3.2 Co-Design

Co-design opens the second half of the Organisational context and approach area, and it is the value CM3 leans on most heavily. It is worth learning by its definition, its exclusions and its conditions, because the exam tests all three.

What co-design is

Co-design is an approach to design that attempts to actively involve all stakeholders in the design process. It is an approach focused on the process of design.

The operative word is actively. Being asked for comments on a completed design is consultation, not co-design. Co-design means stakeholders are in the room while the answer is being formed, with genuine influence over what it becomes.

What co-design is not

CM3 is unusually explicit about the exclusions, which makes them prime exam material:

• Not a particular style of design. Co-design describes who is involved and how, not what the output looks like.
• Not ignoring evidence or professional advice. Involving stakeholders does not mean the group's preference overrides expertise, data or regulation. The engineer still gets to say the structure will not hold.
• Not an excuse to 'sell' a decision. This is the most important exclusion and the most common abuse. Running a workshop about a decision that has already been made, in order to generate the appearance of involvement, is not co-design. Participants always detect it, and the damage exceeds anything you would have suffered by simply announcing the decision.

Benefits

Three benefits are named:

1. The result meets stakeholder needs and is usable. The people who do the work know things about the work that no designer does — the exceptions, the workarounds, the ten-second step that becomes ten minutes at month-end.
2. People are more willing to accept something they were involved in creating. This is a genuine psychological effect, and it connects directly to Kelman: participation moves people towards internalisation rather than compliance, and to SCARF, where involvement protects autonomy and status.
3. Better solutions and greater buy-in. The two reinforce each other — a solution that actually works is easier to buy into.

Where to look for co-design opportunities

CM3's practical advice is that the change manager should be actively looking for opportunities to include people in designing the solution, or even just the path to the solution. The crucial nuance:

Even when the destination for the change has been dictated from above, the path to get there is usually open for debate.

That single sentence resolves the most common objection to co-design — "we don't have a choice about this change". You usually do have a choice about how it is implemented, sequenced, supported and communicated, and that is enough surface area for genuine involvement.

The examples CM3 gives:

What co-design requires

Co-design draws on workshop facilitation methods to ensure participation from all stakeholders, and it requires three conditions:

• Trust — participants must believe their input can actually change the outcome, and leaders must believe participants will engage responsibly
• Ability to challenge power — if the most senior person in the room cannot be contradicted, you will get the senior person's design with additional signatures
• A willingness to learn — including from people whose job title suggests they have nothing to teach you

These are demanding conditions, and their absence is why co-design so often degrades into consultation theatre. A change manager assessing whether to use co-design should test all three honestly before committing.

The pitfalls

Done poorly, co-design can be expensive and time-wasting, leading to resentment and cynicism. The mechanism is worth understanding: participation raises expectations. If people invest three workshops' worth of effort and the outcome bears no relation to their contribution, they are worse off than if they had never been asked — they have lost the time and learned that involvement is decorative. That lesson persists into the next change.

The practical safeguards: be explicit at the outset about what is fixed and what is genuinely open; report back on what was adopted and, where an idea was not adopted, why; and do not run co-design at all if the answer is already decided. Setting clear boundaries about what is non-negotiable is exactly what CM3 recommends in early messaging — it helps people understand where they can contribute and co-design change.