Who Should Be in the Room?

FIRST THE WHY, THEN THE WHO

At its root, co-design is about expanding the who. As the logic goes, by engaging stakeholders to define problems and approaches to them, co-design reveals otherwise unknowable details. By centering user experiences, motivations of partners, and the operational details of implementation, co-design can be the surest process for creating sustainable products, initiatives, and strategies. But the first question people usually ask about co-design—who should be involved?—is deceivingly more complicated. There are some quick answers, like the people we hope will benefit from a product, initiative, or strategy, the people who will implement it, potential partners and key allies. But others will become clear once you’ve made some key decisions about what else you need co-design to achieve. Your diagnosis here will ripple out into other parts of your process: the frequency you consult people, and the relationships you foster among them will look different if your greatest implementation challenge is, say, to build buy-in to a product, initiative or strategy than if you are striving to distribute power across stakeholders to make future decisions.

Ultimately, effective co-design isn’t just about getting stakeholders in the room; it’s about getting the right stakeholders, and the right balance of perspectives.

In Module 1, we unpacked what co-design is and the considerations for whether or not you should do it; in Module 2, we explored how different co-design processes can be organized to address the longer-term needs of implementation. These are not inconsequential details; they are prerequisites to making all other decisions about your co-design process. Once you’ve pinpointed your co-design lens, then it’s time to consider whom to involve.

EXPANDING THE “STAKEHOLDER” CATEGORY

When you really get down to it, “stakeholder” is a nebulous term, evolving from the private sector for those who have an interest, or stake, in the success of an enterprise. The word by now has gained the flavor of meaningless jargon, but getting clearer about who falls under that umbrella can make it a bit more useful. Rather than focusing solely on the intended beneficiaries of a product, initiative, or strategy (critical as they are!), the word also encompasses the “operational actors”—the civil servants and program managers who will be charged with carrying out an initiative. “Stakeholder” can also refer to the partner organizations or networks of people who play some role in the ecosystem we are hoping to improve. Ultimately, effective co-design isn’t just about getting stakeholders in the room; it’s about getting the right stakeholders, and the right balance of perspectives.

Intended Beneficiaries

Most often, multi-stakeholder processes focus on the first of these groups, the intended beneficiaries— or at least representatives for them—and rightly so: the needs and ambitions of the people at the heart of an initiative should be centered in defining its strategy. These networks are at once the easiest and hardest to engage. It is easy because there are generally many people who fall into this category. But it is difficult because usually their representative role is something they do outside of other responsibilities—work and life obligations, outside the framework of a paid job with a partner organization. Without additional efforts from the organizer—like providing catered meals, stipends for travel and time, or significant lead time for planning—the result tends to be familiar: super-volunteers and other active and able constituents tend to capture most of the roles, sometimes recycling the same ideas or introducing personal interests. This is not a negative by rule, but it does have trade-offs. These actors may have strong networks within the issue area, and a good sense of the ways people in that network have addressed the problem; but their voices could overshadow other stakeholders with a new or different take, whose experience may be more typical.

Ecosystem Actors

Institutional partners, relevant government offices, civil society groups, media representatives, to name a few—tend to be easier to engage in some ways (they often have a professional stake in the project, with some manner of organizational resources and interest behind them), and their ranging experience can help expand how participants define the problem and solution, and create some intersection among possible champions of a co-design output. But they do present another set of challenges. If they are less familiar with co-design, they may be less willing to trust non-experts shape new initiatives. As actors who also work on the same or related issues, they may also have expectations for how involved they remain after co-design is complete. This isn’t always incompatible—often it is helpful—but it does require aligning on those at the outset. With the selection of these stakeholders, the organizer is also making important judgments about the scope of a co-design process: Do you invite a farmers’ union to co-design about food security, for example? Their perspective could open new opportunities (an exciting option if you have time and mandate to approach problems and partnerships differently) or distract from a properly-scoped problem (a risk when you have limited time, a very focused mandate, or a lot of research backing up the specific framing of the issue at hand).

Operational Actors

There are many people who aren’t top-line decisionmakers within their organizations, but who will likely be responsible for the effective deployment of a co-design concept—experts in the messy dynamics of turning a plan into action. When engaged in co-design, these stakeholders often provide insight into the practical details of execution that can make or break an initiative. They are responsible for troubleshooting, yet, without being involved in the design process or understanding the rationale behind original decisions, it is difficult to adapt an initiative in keeping with those intentions. Of the many stakeholders who have an interest in the eventual product, initiative, or strategy, few are as frequently overlooked as the implementers themselves. In some cases, their expertise might get in the way: some people can get stuck on practical details before deep brainstorming—but ultimately without their perspective, co-designed outputs tend to rely on a dangerous amount of guesswork from other participants.

There is no strict formula for choosing among the actors in these categories. As a general rule, try to keep the categories balanced (if anything, err on the side of more operational actors, since they are so often overlooked). Give yourself enough time to learn about all your participants (What excites them? What pressures do they feel? Who do they know and have experience working with? What reservations do they have about this kind of process?), identify any perspective gaps (Are there still aspects of the problem or solution no one can speak to first-hand? Is there a good balance of stakeholder groups? Are the right decisionmakers or advocates in the room?), and recruit others to join as necessary. Then, go back to your co-design lens and add emphasis where it’s needed.

TUNING IN TO POWER DYNAMICS

Involving stakeholders in the design process can shift the power dynamics of traditional service delivery by inviting those with lived experience but less organizational authority to define the ways it will work. But inclusion alone doesn’t make power dynamics go away; in fact, it multiplies them. With any group of stakeholders, there are existing relationships and ways of interacting that will come into co-design, and facilitators should invest a fair amount of time understanding these and mediating them at the outset.

Inclusion alone doesn’t make power dynamics go away; in fact, it multiplies them.

Doing the work of finding the right people and exploring existing power dynamics ahead of time will lead to a more intentional and effective process. It’s a lot more labor up front, but ultimately saves time by making you more prepared in the moment (you’ve not waited til everyone is in the room together to surface the questions that could have been answered ahead of time); and being ready for the sticky but essential decisions means a higher likelihood you’ll get to a useful answer. There are a few activities that can give structure to that preliminary work, including:

Participant Surveys

These questionnaires are often online, and provide a rapid, comparable, and widely distributable way to understand the aspirations of participants, as well as their interests, priorities, needs, capacities, and constraints—and how they overlap or diverge from one another.

Participant Interviews

Conduct one-on-one interviews with a diverse subset of stakeholders (a range of interests, types of organizations, levels of seniority, for example) to better understand the patterns emerging in survey responses. Through videoconference or in person, ask about their experience, and any existing strategies, programs, and associated challenges they can share. Interviews inform how you design a touchpoint, but will also help identify possible breakout facilitators or distracting stakeholders ahead of time.

Key Informant Interviews

If your topic is especially technical or complicated, schedule interviews with a few people with issue experience who are not directly involved in the co-design touchpoint (for example, partners in government, policy experts, operational experts, academics). These perspectives provide a bit more context—perhaps analogous attempts to solve similar problems, or deeper expertise around your topic.

Quick Synthesis of Findings

During synthesis, compile the data collected through surveys and interview—then analyze it, draw out connections, and use what you learn to reprioritize or reframe the challenges and opportunities a co-design touchpoint is setting out to address. These data provide the foundation for the next step: developing a detailed set of co-design activities.

These pre-engagement conversations help to show where there are similarities and differences among participants’ viewpoints, identify the issues that may need more work to resolve, and raise particular professional and interpersonal dynamics. They also help probe the dynamics raised by funders’ roles in a project, and the perceptions participants have of the facilitation team and the larger organization charged with implementing the outputs of co-design.

PREPARING FOR THE ROOM

The issues you flag in your pre-engagement won’t always need to be discussed head on in your co-design process (though sometimes they can be), but they should be designed for. It can be useful to explore different definitions of success in a plenary session, for example, but potentially more effective to manage other power dynamics in softer ways, like building in more opportunities for beneficiaries to speak, or separating participants into breakout groups to separate people who are reluctant to raise opinions that differ from their managers. The ways you are explicit about power and group dynamics should serve your co-design lens—in some cases they must be discussed to make progress; in others, they simply need to be mediated or contained. Primarily, this research helps you make the right choices for the mix of people you need working together. It helps you:

Get the right (balance of) people

See who’s coming and who’s not (and why), recognize who else should be invited, have enough time for contingencies if certain perspectives are missing, and make sure the ratio is right. In our experience, engaging operational actors can be especially difficult: often this requires moving through multiple levels of approval within their organization, in addition to any logistic hurdles of attendance–start early, and be ready with logistical details.

Plan extensively for the plan to change

Start by identifying and bringing in the project “building blocks.” These are the non-negotiables, the project constraints, or the previous work that this project builds on. These always exist—and can create real hurdles without intentionally bringing them into the agenda. Pinpoint issues where there is more divergence, plan for topics that require more time or more diplomatic approaches, cut out the issues that don’t need to be discussed, and fill in more background research where there are common knowledge gaps.

Manage Power Dynamics through Facilitation

Take note of dominant personalities, recognize people’s underlying agendas, and understand the sensitivities that might underlie a group setting, but won’t necessarily be verbalized. Knowing in advance who may be more defensive and why, who is a better diplomat, and who has stronger relationships in the room (to name a few examples) will let you minimize opportunities for disruption and emphasize participants’ strong suits—for example, by grouping dominant personalities together or leveraging the diplomatic skills of others.