CoDesign

Overview
Si Guide Series
 Guide Overview
This guide has been created to help those involved in systems innovation better understand the
role of design and codesign as part of an overall systems change initiative. During the guide, we
outline different approaches to design to help you better understand terms like human-centered
design, service design, and systems design - how and why they are relevant in the context of
systems change.

During the guide, we also outline the critical steps in a design cycle - the process of developing
a new product, service, or initiative in a system. Finally, we look at why taking an experimental,
iterative approach to the development of new design initiatives is key to innovating and
adapting as we try to create something that is relevant and fit for the environment it will be
introduced into and, thus, more sustainable.
 Systems Thinking Systems Awareness Systems Theory Complexity Theory Adaptive Systems

Where am I?
This paper forms part of our
set of 20 guides covering all
things systems innovation System Inquiry Systems Modeling Mapping Actor Mapping Leverage Points

Transition Design Transition Models Furtures & Naratives System Gardening Co-Design

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Ecosystem Building Networks Value Network Scaling Change Systemic Evaluation
 Guide Contents

Design Approaches Design Cycles Facilitation Experimentation

We look at different Outline the stages in a Talk about facilitation and Look at experimental &
design approaches & design process & explain the important role it plays iterative approaches to
methodologies the Double Diamond in codesign developing a new initiative
 What is CoDesign?

Co-design describes a design methodology where the users of a system are actively involved in
its design & development. Co-design fundamentally changes the traditional, more linear,
designer-client relationship to one that creates space for a wide variety of actors to participate
in the creation of the product, service, or system at varying stages and to varying degrees.

In co-design, users are no longer seen as passive recipients of finished items but play an active
role as experts in their experience with the system. The role of the designer then shifts to being
more of a facilitator of the space and processes needed for a group of people to be productive in
shaping their desired outcomes for the system. An example of co-design might be a local
community working with architects, city planners, public administration, and local businesses to
redesign a public square.
 Example of Codesign
Codesign could be applied in any area. For example, the
development of new policies that involve citizen assemblies
would be a form of codesign. Here citizens, along with
subject experts, debate the issue at hand and develop
proposals for policies. The regeneration of a local
community within a city that actively involves the
participation of the residents in the discussion and
formulation of future changes would also be a form of
codesign.

Another good example might be the codesign of a learning

journey with students in a school. Instead of predefine the
curriculum, activities and process, these could be codesign
with the students at the start. The students could set a
shared objective for the learning and then decide which
modules they will do when and through what activities.
Inform Involve

Consult Co-Design

Levels of Participation
Based on the Ladder of Citizen Participation model
 Collaboration Engagement
Works to break down the Encourages actors to be
silos to enable collaboration agents of change & thus
between parties more actively contribute

Why
Codesign

Inclusive Ownership
It includes relevant parties & By engaging people in
thus ensures that different the process, the results are
voices are heard and the more likely to be sustained
outcome is relevant over time
 Design
Approaches
 What do we mean Design?
Herbert Simon once said, "Everyone - designs who devises a course
of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred
ones." Design is an intention to create order in the world, the
purposeful organization of elements to achieve a desired outcome.
Designing is the process we go through in conceiving an original
or improved solution to achieve a desired state, identifying the set
of factors and constraints within the given environment, and
developing a model for the arrangement of a set of elements to
achieve this desired end state.

The output of this process is the design, a model for how the parts
in a system are interrelated to deliver the overall functionality of
the entire system. The parts of a chair are arranged in such a way
as to deliver the overall functionality of an object of support; a
space rocket is designed for the propulsion required to deliver
transportation of people and objects to outer space.
 System Design
Systems design is a holistic approach to design that starts
with a consideration of how the parts interrelate to form a
functioning whole. It is holistic in its attempt to consider all
relevant factors and different dimensions of a system;
social, technical, environmental, economic, cultural, etc.

As the systems thinker Dr. Russell Ackoff put it, "A part is
never modified unless it makes the whole better... you don't
change the part because it makes the part better without
considering its impact on the whole, that is systemic
thinking."

As a practice, systems design integrates many other forms

of design, from product and service design to behavioral
and communications design, as well as approaches like
human-centered design and sustainable design.
 Type of Design Interventions
Some of the types of design interventions we might use

Product Design Service Design Incentive Design Communications

What new product can we How can we connect How can we use behavioral How can we use information
design to attract users products in to service design and economic design and communications to
towards a new pattern of systems to deliver an overall to influence incentives and change peoples' perception
behavior function. actions
 Human Centred Design
Human-centered design(HCD) describes any design methodology
that puts the human experience of the system at the center of the
design process and design decisions. HCD focuses on trying to
understand the perspective of the people the design is for at each
step of the process. Human-centered design is an inclusive
approach to design that recognizes the diversity of people and
their different needs in using a system.

Empathy for the human experience of the system being designed is

at the core of human-centered design. As such, applied
ethnography is a key part of an HCD approach. This requires
design researchers to be fully immersed in the human experience
of the system and the lived context of people so that context is
considered and implicit details are not lost. The hope is that by
developing deep empathy with the people using the system, it
allows for solutions that will really improve peoples' lives.
Traditional Design Process Human-Centered Design Process

Define business
objectives

Understand
the person

Design product
or service
Fit with business
objectives

Fit to end Design & make

user needs
 Service Design
Service systems are the integration and coordination of
objects, information, people, resources, and processes to
deliver a desired outcome for a user. Service design is the
process of imagining, conceding, researching, designing, and
implementing service systems. Service design can provide a
holistic view that works to connect and transform siloed
organizations and products into integrated human-centered
systems.

In the context of systems innovation, service design allows us

to rethink and redesign how we achieve results by connecting
and integrating elements in new ways. Information
technology now allows us to re-invent many of the ways that
humans fulfill their needs. Through shifting products to
services, service systems can build upon this digital
transformation to disrupt existing ways of working and deliver
better outcomes for both the user and the system as a whole.
From Ownership To Accessing

Servitization
 Incentive Design
Incentive design is the design of systems of incentives that work to
align the actions and choices of the individuals with the overall
beneficial outcomes for the system. The aim of incentive design is
to create patterns of behavior and organization that shift a systems
dynamics towards cooperation and beneficial outcomes for all. The
need for the effective design of incentives can be found in many
different challenges from driving too fast, to smoking, to lack of
health insurance and consumer choice.

Incentive design builds upon game theory's understanding of

situations of cooperation and competition - how the structure of
institutions and payoffs for choices shape the outcomes we see in
the world. Incentive design is also based upon insights from any
different ares of economics, psychology, behavioral economics and
design. Decentralized tech, like blockchains, are radically
increasing our capacity to design new forms of economies &
incentive systems at a large scale & thus enable systems change.
 Water Token Utility

+ Token

Service

Commons Maintainer
Get paid for positive externalities
+
+
+ Utility Consumer
pay for negative externalities

Utility Provider
 Communication Design
Communication design is the design of the message and
medium to craft compelling stories and narratives for
influencing people's perception and understanding of a
given issue or system. Communications design involves
researching topics, strategic thinking, market research,
crafting and completing messages, designing multimedia,
and managing channels to reach people with the right
message in the right way to shape narratives.

Communication design is important in the context of

systems change as it is a means through which we can
raise awareness and influence mental models and
paradigms. Just as communication design has been
used in advertising to shape the perception of products
it can be used to shape perceptions of systems and the
potential for change through such media as documentaries,
graphics, explainer videos, or slides.
Design
Cycles
 Design Process
To help people work through a challenge in a
structured form, we need some kind of design
process. Of course, when dealing with complex
challenges, there is no start or end, but it is always
an iterative process; thus, a design process
becomes a design cycle.

A design cycle simply defines the main general

stages of a design process. There are countless
different models for the design process, but a
design cycle typically comprises four main stages.
 Explore Define
What is the system we are What is the overall approach
dealing with, and what is the 1. 2. we will take to address the
nature of the challenge? challenge?

Objective
First define what we would
like
4. to achieve, what is the
desired outcome?

Develop Design
What is the intervention we
How will we develop it
will design and prototype,
through testing, iterating,
what will it look like?
and assessing outcomes?
 Double Dimond Design Principles
Be people Centered
Communicate
One popular framework that we can use for Collaborate & Co-design
Iterate, iterate, iterate
structuring a codesign process is the Double
Dimond, which was originally developed by the
Design Council. This model emphasizes the
dynamic of divergence and convergence that is
core to any design process.

The four stages of the Double Diamond method

are discovery, define, develop, and delivery.
These do not need to happen in a linear fashion
and, like most design processes, should be seen
as iterative.
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Discover Define Develop Deliver
Facilitation
 Being a Guide
Co-design requires that we not just create a process to
design something, but this process must involve
facilitating others to co-create. Thus, the job of the
designer switches from being the domain expert to
being more of a facilitator of others. It requires that we
don’t just design a product or service but also the right
structures for others to create within.

More than creating the right structure, it requires that

we are skilled and adept at guiding others. The skill is
to be able to integrate the different perspectives - and
often conflicting directions that participants want to go
in - into a coherent outcome.
 What is Facilitation?
Facilitation is the act of creating space for others to co-learn
& co-create within a structure of activities. Facilitators design
such spaces and guide participants through activities so that
they can achieve their objectives. Facilitation is central to
systems change as no one actor is able to change a system,
nor can a group without coordination.

Thus, a space is needed to enable self-organization, and

facilitation creates the appropriate structure for members to
interact and collaborate in pursuit of system change.
Facilitation spaces may include workshops, CoLabs,
platforms, or innovation ecosystems. All of these provide the
context, structure, and activities for actors to work together
around a shared challenge or learning objective.
Facilitators role is to… Helping groups become… By members…
Create conducive context Coherent Sharing ideas
Plan the process Think together Being open
Inspire creativity Aligned Listening
Promote transparency Experimental Thinking
Adapt process as needed Collaborative Problem solving
Create flow to activities
Experimental
Approaches
 Overview
Designing and developing something new is not the
same as working with things that are already well
established where we can plan out change based upon
a known context. It requires us to recognize uncertainty
and the need for constant learning. The best way to do
this is to take an experimental hypothesis-driven
approach.

That is to say, shift from trying to execute on plans

where we think we know the answer to an approach
that reconize that what we know may infact be wrong
and is thus just a hypothes that needs to be tested. We
then start to think about the best experiments to create
to test our hypothesis.
 Learn Startup
In the famous book “Lean Startup,” Eric Ries explains how
a startup is very different from an established organization
that is working to execute a known strategy, while startups
exist to learn how to build a sustainable business.

We aim to try to find something that works in a context

where we do not know if it will fit or if it will not fit; the
best way to find this “product-market fit” is to run lots of
experiments from which we can see how our approach
interacts with the environment and whether it works or
not, learn from this and try to iterate in the direction we
wish to go.
 Learning loops
Thus, the new initiative we are designing and
developing should be set up to operate not simply in
a predefined fashion but as a learning machine. Thus,
we need to set up a system for learning. Systems for
learning are what we do in science, where we
formulate hypotheses and run experiments to test
them.

The idea is that to develop our new design, we should

be setting up a similar system for hypothesis testing.
We should also remember that failure is an inherent
part of working under conditions of uncertainty. As
Eric Ries, author of The Lean Startup, notes, “This is
one of the most important lessons of the scientific
method: if you cannot fail, you cannot learn.”
 2. Experiment
Construct an experiment to test
your hypothesis in context

1. Hypothesis 3. Feedback
Create hypothesis about the Capture data as feedback
next step that might work to about how things went
move us in that direction

4. Learnings
Assess data to derive insight
and learnings.
 Adaptive Bottom up
Decentralized experimentation
Strategy creates the space for new
innovations to emerge

3. Experiment
Construct an experiment to test
your hypothesis in context
1. Vision
Where do we want to go?
What is the outcome we want
6. Iterate to achieve in the world?
Stay questioning your objectives &
2. Hypothesis 4. Feedback running experiments - keep what
Create hypothesis about the Capture data as feedback works & get rid of what does not
next step that might work to about how things went
move us in that direction

Top Down
The vision informs how we select
the innovations that will contribute
best towards the creation of the
new system
5. Learnings
Assess data to derive insight
and learnings.
 Reference & Resources
What is Co-design? A Primer on Participatory Design - Mural
https://t.ly/5XDV0

Shades of co-design - Emma Blomkamp

https://t.ly/cHP12

The Promise of Co-Design for Public Policy

https://t.ly/CEwyM

What we mean by “co-design”

https://tinyurl.com/25h2vjtt

The Lean Startup - Eric Ries

https://tinyurl.com/26v69pnw
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