Co-Creation How-To’s

Design, Plan, and Execute Your Next Co-Creation Workshop

If you work in any discipline that intersects customer experience, chances are you’ve heard the term co-creation. In a similar fashion to design thinking, co-creation has become increasingly popular and has been widely adopted by companies as a generative tool to gather insights and ideas from customers/users.

So, What is Co-Creation?

Co-creation refers to the practice of inviting the customers/end users
of a product, service or experience into the design process, with the purpose of producing outcomes that will be of value to them and, in turn, the business.

Co-creation positions customers as subject matter experts and gives them the right tools to come up with ideal solutions for products, services and experiences that align with their needs and desires — helping businesses optimize existing experiences or come up with new ones that put their customer’s needs at the forefront.

While co-creation can take many forms and include different stakeholders (internal and external), its intended purpose is to bring the people that interact with an experience — be it analog or digital — into the center of the design process.

When to do a Co-Creation?

Like other research methodologies, co-creation has its time and place. Over the years I’ve found that a team’s openness to the co-creation process is crucial to its success. In my experience, co-creation is most effective in the following scenarios which are contingent on where business teams are in their project life-cycle:

Openness to discover
These are the early stages of an idea, when there’s still appetite for discovery and no concrete decisions have been made about the future of a product or service.

Openness to change
A product/service already exists, but there’s room (and acceptance) for change — even if it means turning the experience on its head.

Recently, we introduced co-creation to a new client, whom after much convincing agreed to give it a try. After a successful day of workshops the client said
“I didn’t understand why I need co-creation if I already have a product”.

This feedback was highly valuable and made me think of how to position the value of co-creation and its place in the design and product development process. While co-creation is a great way to discover new areas for innovation,
it’s also an excellent method for uncovering improvements to existing experiences. Many of the co-creation sessions I’ve led over the years have addressed the latter.

I. Designing Co-Creation Studies

1 | Choosing The Right Activities

The creative nature of co-creation can make it extremely tempting to add activities that are fun and engaging, but don’t necessarily align with the needs of the study.

As with any other research method, how you design your study will depend on the research objectives and what you’d like to get out the study. Make sure you spend some time breaking apart your objectives and formulating key questions that you want to answer.

These objectives and key questions should be your north star as you start thinking through the different activities for your co-creation workshop. It’s important to refer back to them frequently — asking yourself if the activities you’ve chosen will help answer those questions that’ll get you to the desired outcome.

Some classic co-creation activities may include:

• Ice-breakers
• Role playing
• Journey Mapping
• Ideal state ideation/brainstorming
• Rapid prototyping
• Prioritization Activities

Make sure that you have a realistic number of activities depending on the time you have for your workshop. I recommend no more than 5 activities in a two hour session.

2 | Designing the Right Flow

The flow of your sessions will also be important as it’ll directly impact participant interest and engagement.

I find that the go broad to go narrow approach is a good way
to approach co-creation, especially when you get to ideation activities. You want to spend some time understanding your participants, exploring the topic at hand broadly and establishing a comfortable space for ideation and creativity to flourish.

As covered later in “Moderating Creative Activities”, you want
to ensure that you set up a flow that eases participants into ideation and does not assume a certain level of comfort with the creative process. Start with activities that make sharing easy, such as mad libs and then move to more complex ideation activities such as ideal state journey mapping.

Be mindful of combining standing and seated activities to not exhaust participants. Be ready to accommodate participants with physical disabilities.

3 | Creating a Discussion Guide

Once you’ve narrowed down activities and figured out the flow,
it’s time to put it all on paper.

You may be familiar with discussion guides from other types of research you’ve conducted. A discussion guide is essentially a detailed script that will help both clients and moderators get a sense for how the sessions will be structured.

While some discussion guides can be as simple as a list of questions, in the case of co-creation your writing should mimic how you’ll be speaking with participants throughout the day. The more detailed, conversational and clear you can be, the more you’ll be able to see how the session will play out from the perspective of participants.

As a matter of fact, discussion guides can often serve as
a first dry run.

Writing in script form will also allow you to identify any potential issues with activities and flow.

Once you get into “facilitator mode”, it’s not uncommon that you’ll realize some activities are more difficult to explain to participants than they were when you were writing them down on a whiteboard. You may also find that things are not flowing as expected.

This is the perfect time to iterate. If activities are difficult for you, the designer, to explain, then chances are they’ll be difficult for participants to understand.

At this point you’ll may need to rethink if an activity is too complex or find a better way to set it up for participants. Running the activities by people who are not familiar with the session and gathering unbiased feedback is hugely valuable and (also) recommended.

4 | Recruiting Participants

Whether you’re doing recruitment yourself or using a partner to recruit participants, ensuring the right mix of profiles and screening criteria will have a huge impact on the success of your study.

When recruiting participants for group studies you’ll want to gather data on key user groups and those whom you’d like to learn more from (prospect users). While some studies will focus on a specific demographic such as millennials, others may want to understand the needs of a wider range of users.

Depending on the study’s objectives, you may choose to split groups by demographics such as age, or psychographic characteristics such as attitudes or motivations. However you choose to segment your co-creation groups, make sure you are clear on what you’re trying to learn from each group and the intent behind segmenting in a particular way.

II. Planning & Logistics

1 |Prep Materials

Once you’ve designed the research and the discussion guide/activities have the client’s final approval, it’s time to prep materials for the sessions. Some activities will require printing off-site, so time things accordingly so you’re not rushing last minute.

Sample Materials:

• Journey Mapping
• Prioritization Pyramid
• Storyboards
• What, Where, How Matrix

2 |Know the Physical Space

It’s crucial to get a sense for the space where you’ll conduct the sessions so you can plan the right setup and understand the resources available to you. In instances when you are not conducting co-creation sessions in house, ask the facility for photos or a floor plan of the room you are renting. You’ll need to know how much wall space you have (especially for breaking out in groups), what type of furniture will be in the room, how many mics and cameras there are and where they are located.

Most facilities will accommodate a “lounge setup” (couch and coffee table) if requested in advance. If possible, go look at the facility ahead of time.

3 |Do a Dry Run (or Two)

Make sure you do a full dry run prior to co-creation day. Invite your colleagues — ideally those who know nothing about the project to act as participants, and take them through all of the activities just as you would with participants the day of co-creation.

Going through the entire flow ahead of time can help you anticipate some of the issues participants might have during co-creation so you can course-correct. It’ll also help the moderators identify any gaps in the way they provide instructions, ask follow up questions or manage different types of participants.

4 |Send Attendees a Logistics Sheet

A week prior to co-creation, send an invite along with a logistics sheet to the clients that will be attending the co-creation sessions.

The logistics sheet should include:

• A brief sentence that highlights the overarching
objectives of the sessions.

• The schedule for the day (Groups, times and if
any breakfast and lunch will be offered).

• Streaming links and information for remote viewing.

• Facility address and check-in details.

• Nearby public transportation and parking information

• A contact number that clients can call in case
they need to.

III. Field Day

1 |Setup

Today is co-creation day and you’ll have a lot of things to manage — this includes setting up the environment for a successful workshop.

If you’re conducting the workshops in house, it’s highly recommendable that you set up all materials and activities the day before. If you are using an external facility, get there early (at least 1.5 hours before your first session) so you can set up before others arrive.

Make sure cameras and mics are working and that you are setting up activities within the camera’s frame. Check in with the facility technician and let him/her know what the flow will be and where the camera focus should be at different times.

2 |Facilitation Tips

The same research best practices that apply for IDIs and Usability Testing remain true for co-creation: Avoid leading participants, ask open ended questions, establish a rapport and make participants feel comfortable. Be friendly, professional and neutral.

However, both the group format and creative nature of co-creations calls for some adjustments and preparation to deal with the different dynamics at play.

Tips for this section will address 2 main areas:

• Facilitating Creative Activities

• Managing personality types

1 |Facilitating Creative Activities

As advocates for human centered design, we know that everyone can be creative. However, not everyone feels comfortable doing creative activities or sharing their ideas with others.

Many participants that come to co-creation have likely participated in market research or traditional focus groups and might expect a more verbal discussion/contribution. Creative, hands-on activities can be intimidating for many and met with reluctance if expectations are not managed properly.

As a facilitator, your goal is to establish a safe space for creativity and sharing to happen, and it starts at the beginning of the session.

Depending on the size of your groups and type of activities you choose, consider having a co-facilitator so you can divide and conquer. I strongly recommend this approach, especially if you’ve designed breakout group activities.

Support, don’t ideate
When splitting into groups, each moderator should support one group. Make sure you’re there to ask questions that will spark discussion and will help guide participants through the activities. Refrain from ideating on behalf of participants as you’ll be bringing your own biases into the session. Let them know it’s ok to like different ideas (they don’t have to agree on everything) and ask them to write all of their ideas down.

Be ready to step in
Encourage participants to write or sketch out their ideas, but be prepared to step in and jot down their ideas if you have more passive participants.

Be aware and mindful of participants with disabilities. Offer them a seat by the group and let them know you’d be happy to transcribe their ideas during standing activities.

Take pictures
Remember to share documenting duties with your co-facilitator and take pictures of participants in action. Align on these duties prior to the sessions.

Listen to ideation discussions

Discussions while participants are ideating are key moments of experience sharing and insight. Listen and write down any standout comments and probe as needed. Make sure, however, that participants stay on track.

Keep track of time
It’s easy to go over time during co-creation, which is why moderators should share timekeeping duties. Make sure that you leave enough time for presentations and be ready to shift minutes from one activity to the
other as needed. If you are running out of time, ask participants if they can stay a few extra minutes.

Use your best judgement and flow with the session.

Have dedicated time for presentations
Group discussions are hard to follow from the observation room
so having a dedicated time for teams to present their ideas is really important. Make sure you leave enough time for groups to present and get feedback from others.

Avoiding groupthink

Groupthink relates to the action of making decisions together which can lead to discounting and misrepresenting individual preferences. This can consequently muddy the results of your study. To ensure that all individual needs are taken into account:

• Remind participants that it’s ok to have different likes and
opinions. You’re not trying to reach a consensus.

• Actively listen to conversations to identify when participants are
conforming to others’ preferences, and ask “what do you think…
how would you do it differently?”

• Pay close attention to disengaged participants and ask them
directly for their thoughts and opinions.

• Make sure everyone has a voice and space for sharing.
As a facilitator this should be a priority!

2 | Managing Different Personality Types

The quiet or disengaged participant
While these two types of participants have different motives for not participating — perhaps they’re shy, maybe they’re not interested in the topic — as a moderator you should try to get input from all participants. Gently nudge quiet participants by asking them questions in a direct yet kind way, such as “I’m curious to hear, what was your experience?” and giving them a safe space to answer.

The over-participator
Some participants get really into the topic and have no problem sharing their opinions. While this can be really helpful, it can overshadow the rest of the group and leave others with no time to share. Thank them for their input and shift your attention to others asking for their input as well. You don’t want to discourage their enthusiasm but you want to be mindful of time and getting to know the rest of the group.

IV. Client Interaction

As a facilitator, being “on” for both participants and clients can be quite taxing — especially during a long day of sessions. Managing client expectations will be key to succeeding at both and transitioning your conversations smoothly from participants to clients.

Many of our day-to-day clients come to co-creation with their extended team. This may also include teams of other agencies they partner with for marketing, design, etc.

While most clients will watch the sessions from the observation room, we often invite 1 or 2 clients to be in the room with us so they can better follow the activities and discussions. It’s important to agree on what their level of participation will be (i.e. Is it ok to ask questions to participants directly?) before the session starts.

Post-Session Checklist

Invite the client in for a quick debrief and review of the artifacts from the session. Try to keep this brief since you’ll need to set up for the next session.

Make sure you take pictures of every activity, collect all worksheets and canvases and label them with participant and/or group names.

Check in with the clients in the observation room while someone from your team starts setting up for the next session.

Reflect, Learn, Iterate

Designing, planning and executing co-creation sessions should be a fun process from which you’ll gather many learnings. After your workshops, make sure you take some time to reflect on what went well and what can be improved for your next co-creation.

As with any design process, defining your style and approach to co-creation will be an iterative process that will require lots of practice and (possibly) some failed attempts. Hopefully this guide gives you a good starting point as you dive into this messy yet extremely rewarding process.