Design for Collaboration
In order for modern democracies to thrive and face pressing and deep-rooted challenges head on, their public processes must be spaces in which diverse publics can meaningfully participate and work together.
Democracy is a group effort. A thriving democracy requires its citizens to be actively involved in shaping and creating it. Add to this that today’s democracies are home to some of the most diverse and complex groups of people to have ever lived together. These are communities with mixes of people like has never been seen before. How is it possible, then, for these people to join together and do democracies work?
The answer is that civic processes must be crafted with collaboration in mind in order for a diverse public to tackle democracy’s modern challenges. Collaboration involves both co-creating an understanding of the issues or problems at hand, and co-creating its solutions. As David Matthews writes, “we cannot even begin to agree on how we should act until we have a common definition of the problem, one that reflects an understanding of our own interests, the interests of others, and how the two diverge and converge.”
In the first phase of a collaborative public processes, each individual person helps build a collective understanding and definition of the challenges being faced. And each participant also shares their own personal experiences and history, because the reality is that not everyone sees or experiences the same problem the same way. These processes help build a group understanding and knowledge of the issues at hand. No one person or group understands all the facets of a problem perfectly.
After having defined and outlined the problems together, collaborative civic engagements articulate and form a shared purpose and direction, and work toward group decisions together. By building on collective inputs and knowledge, these processes work to create and shape a set of solutions together. And when those solutions have been shaped, defined, and agreed upon, collaborative
Ultimately, collaboration in the public space is about creating an opportunity for different people to work together. But this partnership isn’t a one-time deal. True participation and cooperation occurs through the imagining, planning, deciding, and implementing phases. To design for collaboration means to make it possible for the public, with all its differences, to identify and accomplish goals together through these phases, while still recognizing the differences that exist.
Collaborative civic processes are defined by inclusivity, and bring together people from different sectors and walks of life. This means including both community leaders and average citizens, men and women, adults and children, and people of all other stripes. If we want our democracies and societies to serve everyone well, there can be no other option.
How have you seen the power of design for collaboration? Share your story!
Originally published at themove.mit.edu on July 9, 2018.
