Examining facilitation methods and practices for co-creation

In complex undertakings, stakeholders seek to benefit from multidisciplinary thinking across various stakeholder groups towards common objectives (e.g. Hagy et al., 2017). While co-creation workshops are already intended to handle such considerations and provide a means to better address this challenge (e.g. Frow et al., 2015; Skarlatidou et al., 2019), there is more to the facilitated workshop than meets the eye. Overarching benefits of co-creation workshops are routinely published (e.g. Combrinck & Porter, 2021), as are analyses of the visual and physical artefacts used in such workshops (e.g. Heiss & Kokshagina, 2021). On the other hand, this study addresses the scarcity of research into the role of co-creation workshop facilitation in brokering cross-stakeholder interactions; specifically, design/facilitation factors and techniques that promote mutual co-creation in workshop environments (Graef et al., 2021). Co-creation workshops involve not just bringing diverse stakeholders together (Driessen & Hillebrand, 2012), but require early preparation and ad-hoc/on-the-go tactics to ensure conversations are evenly carried by all, and not biased towards the loudest voices or established hierarchies. Maintaining a workshop atmosphere that enables effective co-creation is a prevailing and significant challenge to facilitators (Mosely et al., 2018). However, the factors that go into preparing and facilitating a co-creation workshop approach are not thoroughly documented, and even less so published in the research community.

keywords: cco-creation; workshop; facilitation; multidisciplinary

• with: Stefan Lodewyckx (lead), Pauliina Mattila,, Kim Beasy, Amelia Iverson, David Mesa
• year: May 2022 – October 2022
• for: dfgn.r conference