Designing for Impact: How to Sidestep Common Pitfalls in Outcomes-Based Services

In public health and healthcare, making a real impact goes beyond good intentions—it’s about crafting services that resonate deeply with the people who use them. You’ve got to think ahead, move fast, and stay flexible. At Elephant Impact, we believe in a human-centered approach to developing tech-enabled services that prioritize health outcomes and sustainability. It’s about building something that matters, that grows, and that lasts.

The path to impactful services is riddled with challenges, but with foresight and a human-centered approach, you can minimize the obstacles to focus your attention and efforts on where they matter most. Here are some common pitfalls and how to dodge them on your journey to delivering outcomes-based services.

1. Define Clear Outcomes

Pitfall: Diving into service design without crystal-clear outcomes is like setting sail in a direction without a specific destination. It’s easy to veer off course, wasting time and resources on things that don’t impact your outcomes.

Avoid It: Start with your North Star—what are the outcomes you want to achieve? Engage stakeholders early—patients, health providers, community members, and partners—to co-create a vision of success. Use theory of change tools, logic models, and impact maps. Remember, clarity on outcomes drives everything else.

2. Elevate the End-User's Voice

Pitfall: It’s tempting to make assumptions about what your clients need based on expertise or data alone. However, failing to incorporate the voices of the people directly impacted can lead to services that miss the mark or even exacerbate existing issues.

Avoid It: Get up close and personal with your end-users. Interview them, shadow them, observe their behaviors, and understand their pain points. Use empathy maps, personas, and rapid prototyping to capture their needs, understand what is most important to them, and iteratively refine your service.

3. Simplify the Service Design

Pitfall: Complexity can be a barrier to adoption, especially when working with diverse user groups and cross-functional parts of your organization. Too much complexity breeds confusion, which leads to frustration, and ultimately, failure to deliver the intended outcomes.

Avoid It: Simplify wherever possible. Focus on what truly drives outcomes and strip away the rest. Use journey mapping to identify pain points and streamline processes. Aim for services that are intuitive and easy to use.

4. Context is Critical

Pitfall: Ignoring the broader context—the cultural, social, economic, and environmental factors that shape a service’s reality—can cause even the most well-designed services to fall flat.

Avoid It: Understand the environment in which your service will operate. Engage with stakeholders to uncover the nuances of the setting, and tailor your approach accordingly. The more your service reflects its context, the more they will resonate and succeed.

5. Embrace Continuous Learning

Pitfall: Even the best-designed services will encounter unforeseen challenges. Thinking of your service as a finished product rather than a work in progress risks falling behind or becoming irrelevant as the needs of the end-users evolve.

Avoid It: Foster a culture of continuous learning and adaptation. Monitor your outcomes closely, collect feedback, and be prepared to pivot. Use agile methodologies to keep your service relevant and impactful. Challenge your assumptions check in with stakeholders, keep evolving.

6. Align Stakeholders

Pitfall: Misaligned stakeholders can derail even the best-laid plans. When funders, service providers, and end-users have conflicting priorities or expectations, it is difficult to maintain momentum and achieve outcomes.

Avoid It: Foster stakeholder alignment from the start. Clearly communicate the service vision and objectives, set shared goals, and create structures that enable stakeholders to have a voice. When everyone feels invested in the journey, they’ll pull together to make it a success.

7. Plan for Scalability from the Start

Pitfall: Designing a service that works in a pilot phase is great; scaling it sustainably is another challenge. Many services fail to scale because scalability is not considered from the start.

Avoid It: Think about scalability from day one. How can your services expand and adapt? Where are there efficiencies to be gained? Plan for the resources—people, money, time—that will be needed for sustainable growth, and identify partners who can help amplify your impact.

Wrapping Up

Outcomes-based services are about making a meaningful impact. meaningful, measurable difference. But impact isn’t just a goal—it’s a process. By keeping your eye on these common pitfalls, you can steer clear of the traps and ensure that your service not only meet today’s needs but is ready to grow and evolve with the future. At Elephant Impact, we’re here to help you navigate the journey, keeping your focus on what really matters: creating services that make a meaningful, measurable difference. Let’s build a brighter future, together.