10 Takeaways for Co-Creating Public Services with Communities

I’ve just delivered my keynote speech at #ESSC2024 where my subject was “Coproducing Socially Inclusive Communities” for @ESNsocial on behalf of @Cwmpas. I shared key learning from our @Start Something Good project on how we bring #communities and #PublicServices together to cocreate fresh ideas for social change. Here are my 10 takeaways: –

1. You need to engage the right people. Understand why people want to engage (understand their self fulfilment or create a ‘tribe’ that they would like to follow). You also need to identify and gain the trust of Connectors (people who connect people), Mavens (people who absorb and share knowledge), and Salespeople (trusted individuals), if you want to create social movements at pace.
2. You need to create an environment that promotes equality and trust. People trust people over organisations. Meet on the community’s territory and meet as people, not as employees. Overall remember, communities are there to solve the over-arching problem alongside you, not to improve your service for you.
3. Create small, diverse, teams; have multiple teams of 5–8 people, with each person representing a different perspective (e.g 1xLived Experience, 1xService Provider, 1xAcademic, 1xPolicy Representative, 1xOutlier (for a completely fresh and independent perspective). Eliminate hierarchy and promote equality.
4. Share strengths. If you want to fix your challenge then you need the best tools. Every person will bring an entire different set of strengths to the next, therefore providing the team with an exponential number of strengths to find a solution. These strengths can be social (networks and connections), human (knowledge, experience, skills, abilities and passions), public (other public services that can add value), physical (physical items such as buildings, transport, or technology), and financial (finance you have access to).
5. Explore the challenge from different perspectives. Each team member explains the challenge from their perspective. This will probably be the first time these perspectives have been exchanged in such an intimate setting amongst the different stakeholders. This builds understanding and trust between the parties; two essential components for establishing coproduction.
6. Generate HUNDREDS of ideas. 1, 5, or even 10 proposed solutions are not good enough. Get each INDIVIDUAL to generate at least 10–15 ideas. Each TEAM should aim for at least 100 ideas. Then, as a collective, democratically reduce those ideas to 3 by categorising, refining, combining and repurposing those ideas before choosing one idea based on its desirability, feasibility, and viability.
7. Prototype your idea as a storyboard. Until then it’s “just words”. A storyboard will explore how the idea works in practice (from entry point to completion). It will also help better explain the idea to others.
8. Pitch your idea to the other tables. Tell them why you think it’s a good idea but also ask them for help with overcoming barriers and taking the idea forward. Make your pitches cooperative over competitive. After all, you are all on the same mission to solve a social problem.
9. With a number of tangents throughout the process (different strengths, different perspectives, different ideas, and the methodology in which those ideas are reduced), 99% of the time, each table will arrive at a different idea (created and scrutinised by those that care about it most). Can any of these ideas be combined to make them even more effective?
10. Every idea needs “glue” to keep them together. Decide on who or what will oversee momentum, action, and maintain an equal and reciprocal relationship between the stakeholders (is this a person, a committee, an independent party?)

Now go do it… co-create fresh ideas for social change. Good Luck!

Need help? Contact Start Something Good at paul.stepczak@cwmpas.coop or martin.downes@cwmpas.coop.

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