7 do’s and don’ts for co-creation

do’s + don’ts for co-creation7[stop passing around files and start actually making things with people]

@sdgarguilo @theonlypinaki

Let’s be real: co-creation is not

a new concept.

creepy title? maybe.

written in 1936

still a bestseller

“People support a world they help create.”

—DALE CARNEGIE

We might call it different things.

Crowdsourcing Open Innovation

Open Source Co-creation Ambassador

Advocacy

But it all comes down to this:

Producing something better and faster than you could have on your own.

Let’s look at a few examples.

Fisher Price® Little People® have been around for a long time.

Creating a new little person cost the company up to $200,000 and took months and months.

(market research, test groups, prototypes, etc.)

Until somebody at the company had the idea to just ask customers which new characters

they’d like to see. And then they made those.

This new process took less than 4 weeks, cost less than $10,000, and it involved the community of people who love Little People®.

For years Proctor & Gamble was the company that made all different kinds of goop.

By inviting millions of people into their R&D process, things like Mr. Clean® Car Washes…

…and Tide® Dry Cleaners are now a thing. They’re not just making goop, they’re building experiences.

In the mid-90s, Microsoft spent millions to create the world’s best digital encyclopedia — hiring writers, professors, and project managers to build it.

(And you might remember the CD-ROMs that it came on. )

At the same time a guy in his boxer shorts sat at his computer and said,

“I want to create a great encyclopedia. Anyone want to help me?”

And that is Wikipedia.

That is co-creation.

research

review

develop

revise

Historical way of producing things

And this is what it looks like today.

• We meet to talk about what we’re going to do.

• We meet to talk about what we’re going to do.• We go off and work in our vacuum.

• We meet to talk about what we’re going to do.• We go off and work in our vacuum.• We come back to another meeting

to review and get feedback.

• We meet to talk about what we’re going to do.• We go off and work in our vacuum.• We come back to another meeting

to review and get feedback.• We go back to our vacuum, complain,

then work to revise.

• We meet to talk about what we’re going to do.• We go off and work in our vacuum.• We come back to another meeting

to review and get feedback.• We go back to our vacuum, complain,

then work to revise.• We do it again and again and again.

• We meet to talk about what we’re going to do.• We go off and work in our vacuum.• We come back to another meeting

to review and get feedback.• We go back to our vacuum, complain,

then work to revise.• We do it again and again and again.• Ultimately we spend a lot of time to create

something that’s “meh.”

Co-creation gets you to market faster, reduces the knowledge gap between people, and allows everyone to take and feel ownership.

Getting your mind right. Questions to ask yourself:

Am I ready to put it out there?

Am I ready for honest feedback?

How will I handle criticism?

Am I ready to push people to put themselves out there?

Can I manage and sometimes instigate conflict?

Am I ready to step outside of my comfort zone?

How far am I willing to go for it?

Am I ready to un-learn or re-learn?

Know your why + articulate an inspired mission.

1

Engineers use a technique called Root Cause Analysis to get to their why.

Engineers use a technique called Root Cause Analysis to get to their why.

First, ask yourself: “What is the problem that needs to be solved?”

Engineers use a technique called Root Cause Analysis to get to their why.

First, ask yourself: “What is the problem that needs to be solved?”

Then ask: “Why does this problem need to be solved?”

Engineers use a technique called Root Cause Analysis to get to their why.

First, ask yourself: “What is the problem that needs to be solved?”

Then ask: “Why does this problem need to be solved?”

When you have an answer, ask why again.

Engineers use a technique called Root Cause Analysis to get to their why.

First, ask yourself: “What is the problem that needs to be solved?”

Then ask: “Why does this problem need to be solved?”

When you have an answer, ask why again.

And again.

Engineers use a technique called Root Cause Analysis to get to their why.

First, ask yourself: “What is the problem that needs to be solved?”

Then ask: “Why does this problem need to be solved?”

When you have an answer, ask why again.

And again.

Do this at least 5 times.

Simon Sinek’s TED Talk “How great leaders inspire action” does a beautiful job of explaining why you should start with why. Watch it here: bit.do/startwithwhy

“People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.”

—SIMON SINEK

Take extreme ownership.

2

Mindsets for yourself:

By any means necessary.

Whatever it takes.

Never give up.

Mindsets for your team:

Choose the right people.

Let them know what you expect.

Let them leave if they want to.

Bring together the right people.

3

Two Pizza Rule:

If a team can’t be fed by two pizzas then it’s too big.

—JEFF BEZOS, Amazon

diverse skills

diverse experience

diverse personalities

Intentionally cast roles with variety.

critic analyst logical negative

emotions hunches intuition gut feelings

facts neutral objective information

cool agenda process organizer overview decision

sunshine optimism logical positive

creative growth possibilities ideas

diverse personalities

We like the Six Thinking Hats concept designed by Edward de Bono. Look for these traits in the room and fill gaps where needed.

Facilitate the conversation.

4

Facilitation is the most underrated skill that people bring into any creation process.

Be the custodian of the conversation.

You (ideally) can’t be a participant.

Be intentional. More people = more planning.

25+ people means you need to plan down to the second.

Be childishly curious. Questions are your best tool. Think like a child and follow your own curiosity.

Probe for deep answers.

Don’t have a specific planned outcome.

It’s not about your ideas or agendas. Go in with a discovery mindset.

Maintain open dialogue and candor.

Do not be averse to conflict. This is not the place for diplomacy. Create an atmosphere

that invites people to be bold.

Get the team on the same page first.

Everyone should know why they are there, what the scope and parameters are, and

what they are doing vs. not doing.

Use energy to activate their brains.

The human brain is much more powerful when activated — get people

moving.

Get to ideas, agreement, and action. Without action, everything was a waste

of time. Write permission slips. Make sure everyone feels accountable.

Have a separate scribe.

You should not be worried about capturing information — focus

on drawing out more information.

5Use design thinking activities.

Activities are the foundationof how we as humans work together.

7 design thinking activities

Ask “What if?” questions:

What if an 8 year old had to do this?

What if the power went out?

What if you had to explain this to your grandmother?

What if we could teleport ourselves?

What if we could read his/her mind?

The Orange perspective

The Orange perspective Perspective activity:

Choose anything. Let’s say an orange. Ask everyone to write down words that come up in their minds when they see an orange. Then ask them to write down several words that their great-grandparents would come up with when they see an orange. Again with people who live in Florida. Again with the owner of an orange juice company. Again with a child. This exercise helps the team to break out of their own persona and start thinking and creating other personas.

The Medici Effect: intersection

The Medici Effect: intersection

Intersection exercises:

The Medici effect refers to how ideas in seemingly unrelated topics intersect.

Think of a goal: you want to create a better something. Find a bunch of random things. We tell people to go on a walk and take pictures. For each picture write down the characteristics of those pictures. Finally you start mashing characteristics and ideas together. This helps to gain inspiration from seemingly totally different and random things.

design a wallet exercise

design a wallet exercise

90-minute design thinking activity from Stanford’s D-school: learn more at bit.do/walletexercise

reversal thinking

reversal thinking

Reversal thinking:

Write down the characteristics of something related to your goal. Let’s say that you are trying to innovate on libraries. Some characteristics of libraries: libraries are quiet and libraries lend people books. Now let’s reverse those assumptions. Libraries are not quiet and they are noisy. Libraries do not lend out books. Use some ‘what if’ thinking to create ideas. What if the library had people read books aloud for audiences? What if the library borrowed books from people and created a book borrowing exchange? This exercise helps you take your beliefs, turn them around, and re-build from there.

100 mph thinking

100 mph thinking

100 MPH thinking:

It’s easier to come up with 50 ideas than it is to come up with the 1 perfect idea. Use speed and quantity to generate lots of ideas and judge them yourself to see which are good. Here’s how it works. You toss out a goal. In our case, “We’re going to create a better bed.” Everyone comes up with 25 ideas in 3 minutes. The point is to get a lot in a little amount to time. They don’t have to be good ideas, they just have to be 25 ideas (or more). So most of the ideas will be bad. But there will be at least 2 – 5 good and interesting ideas worth looking into. Look over the ideas and circle the ones that are interesting. The idea here is to generate lots of ideas then use your judgement to weed out the bad ones.

180 degree thinking

180 degree thinking

180 degree thinking:

This exercise forces people to come up with many ideas in a short time frame with an interesting difference. In 180 degree thinking, you think of as many bad ideas as you can in a short amount of time. This takes our brains away from conventional thinking. Then take the bad ideas and one-by-one turn them into good ideas. Something crazy will happen in this exercise: you’ll come up with ideas that you never would have dreamed of conventionally.

6Maintain a bias towards action.

Fact:

Our day-to-day business culture contains a strong bias towards inaction.

If you take one thing away from this presentation:

Create a shift in your mindset to always err on the side of taking action. The mistakes you make will be worth it.

7Fail fast, fail cheap, succeed sooner.

Children are expected to make mistakes and fail.

School teaches us that we can’t and shouldn’t fail.

School teaches us that we can’t and shouldn’t fail. But failure is our best teacher.

Prototyping is the new research.Instead of getting things perfectly right, get things out there and see what happens.

Bonus (No. 8):

Make co-creation sustainable in your organization.

Create shared spaces.Let designers sit next to developers. Create spaces where diverse groups come together.

Flatten your structure.

Flatten your structure.

Tony Hsieh’s Desk — Zappos CEO

Flatten your structure.

Tony Hsieh’s Desk — Zappos CEO

Fred Mossler’s Desk — Zappos “No Title”

Integrate design thinking everyday.

Humans are born to think and create. Provoke those instincts in everyday meetings.

Pick yourself.You have picked yourself to read this presentation. You have picked yourself to focus on co-creation.

Take a moment right now to make an action plan. What are you going to do differently?

sdgarguilo theonlypinaki

STEVE GARGUILO

PINAKI KATHIARI