The Happy Medium: Why Good Co-Design Starts With Evidence not Expertise
I love a blank flip chart as much as the next facilitator, a room full of people with markers in hand, ready to imagine something new. But after almost three decades facilitating co-design sessions with governments, health authorities and non-profits, I've learned that the best sessions rarely start from a truly blank page. I've also learned they rarely start from an almost-finished one. Both ends of that spectrum fail for the same underlying reason: the people who actually have to live with the outcome never get real ownership of it.
The blank page
Early in my career, a more experienced facilitator told me to get comfortable with silence and let people sit in some discomfort. Hand the room the evidence, use some fun, creative techniques, then get out of the way, and they would sort it out themselves. What it actually produced was discomfort and confusion, not creativity. People sat with the data, and with each other, usually one of the strongest voices in the room, just took over.
Two things came out of that experience that have shaped how I facilitate ever since.
The first is about technique. Silence is not automatically productive, and creativity is not the same thing as verbal brainstorming. Some of the best ideas come from people who think best in writing, by sketching something out, or by talking an idea through one-on-one before they're ready to share it with a group. If the only tool on offer is "talk it out," you only hear from people who are comfortable thinking on their feet in front of others. Building in individual reflection time, small group work, visual mapping and written input isn't just about creativity, it gives people control over how and when they contribute, which matters most for anyone who has been in a room before where speaking up wasn't safe.
The second is about framing. A truly blank page is just unclear. What actually helps a group move forward is a clear, honest summary of the findings and themes that emerged from the evidence, shared at the start or in advance of the session. From there, facilitating a clear process within that framing: building on what we heard, testing new ideas, pushing back on them, and digging deeper, rather than starting from nothing or handing people data with no direction on what to do with it.
The almost-finished solution
I've also worked alongside consultants who operated at the opposite extreme, and I think it's the more common trap. By the time anyone got in a room, the solution was already close to finished, shaped by the consulting team's own analysis and experience. What was billed as a co-design session was really a presentation dressed in facilitation language and sticky notes, designed to walk participants through an answer and get them to see the wisdom of it. People were in the room, they talked, they added comments here and there, but the shape of the outcome had already been decided before they walked in. It wasn't really co-design at all.
I understand the appeal. We are hired for our expertise, it feels efficient, and it lets a firm showcase how much thinking it has already done. The problem is, that the people who have to actually implement the solution were never really part of building it. That gap tends to show up later as resistance, confusion, or a plan that quietly never gets used.
The advantage of real co-design is that the solution comes from the people who are going to implement it, not from the consultant.
Finding the happy medium
Surveys, interviews and focus groups are not in competition with co-design, and neither is a consultant's expertise. Done well, they are all part of the foundation it stands on, not a substitute for the room's own thinking. My job as a facilitator is to hold hard discussions, make room for real creativity, and work within practical constraints.
If you are planning a strategic plan, a program redesign or an organizational review and want a process that treats both your data and your people's expertise as essential, I would love to talk about how a co-design approach grounded in evidence could work for your organization. Get in touch.
Susan Underhill is the founder of Connor Claire Group, a policy and management consulting firm working with government and non-profit organizations across Canada.