Example Reflection – Co Creation

Challenge and Selection

I serve as the Head of Project at a Non-Profit organization called Solstrand Hotel & Spa’s. The  organizations goal is to close skill gap challenges faced by women who happen to be the larger  populace, thereby preventing them the opportunity to match talents with opportunities. In  solving this challenge, we yearly equip African young women with skills by coming up with  physical programs yearly like a 2 weeks Mini-MBA program, annual conferences, summits,  trainings etc. At the end of every project year the team (who happen to be my immediate  stakeholders within the organization) and I sit to Co-create for weeks, everyone within the  team gives a report of his core duty and department within the organization based on all the  various activities we had in the year, the feedbacks used as secondary research was also gotten  directly from customers and clients who have either attended any of our programs/events in  the past project year.

We put it all together then begin to align all the feedbacks and thoughts in other to produce  new products and activities that will feed into the immediate needs of our clients for the new  year. When we work with them we leverage on our network to collaborate with established  and well known teachers and facilitators who will not only impact them with the needed  knowledge but also inspire and motivate them a step further to do better and become better  for themselves and the society. We deploy all this hard work year round so as to grow their  skills thereby get them ready to contribute their quota within the labor market and economy.

Application

With the kind of organization, we run, that is hugely driven by impact using co-creation as a  tool for design thinking to active the desired goal was essential. Every member of the team is  first a social being with diverse social and economic experiences within our community, they  daily have direct conversation and interaction with our clients. To adequately match secondary  research methods with present day life and social experiences, I sat all my team into  a group of  8 each working through the various activities of each team as it relates to the projects they  carried out on different score- boards, the projects with highest impact reach, high and low  attendance rates, high and low post event evaluation to ascertain the level of impact,  facilitators etc. when this evaluations where done by each group , we began to match the high  scored variables and the low scored variables into two groups . We also find that our client go  ahead to thrive within the work space, create businesses that are thriving and are also paying it  forward within their community by mentoring and training your women and girls around them.

When this was done we were able to see what worked best for our community of women and  what did not. Thereafter we moved to the WHAT IF based on the results achieved when we  draw from the WHAT IS bank. The ‘What If” helped each member to generate diverse ideas for  the new project year, we were also able to do run online questionnaire’s and surveys with the  different project topics generated to understand the level of public readiness for the value to  come their way the following year. At the end of trying to work through the 4 “W” we were  able to together develop and co-create a curriculum for the next project year.

Insight and Approach

I in particular love the co-creation tool for design thinking, you never really understand or know  the depth of potential and intellect within your team till you bring them to the creation table to  co-creators. The also helped me to see the value we all as unique individual with different  strengths and weakness create differentially and also to closely listen to the heart beat and  voices of the people, their needs and interests while matching it with time appropriateness etc.  It is also beautiful to see how we can create different products with different styles that still  speaks to the solution we bring from a different and modern way. The approach is similar to  birthing a child, was rigorous for the team, it came with its pain and discomfort, sleepless night  for everyone but rewarding at the end. One of the times I had to sit with a particular team  crushing words into it’s littlest form so as to understand what the client meant when they  wrote it down. It stretched my mind too knowing that we had to also but it to some form of  test and wait for reactions and results before moving to the next face.

Co-creation will always be my go to tool with my team so as to release myself into a world of  rivers of idea generation and a dash of storytelling to inspire change. Our women now believe  more in themselves and have a better self-esteem and worth within their family and the  society in which the live in.

