During the inaugural Copenhagen Co-Creation Summit this past August, lively debate arose regarding the scope of Co-creation (or Design Thinking).  Perfectly understandable given its application in creating new products, services, organizational structures, business models, and public policy in both developed and developing economies.

But is Co-creation…

• An all-encompassing philosophy?
• An internal organizational process?
• A method for solving complex problems with external stakeholders?

Simply put, the answer is “yes.”  Co-creation can be viewed through all of these lenses, prompting the need to more clearly frame the space so we have a common understanding of its breadth of application and the actionable principles that make it so powerful.

Fortunately, an analogous model already exists that I’d like to introduce as a potential starting point.

Toyota’s 4P Framework
While working with Toyota, Jeffrey Liker, PhD developed the 4P model, which reframes the four high-level principles that Toyota uses to govern itself.  These tiered principles, in combination with fourteen sub principles, reflect Toyota’s “deeper business philosophy…of understanding people and human motivation.”  This philosophy forms the basis for the global Toyota Production System and has shaped the company’s direction since its early days as a loom manufacturer.

Liker’s 4P model is broken into categories that encapsulate Toyota’s corporate principles:  Philosophy, Process, People & Partners, and Problem Solving.

The meaning of these high-level principles is further clarified by fourteen sub principles:

Philosophy

• Base management decisions on long-term philosophy, even at the expense of short-term financial goals

Process

• Use visual control so no problems are hidden
• Create process “flow” to surface problems
• Use pull systems to avoid overproduction
• Level out the workload
• Stop when there is a quality problem
• Standardize tasks for continuous improvement
• Use only reliable, thoroughly tested technology

People & Partners

• Grow leaders who live the philosophy
• Respect, develop, and challenge your people and teams
• Respect, challenge, and help your suppliers

Problem Solving

• Go see for yourself to thoroughly understand the situation
• Make decisions slowly by consensus, thoroughly considering all options; implement rapidly
• Become a learning organization through ongoing reflection and continuous improvement

Although each principle doesn’t directly relate to Co-creation, some are applicable and the spirit of others can inform our discussion.  With this in mind, I’d like to introduce a slightly refined model, with supporting principles, for us to consider and further refine.


Proposed Co-Creation (Design Thinking) Framework
The diagram below closely mirrors that of Toyota, with one small exception.  The Co-Creation Process step focuses on exploration and iterative prototyping as opposed to the elimination of waste.  However, both Toyota’s Process principle and the Co-Creation Process principle advocate thoroughly understanding a situation and quickly raising people’s awareness to problems.

Variations between the two frameworks are more obvious when examining the sub principles.  These proposed Co-creation principles incorporate thoughts from Toyota, as well as other individuals and organizations including Christian Bason, Tim Brown (IDEO), and myself.

(In the principles below, “organization” refers to any group of people who are brought together with a common goal.)

Philosophy

• Base organizational decisions on a long-term, human-centered philosophy that considers the welfare of people and their environment, in addition to the welfare of the organization.

Process

• Consider the entire experience of all affected stakeholders (internal, external)
• Visualize ideas instead of only verbalizing them
• Build physical prototypes to quickly test ideas – only develop them to the level required to answer the question
• Iterate repeatedly

People & Partners

• Grow leaders who understand Co-creation, live the philosophy, and can teach it to others
• Empower internal staff and involve external stakeholders in the creation of potential solutions
• Respect, develop, and challenge your people and teams
• Respect, challenge, and help your external stakeholders

Problem Solving

• Go see for yourself to thoroughly understand the situation
• Make decisions thoughtfully, by involving all critical stakeholders and thoroughly considering all options; implement rapidly
• Become a learning organization through ongoing reflection and continuous improvement

Next Steps
If people feel this initial Co-creation framework is interesting and could be valuable, please help refine the model and supplement its underlying principles.  Over time, our collective efforts could evolve into a robust organizational structure that others could use to drive Co-Creation within their organizations, as well as informing the creation of DIY Co-Creation toolkits templates.


Source
Liker, Jeffrey K., PhD. The Toyota Way. McGraw Hill.  2004.

About Pam Nyberg