A service engineering method for knowledge-intense person-oriented services

Knowledge-intense, person-oriented services (KIPOs), predominately existent in sectors like health care or education, are of high economic relevance in terms of market size and growth, yet they are laggards in terms of realization of IT potentials. This thesis proposes the EPOS method for the systematic design of IT-supported person-oriented services as its main contribution. It contributes to the scientific body of knowledge with empirical results of several case studies, which indicate that the method is applicable and effective. EPOS synthesizes methods from service engineering, service design and interaction design. By extending service blueprinting and developing principles and guidelines for analyzing and informing design, EPOS guides the engineer through five phases, starting from studying the problem domain via analysis and redesign of the service to the design of new ITenabled service offerings. EPOS further uses established methods intentionally in different contexts and in different ways, leading to a transfer of techniques.