From My Idea to Our Idea: Practising Real Co-Creation

Contribution is not the same as connection

In complex organisations, people are often invited to contribute from their area of expertise. That is necessary, but it can produce a sequence of specialist positions rather than one piece of shared thinking.

Co-creation begins when my contribution changes because of yours. I retain my knowledge and responsibility, but I use them to develop what is already emerging instead of placing a separate answer beside it.

This is one reason I find improvisation so useful for teams. In a scene, an idea that nobody uses has little value. The shared result depends on how offers are connected, not on which individual produced the cleverest line.

Co-creation is visible when people can point to how another person’s contribution changed their own.

Preserve before you improve

When a new idea feels incomplete, experienced people naturally see what is missing. The quickest response is often to replace it with a more complete idea of their own. That may improve the content while weakening shared ownership.

A more useful discipline is to preserve one valuable part before adding expertise. You might keep the customer need, the timing, the simplicity or the underlying intention, then contribute a change that makes the proposal stronger.

• Name the element you are keeping: ‘The useful part for me is the early customer feedback.’
• Add your expertise: ‘From billing, I would add one rule so the pilot does not create manual reconciliation.’
• Return the idea to the group: ‘How can we keep the speed of the pilot and include that control?’

Structure helps quieter contributions enter

Open discussion often rewards speed. The people who process aloud shape the first version of the idea, while others enter only after the direction is already established.

A short round in which every person must build on what came immediately before creates a different rhythm. It limits monologues, gives attention a clear purpose and makes it harder for the group to ignore a contribution simply because it arrived quietly.

The exercise below is deliberately simple. Its value is not the fictional solution the group creates; it is the chance to observe whether people extend, decorate, redirect or replace each other’s offers.

Useful variations for real teams

The same structure can be adapted once the basic pattern is clear:

• Idea relay: pass a proposal around the group; each person must retain one named element and add one improvement from their function.
• Shared prototype: create a rough customer journey, process or event plan together, adding one component at a time without restarting the design.
• Progressive constraints: introduce a new budget, timing or policy constraint halfway through and ask the group to adapt the shared idea rather than abandon it.

Debrief the behaviour, not the fictional result

The most interesting questions are about the group’s process. Which offers were easy to use? When did somebody quietly replace the developing idea? What helped a participant contribute without taking control?

I then connect the observations to one real workflow—a planning meeting, a design session or a cross-functional decision. That bridge matters. Without it, the exercise can be enjoyable and still disappear as soon as normal work resumes.