether anything that's changed has had an influence. Uh, you have seasonality too within this that you need to factor in, especially with things something like airline.

[00:27:53] Neil Williams: You have, uh, big peaks, you have big disruptions around... We had a big typhoon, uh, last weekend. Uh, we're probably gonna get another one next week. Uh, so this has a big impact on, uh, operations. Uh, so looking at that quarterly, but then we think about the vision and the strategic elements, it's a longer horizon for that, so I'm trying to refresh that, um, possibly twice a year, possibly once a year.

[00:28:20] Neil Williams: Depends on how we go with that. Uh, I'm still setting all of that up. And again, I think the cadence is depending on the teams that we're working with. So when we talk about the, um, more granular level three journeys, um, and refreshing pain points, opportunities, desired outcomes, uh, on a quarterly basis, that's something we need to align with each team, uh, work through how, how we, um, can automate and systematize that process.

[00:28:47] Neil Williams: Um, but that's really talking about working with many multiple teams as well.

[00:28:54] Marc Stickdorn: And I, uh, I know we, like, w- we look at software and so on, but a lot of this team alignment is, is happening actually in, in face-to-face situations, right? It's, it's facilitating different teams and, and trying to get them into alignment.

[00:29:11] Marc Stickdorn: It's, uh, th- there's no magic we can just apply and it works, right? It- we're working with people

[00:29:17] Neil Williams: Yeah, absolutely. The technology is an enabler to work through a continuous process. But ultimately, you need to bring that back into the room with the people and, and, and get people aligning and, and seeing things.

[00:29:32] Neil Williams: So I, I can show maps on screen, but it kind of flies above people's heads most of the time. But when I print it, and these are big maps, when I print them out, it really does have a big impact, and it's, it's a really good way of, uh, getting, getting people, uh, getting people on the same page and getting people aligned.

[00:29:52] Neil Williams: And the other thing is also the mapping process as well can be done, um, with the teams themselves. So it's really important you can show content on screen, and I, and I share links with people, um, so that they can access and they can view and they can comment and they can edit. But it-- People have day-to-day jobs.

[00:30:11] Neil Williams: It doesn't really work like that. And, uh, what really has an impact is physically printing it off. I think part of that is that I don't have a large-scale printer, so I'm sticking together, uh, journey maps with, uh, A3 pages. Um, so they kind of see me sticking, sticking stuff together, and they appreciate the effort.

[00:30:29] Neil Williams: Um, but really it makes a huge difference when you start to bring the map into the room, and then you bring different teams into the room that have responsibility for sections of different maps. Then that's where the connection really happens. And also, I think the process of mapping, journey mapping itself physically is much more productive.

[00:30:50] Neil Williams: So we've, uh, in the past done mapping with crew to understand their experience and also the customer experience for dining in-flight, uh, and also for their preparation of food within, in the galley, the in, in-flight kitchens. Uh, that becomes a really, really useful base. So essentially what I do is, uh, give them the outline journey steps, validate that with them first to make sure that we've worked it out correctly, and then get them to, uh, score the experience for themselves, for their fellow crew members, but also for the customer.

[00:31:28] Neil Williams: Uh, and then on top of that, they can overlay their, uh, challenges, their pain points, uh, and opportunities as well. So it's a really good starting point. Use that as a base and then overlay that with, uh, insights from surveys and other, uh, complaints data, et cetera. Um, that becomes a really strong base. And I've done similar things, uh, with, uh, internally around accessibility needs, um, and also around, uh, disruption handling and baggage handling as well with multiple teams.

[00:31:57] Neil Williams: I did actually, uh, I actually Marc, it was from your course I took, um An example from your, your mapping process, and I sort of scaled it up and had people from our airport service team take it to the regions as a workshop session. Uh, really interesting to see how that played out with essentially non-facilitators.

[00:32:19] Neil Williams: But the template was there. I, I ended up with, uh, hundreds of sheets of, uh, uh, sort of, uh, emotional journeys, uh, came back and l- and hundreds and hundreds of different pain points that were raised by different teams from around, uh, our network. And so I was able to compare and see, uh, where the relationships lied.

[00:32:40] Neil Williams: It was really interesting. So yeah, I think, um, getting in a room with people is still really, really crucial. Um, but what helps is people knowing that this is a continuous process now and it's not just a map that's gonna sit on a wall that they're gonna look at and they're gonna walk away and it's gonna disappear forever.

[00:32:58] Neil Williams: But oh, it's the same map essentially that we looked at last month or last quarter, but it's changed, it's updated. There's, there's interesting things happening here. Um, and that really has an impact, I think.

[00:33:11] Marc Stickdorn: Yeah. And I, I, I love that, like this, this value, a printed map and people standing in front of it working together.

[00:33:19] Marc Stickdorn: Yes, you can... The, the, the easy and fast ways to create the map, but it's not so much about the map, it's about what happens with the people in front of it. And I think that is the true magic we can bring into an organization in aligning people and using that also as a, as a research opportunity to give space to people who usually are not asked, and they have such a deep knowledge about customer experience, like people working in frontline with, uh, customers.

[00:33:52] Marc Stickdorn: Often customer pain points are rooted in employee pain points, and to fix it, we need to fix both sides, right?

[00:33:59] Neil Williams: Yeah, exactly. I think the, uh, the, the crew experience is a really good example. So what happens in the galley impacts how they serve to customers withi- within, within the aircraft as well. So if we want to improve the experience for the customer, we need to think about how we can em- empower and enable the, uh, crew experience as well within the galley.

[00:34:20] Neil Williams: So really, really interesting dynamic going on there. But, uh, I mean, this plays out across the organization. It's not just directly with crew, it's also, uh, across different, uh, domains within the organization that aren't necessarily even frontline, but they have a important role to play in enabling that experience and un- unearthing all of these challenges that they face can actually unlock the customer experience, uh, uh, across the board as well.

[00:34:49] Marc Stickdorn: I have a final question to you. You, you've, you, you've been working with different parts of the organization, different teams, and, uh, like, you're, you're scaling it team by team. What is the reason why teams buy into this? If they, if they see value in it and, and they say, "Yes, we're, we, we're on board," what, why?

[00:35:11] Marc Stickdorn: What, what is this value they are seeing?

[00:35:16] Neil Williams: I think critic- critically this comes back to teams understanding the, the problems. They're not-- They're aware of the problems, but they're not necessarily able to influence them. Um, but by seeing them mapped across the journey, that horizontal experience, and also the verticality too, but seeing that experience of the customer journey as a whole enables them to make the connection and, and understand how they might be able to influence across, across the organization.

[00:35:46] Neil Williams: So it's, it's really giving exposure to people, um, and, um, it's visualization at the end of the day. It really is. It's, it's, it's very, very simple. We spend so much time focused on presentations and spreadsheets and, and delivery, um, and, and the journey management piece gives people a different perspective and an opportunity to have a voice, uh, and share more broadly across the organization in a way that they really, really want to and haven't necessarily had the opportunity to in the past.

[00:36:20] Marc Stickdorn: I love that. And for those people who are right now looking at this and they think, "Well, we're interested, we wanna get started," what are your basic tips? If someone wants to get started, what, what are the first thing they should be doing?

[00:36:41] Neil Williams: Okay. Well, this is gonna depend on the organization that they work with. Um, really, really does depend on that. I think it's finding, um, g- get started somewhere. Um, and I've told you the story before, Marc, in that when we kicked this off, I got a POC going, and it was just, "Okay, let's try this and see, see how it goes."

[00:37:01] Neil Williams: And it took me three months to commit to building anything within the platform. Um, I was sketching things out and trying to figure out the taxonomy and the build, which I think is important, but you need to get something down, and you need to start working through. Um, it's finding allies and seeing where interest lies within the organization.

[00:37:21] Neil Williams: So is it on the operational level? Is it gonna be helping a particular team that you work with around, uh, better prioritization within, uh, a specific detailed journey experience? Or is it aligning at a higher level? I mean, I, I'm fortunate enough to, working in a strategy team, to have a bit of influence across teams, but not everyone's gonna have that.

[00:37:45] Neil Williams: So I think it's framing it around the area that you can have an impact. Um, and we're doing this really bottom up, uh, until we can scale and get, um, more influence, and I think that's also probably the right way to go. I, I think unless you're, uh, getting a top, really top-down directive to build this out in a team and everything else, but then the pressure would be huge.

[00:38:11] Neil Williams: And I think it's kind of nice to sail below the radar a little bit to start to build this, to have time to build out the taxonomy and to figure it out as you go 'cause everyone's gonna have to do that. Each case is different. Each organization's different. So you need to kind of find your way, uh, build it, adapt it, and that's the beautiful thing about these things.

[00:38:30] Neil Williams: You can keep adapting and changing, and you need to keep people's mindset in that, in that way of thinking too. That this isn't fixed. We can adapt it. We can modify it, but let's try and lock down what we can. Works? Great. Let's keep it. Uh, we can tweak it. We can adapt it. And just keeping, keeping things going and keeping things working, building more allies, building more connections, building, um, more, m- more collaboration essentially, uh, around how that, that builds out.

[00:39:05] Marc Stickdorn: I think this is such an important tip. Like, you don't need to start with the whole framework you showed, with the atlas and four different levels and so on. You can start anywhere, anywhere where you want a change happen or where you see there's a pain point, or where you can have control over because it's in, within your team and you can have a fast impact, build a fast first case study.

[00:39:30] Marc Stickdorn: I think that is great because the rest, no matter how good you plan it, I saw every team that started over-planning it and starting with the framework. After a year t- year or so, they changed it because they realized, nah, we didn't have the knowledge at that time to plan it, and it... You need to, you need to adapt while you go.

[00:39:51] Marc Stickdorn: So that is fantastic. Thanks for sharing.

[00:39:57] Neil Williams: It's a learning journey, definitely, definitely, for, for me, for the organization, um, and I think for the industry as well.

[00:40:02] Marc Stickdorn: Absolutely. Great. Neil, is there anything we did not cover, anything you would like to share where you say, "That is important, and, uh, and I didn't have the chance to talk about this"?

[00:40:16] Neil Williams: I could talk for hours on this, but probably better not. Uh, no, I think we've covered a lot of ground already. Um, yeah, I think this is an amazing time, I think, to be working in, in journey management. Um, with the technology shift, it's an enablement. We need to think about it like that. Uh, we don't let go of the work that needs to be done in parallel to this, uh, accelerated technology-driven, um, way of mapping.

[00:40:48] Neil Williams: We need to stay in control of it, um, use it where it works, um, and then keep the human side of this again back to bringing these things into, in front of people and getting people engaged. I think that we can spend more time on that, less time, I think, on the process, uh, which I think is a good thing. Uh, it's a great time to be doing this, I think.

[00:41:10] Neil Williams: Really, really interesting.

[00:41:13] Marc Stickdorn: Brilliant, and thank you so much for being so open and share at different events all over the world and, and sharing your perspective, helping others to get started and progress on their learning journey. So thanks for doing that.

[00:41:26] Neil Williams: Yeah. Good to talk to you, Marc, as always.

[00:41:31] Marc Stickdorn: Thanks for having you, and I'm, I'm happy to invite you back and maybe talk more in detail about how you use AI in this work as well 'cause I know you just did a talk on that in Singapore.

[00:41:41] Marc Stickdorn: But let's keep that for a separate conversation. Neil, thank you so much for joining me today. That was fantastic.

[00:41:50] Neil Williams: Thanks, Marc. Cheers.