2.5. Service Relationships

💡 First Principle: This topic names the parties and the bonds between them — who's involved in a service relationship and how closely they work — because value co-creation is fundamentally relational, and you can't reason about it without naming the relationships.

Why care: the same service delivered through a distant, transactional relationship versus a close, collaborative one produces very different value. Naming relationship types and party roles is what lets an organization choose the right kind of relationship for the stakes involved. The mental model: a spectrum from arm's-length (basic) to deeply intertwined (collaborative), and a cast of roles that can overlap in one person or split across many.

⚠️ Common Misconception: That sponsor, customer, and user are interchangeable labels. They're distinct roles — one funds, one defines requirements and owns outcomes, one actually uses the service — even when a single person plays all three.