The co-creation 8-step process

Essentially, there are three elements that have to happen for the future to emerge from a shared consciousness. 

1. Connection

Participants are connected to each other on different levels:

• They are connected with themselves and mentally present. They are completely present. 
• They are connected individually with the other participants. They know their essential personality traits. 
• They are all connected to each other as a team to form a whole.
• They are aware of potential dynamics and have a shared idea of how to deal with them. 
• They are connected to the goal on the individual level. They see the benefit of achieving the goal for themselves or for their own work. 
• They are collectively connected to the goal. They see the benefit of the goal for themselves as a group. They are aware of the benefits that all the other participants see for themselves. 

2. Simultaneity

The participants move in synchrony through the process. In its functioning, the group should be connected through a collective consciousness. This requires everyone to go through the stages of the process at the same time. On the emotional level, the participants experience the process at the same moment. Highs and lows are felt at the same time. To ensure simultaneity, the process can only function co-creatively as long as all the members are together. The team should live the process cohesively. 

3. Analysis and Innovation Process

The participants go through the process of understanding and finding solutions at the same time. The process helps the team to mutually reinforce their thinking, feeling and decision-making. The process is logical, complete and conclusive in itself. The process finds acceptance from all personality types. It is logical, innovative, builds rapport, creates clear responsibilities and gets to the point quickly. 

The cocreation process is structured in a systematic way. It is divided into four phases, containing a total of seven steps. The first step is then repeated at the end, so that the participants actually go through eight steps. In addition, there is a preparation and a follow-up to the process.

Step 1: Connect.

The first step is the beginning and end in cocreation. It is about connection. Connection that should be the basis for everything that follows. First there is the goal and the question of „why“. Does the shared idea answer the question of meaningfulness, of „purpose“? What benefit, what motivation do the people see in this goal? And what connects them together with this idea? And finally, what connects them as the group of people who want to work together here on the levels of their being, their basic motives and their values.

Step 2: Discover – Discovering the facts.

Having established the connection for the joint work in the first step, the second step is now to understand more precisely how the „as-is“ situation is perceived. The as-is situation is purely an inventory. It is not a matter of evaluating the current or past situation, but of making a pure data collection.

Step 3: Explore – Understanding the background.

The third step of the cocreation process „Explore“ is about understanding the current situation in more detail. In „Discover“, we looked at what the situation of the organization or company is. In the following step, the actual situation is to be given a meaning. The section shows how the analyzed situation could arise. In addition one goes together the causes on the reason on the bottom. Different methods are described, how this can be done with different numbers of participants.

Step 4: Share – Sharing the conclusions.

The fourth step represents the middle of the process and concludes the analysis phase. In this part, the book describes the evaluation through root-cause analysis. Even if the whole process has been shared so far, the conclusions are usually diverse. „Sharing“ („share“) the personal conclusions leads to a common opinion of what is really essential to achieve the common goals.

Step 5: Agree – Decide.

The fifth step of the cocreation process describes how decisive forks in the road can be taken. Once the people in the „share“ with each other have drawn their individual conclusions from the analysis and then jointly put them in relation to the goal, the next step is to set a fundamental course for the next steps. The participants decide on the necessary fields of action that need to be worked on so that the goal can be achieved.

Step 6: Create – Creating solutions.

The sixth step of cocreation describes the development of solutions based on the analysis and the fields of action. The aim here is to use the full creative potential and fill the fields of action with possible solutions. As a result of the process to date, many ideas have already matured and now only need to be compiled. After that, a joint decision must be made as to which of the ideas should subsequently be implemented.

Step 7: Do – Implement solutions.

After deciding in the sixth process step which solutions should be pursued further, the next step is to organize the implementation. This section describes how responsibilities are clarified, possible milestones with time horizons are defined, and team members are named. This is often the first phase of the implementation project.

Step 8: Connect.

The cocreation circle closes in the eighth step as it began with „Connect“. How is the cocreation workshop evaluated? Looking back on the collaboration and drawing conclusions together about what went well or what can be done better in the collaboration is the basis for further collaboration in the project and should not be neglected.