Real-Life Lessons in Co-Creation for Designers

By Hannah Baker

Dear Reader,

Have you ever faced the challenge of aligning a diverse team to create a unified vision?

It's a common struggle for designers who aim to create products that resonate deeply with their users and business goals.

Recently, I embarked on such a journey with the Guild of Working Designers to refresh our community approach. Today, I will provide an in-depth look at our process, challenges, and insights, showcasing how these principles can also benefit you when working with your users or stakeholders.

The Co-Creation Process

Our journey began with a simple yet powerful idea: to empower our community to shape its future. I wanted to create a space where designers could directly influence the direction of our community, ensuring that their diverse voices and ideas were at the forefront.

Leaning into a co-creation process and bringing the community on board was an obvious choice.

Structure for Co-Creation

To turn this vision into reality, I looked for inspiration. Two key frameworks guided us:

1. ​Liz Sanders' Generative Research and Co-Design: This approach involves engaging participants in creative activities to express their thoughts and aspirations using a visual toolbox. Sanders' method includes observing the present, recalling and reflecting on the past, and imagining the future. Making together can uncover people's desires, not just their thoughts or actions.
2. Liberating Structures: Purpose to Practice: This framework provided a structured approach for our workshops, guiding us from defining our purpose to establishing our practices and community structure.

Workshop Journey

Our workshops unfolded in a series of engaging sessions:

1. Workshop 1: Collective Dreaming: We kicked off with a large community meetup. Inspired by Sanders' approach, participants shared their dreams for the future through collaborative digital collages. This session set a strong foundation for the rest of our journey.
2. Workshop 2: Purpose and Participants: With insights from the first workshop, we started to explore our community's purpose and participants.
3. Workshop 3: Purpose and Values: We continued to align on our purpose and core values, using the gradient of agreement to gauge consensus.
4. Workshop 4: Practices: We finalized our purpose, and from there, we brainstormed different activities and initiatives that would drive this purpose forward.
5. Workshop 5: Practices and Structure: We continued with practices around the themes of "welcome," "educate," and "connect." Afterward, we creatively mapped out a potential leadership structure for our community.

Decision-Making and Adjustments

Throughout the journey, flexibility was key. We often found that our initial plans needed adjustment.

For example, the purpose phase took longer than expected, leading us to add another workshop. This iterative approach allowed us to remain responsive to the group's needs.

Using Sam Kaner's Gradient of Agreement tool, we visualized where each participant stood on various issues, enabling more nuanced decision-making. This method helped us move closer to consensus without forcing binary choices.

Making decisions in the moment, especially when moving from concept brainstorming to refinement, proved challenging.

One effective strategy was to split the divergent and convergent thinking phases across different sessions. This approach gave participants time to reflect and return with fresh insights, leading to more thoughtful outcomes.

As a facilitator, I synthesized and reformatted the information between workshops, presenting it in a new format to see if it resonated with the group.

Practical Takeaways for Designers

You might wonder, "Why does this matter to me?" Here are some key takeaways you can use next time you want to co-create.

1. Embrace Flexibility in Processes: Adaptability is crucial. Be prepared to modify your planned structures based on real-time feedback and evolving needs. This ensures the process remains relevant and engaging for all participants.
2. Utilize Diverse Decision-Making Tools: Techniques like the gradient of agreement can help visualize consensus and make more nuanced decisions. Avoid binary choices to capture a broader range of opinions and insights.
3. Separate Divergent and Convergent Thinking: Splitting these phases across different sessions allows participants to transition between brainstorming and decision-making more effectively. This approach provides time for reflection and synthesis, leading to more thoughtful outcomes.

Discussions about co-creation often remain theoretical. I've been known to approach it this way in the past. But this journey was about putting theory into practice, providing a real-life example of what co-creation looks like. Through this recap, I aim to illustrate the tangible steps, adjustments, and learnings that make co-creation valuable.

Your input is needed!

As I plan to expand this into a more detailed article, I want to hear from you.

Are you interested in learning more about each workshop's specific activities and discussions? Are you curious about the role of a facilitator and what I would do differently now? Are you interested in the actions taken between workshops or how this process translated into the community's next steps?

Your feedback will help me focus on the topics that matter most to you. Please reply to this email and share your thoughts and questions.

I would like to give a huge thanks for the continued support and participation of a fantastic group of participants from the Guild.

We are shaping a vibrant future for our design community.

If you're not already part of our community, we invite you to join us and contribute to its future—apply now."

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Until next time!

Hannah Baker ​Facilitator & Co-Founder ​The Fountain Institute ​

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