Love these insights, especially "break large groups into smaller ones". It is such an important one. Coming from education, individual > pair > small group > big group thinking is an essential way to scaffold the co-creation process that we work to consensus after giving people time to think on their own. To me, group thinking isn't as valuable when it comes to ideation, it often becomes the herd mentality that doesn't give way to the other smaller voices in the room that you talk about. It's often misunderstood when designing these co-creation sessions to "get to the answer quicker".
My favourite part of design thinking workshops is always the ways the team comes together, often from very different, siloed part of the business, to agree and align on a vision as one, often never meeting in person before. If I don't get a "wow, look what we did together" reaction, I've missed the mark.
Thank you for this! I feel the same way about outcomes - as in if people don’t feel they have landed somewhere truly value adding I’ll think I’ve not delivered. In my experience most people are not used to co-creation so they tend to be quite impressed by what they achieve!
This is such an interesting read. Especially loved this line "Treating co-creation as consensus: Agreement isn’t the goal. Clarity is. Tension is part of the process, and you should capture this accurately."
Thank you! Lots of people feel like they’ve failed if there isn’t consensus, but the reality is that conflict is part of our lives - professional and personal.
Fantastic article! I wanted to chime in with a technique I found particularly helpful - brain writing or, as I call it, pre-thinking. Give attendees a heads up on the topic and ask them to come prepared with some starter thoughts. Particularly helpful for the introverts among us, or the people who think better on paper.
Love these insights, especially "break large groups into smaller ones". It is such an important one. Coming from education, individual > pair > small group > big group thinking is an essential way to scaffold the co-creation process that we work to consensus after giving people time to think on their own. To me, group thinking isn't as valuable when it comes to ideation, it often becomes the herd mentality that doesn't give way to the other smaller voices in the room that you talk about. It's often misunderstood when designing these co-creation sessions to "get to the answer quicker".
My favourite part of design thinking workshops is always the ways the team comes together, often from very different, siloed part of the business, to agree and align on a vision as one, often never meeting in person before. If I don't get a "wow, look what we did together" reaction, I've missed the mark.
Thank you for this! I feel the same way about outcomes - as in if people don’t feel they have landed somewhere truly value adding I’ll think I’ve not delivered. In my experience most people are not used to co-creation so they tend to be quite impressed by what they achieve!
lol yes. That lovely little magic trick that is facilitated thinking ✨🪄
This is such an interesting read. Especially loved this line "Treating co-creation as consensus: Agreement isn’t the goal. Clarity is. Tension is part of the process, and you should capture this accurately."
Thank you! Lots of people feel like they’ve failed if there isn’t consensus, but the reality is that conflict is part of our lives - professional and personal.
Exactly! It’s better to “fight” and argue on pros / cons of different options first, than to have consensus and dive directly into wrong direction.
Fantastic article! I wanted to chime in with a technique I found particularly helpful - brain writing or, as I call it, pre-thinking. Give attendees a heads up on the topic and ask them to come prepared with some starter thoughts. Particularly helpful for the introverts among us, or the people who think better on paper.
Thanks! That’s a nice addition, I’ll keep it in mind for my next even 👌🏼