Growing into Co-Design 🌿
It turns out that authentic collaboration takes time, trust, and a developmental lens.
Systems Design Lab helps social sector organizations use systems thinking and human-centered design to collaborate, innovate, and amplify their community impact. We work with technical tools, but we focus most on people. We are really good at bringing together diverse perspectives to make radical changes that lead to radical social change.
TL;DR // True co-design isn’t a quick fix; it’s a developmental practice rooted in transparency, mutual decision-making, and shared power. This reflection examines the distinction between meaningful and token engagement, the reasons behind inauthentic co-design, and how we can help organizations evolve into genuine collaboration.
In our last post, I shared a set of field-tested systems design practices we use at SDL to create meaningful, sustainable change:
Attend to the human side of change by cultivating collaboration and trust
Build alliances and shared understandings across silos
Interweave tools and bodies of knowledge to strengthen practice
Set up enduring practices for continuous innovation
These first two practices require trust and relationship intelligence. In the complex space of systems change, trusting the people means actively centering users, such as students, patients, and communities, as genuine collaborators. In a national context where the voices of many communities are actively being suppressed, I believe that it’s at the local level that we can work to ensure our systems are designed to serve everyone. This leads me to something I’ve been thinking about lately: What does true community-level collaboration look like in practice?
Much of the work we do at SDL involves supporting organizations that strive to transition from consulting to collaborating with communities. We refer to our approach as co-design, which involves transforming the relationships between professionals and communities from transactional interactions into equitable partnerships grounded in mutual respect, learning, and shared power (McKercher, 2020).
While social sector folks often gather feedback or input from the communities they serve — they “consult” them — these approaches can be experienced as extractive. We find co-design alluring because it moves us along the continuum; it requires genuinely sharing power and decision-making authority with those who live and interact with the systems on a daily basis. According to Beyond Sticky Notes, co-design includes:
Sharing power explicitly and transparently;
Prioritizing relationships and trust-building;
Employing participatory methods that engage all voices meaningfully;
Building the capability of all participants through mutual learning; and
Ensuring decisions are co-created rather than merely consulted.
My research into networks and leadership of collective action illustrates that systems thrive when users are shifted from the margins to the center. For example, in education, this involves teachers collaborating to identify problems by analyzing data, designing interventions, testing them, collecting data on the results, and then reflecting, iterating, and collectively organizing to scale what works. This genuine participation disrupts traditional hierarchical models, placing practitioners alongside researchers, administrators, and policymakers in mutually beneficial relationships. This means that positional leaders and academic “experts” must sit alongside the folks who deal with daily realities in communities and grapple together with how their ideas about interventions might need to be amended. It means that we have to learn to respect the view of the system that we each have.
You might be thinking, 'This all sounds great, Emma!' Let’s all go co-design!
Here’s the challenge: In my experience, sometimes we claim co-design when we are just consulting or involving. For example, seeking feedback on something (without engaging community members in grappling with the context, challenge, and available data) is a form of tokenization. Their involvement is more about checking a box about user participation rather than shifting power to create the best possible change.
Here’s a side-by-side I’ve been noodling on:
You can really see some of the challenges in this side-by-side, especially as it relates to time. Based on my experience as a facilitator and organizer, I have some observations about complexities that keep us from truly co-designing:
To truly harness the potential of co-design, we must embrace the principle that "there is no co-designing without co-deciding" (McKercher, 2020). This involves creating meaningful roles for participants at every stage, from problem identification to implementation and evaluation, ensuring that power dynamics are transparent and intentionally balanced. This allows people with different roles to “hold the thread” of the design effort. And, it can feel like herding cats. It’s time-consuming to bring people together and keep them at the table, and sometimes we simply don't have the time for that.
When we do co-decide, we must negotiate interests. This means that conflict may arise, and a group must have mutual respect, trust, and a willingness to persist. In many instances, this requires finding (or growing!) skilled facilitators who are comfortable leaning into moments of tension and holding people in this process. This could require resources that an effort just doesn’t have.
Even when our intentions to co-design are there, organizational or environmental pressures may get in the way. In the social sector, we often work under the tyranny of the urgent. Sometimes, leaders themselves lose the thread of the design effort and, with it, the understanding of its timeline. Going slow (organizing humans, developing relationships, and bringing people along) to go fast (creating really effective designs) often runs in opposition to characteristics of white supremacy work culture — of which we are all enmeshed.
Why does all of this matter?
I worry that when we use the phrase 'co-design' without being mindful of how engaged the community actually is, we are devaluing the approach. We risk reducing co-design to a sexy buzzword rather than a meaningful practice.
I’m starting to think that we should all be radically honest with ourselves about the approach we’re taking. It’s possible to trust the people as a leader, but not yet be ready for co-design as an organization.
One of our clients recently shared a tool called the Spectrum of Community Engagement to Ownership, developed by Facilitating Power, which outlines community collaboration across developmental stages from inform to deference. I think this could be really useful for us (designers/facilitators/conveners) if we accept the challenge of being honest about our approach.
When I consider how to design for these complexities, I find the lens of developmental phases particularly compelling; it takes practice for leaders to truly embrace slowing down, resourcing, and holding steady. This needs to occur at multiple organizational levels, from those leading the day-to-day co-design to senior leadership. Organizations may need to grow into co-design, and maybe it’s the role of the facilitator not only to facilitate the community collaboration itself but also the organization’s journey toward engaging more deeply with the community as a standard of care.
» This week we are immersed in a convening at Quaker retreat Pendle Hill. The birds are singing; the dogwoods are blooming; and we are resting, dreaming, and building together. I’m revisiting Cal Newport’s Deep Work as I ponder the importance of creating a sanctuary for focusing and going deep.
» Elise Granata’s take over on Group Hug on how our adaptations in emergency situations can actually be breakthroughs if we organize ourselves to learn from them, talk about them, and adapt our practice for the long-term.
» Here in the Northern Hemisphere, the Summer Solstice is this week. It’s a time of abundant energy, long days, and celebration. This year, I’m testing out resetting all my personal routines (exercise, life admin, etc) on a seasonal cadence, so as I wind down the week I’ll be thinking about how to harness this environmental energy to carry me forward toward autumn. I’d love to hear if you have any rituals for Summer Solstice!
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