Co-creation

At Ithaki, we co-create a plan of attack. What does ‘co-creation’ mean beyond the buzz, fuzz & bullsh*t?

Let’s look at it from the perspective of ‘knowledge’ that is required to create ‘value’. The first question to ask is who has the right ‘knowledge’ to move forward? The second question is the intention to transfer this knowledge or not. Based on this, different types of offerings are common.

If the knowledge within the organisation is low, there are mainly 2 options

1. Consulting in which the supplier has & keeps the knowledge to fulfill a specific activity.
2. Training in which a trainer transfers knowledge so it is available internally.

Consultancy might be a good choice in a domain which is non-core business. As an example, take the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Every organisation needs to comply. You might ask a consultant to help you out. The consultant will make an assessment from which a list of required actions emerges. You will probably trust the consultant and just do as she says, moving on to the next challenge.

An example of training is when an employee follows a lean six sigma green belt training given by a master black belt. The expected outcome is that the employee can then execute simpler projects (which does not imply these ‘simpler’ would deliver less value than complex projects – often there are enough low hanging fruits).

At the other end of the spectrum, we have coaching. In the purest sense (such as life coaching), the underlying assumption is that coachee has all what is needed (all the required knowledge) & owns the agenda in all its aspects. The coach does not have a hidden agenda and uses a process. The coach facilitates by asking smart questions so that the answers – hidden within the coachee – surface. As such, the expertise of the coach is not the knowledge to create value directly, but the expertise of a process to create value indirectly.

In a business context, pure coaching is rare. A coach has a sponsor who wants to achieve some goal and the coach will coach coachees that are not the sponsor. As a result, there is an agenda outside the coachee. Pure coaching happens on the individual level when a CEO, leader or manager requests a personal coach, which is outside the organisation. The result might be that the coachee figures out that it is better to leave the organisation, which is rarely the agenda of the organisation.

That does not mean there can not be coaching in the organisation. Coaches in organisation have an agenda. For the rest, they will act as a coach: they will ask smart questions for people to get to an ‘Aha!’ moment. A good coach believes the coachee can make it happen. That said, the coach will often have another role, such as trainer. If you are interested in learning more, I recommend you to read ‘Coaching Agile Teams’ by Lyssa Adkins (I hope to review the book in 2023).

In the very middle is co-creation. The assumption is that several parties know specific aspects. It is only by bringing all these pieces of the puzzle together that value can be created.

I once combined my knowledge of Dimensional Analysis & Design of Experiments (part of the Six Sigma toolbox), with an expert who had >20 years of experience in production (having started as operator). We could solve a very specific quality problem because we both had specific expertise that we could combine. Never ever could one of us alone have reached anything that was close to the result we achieved.

If you want to introduce ‘Agile’ in a context that combines IT and physical products/production, you cannot just step in and teach ‘Scrum’. It won’t work because physical goods supplied by 3rd parties don’t come in sprints of 2 weeks. (‘When Agile Gets Physical’ by Katherine Radeka & Kathy Iberle deals specifically with this challenge). You can’t apply a recipe. You can still apply ‘Agile’ leading principles (such as limit ‘work in progress’). And that will only work if you combine it with the internal knowledge of business processes at the organisation you are coaching. In other words, you need to co-create a new version of ‘Agile’ that works in the specific context.

Maybe needless to say, but such complex endeavours are co-created iteratively.

At Ithaki, co-creation is done at 2 levels.

• Creating a plan based on an assessment. The knowledge Ithaki brings is a list of > 100 leading principles and related industry best practices that get a first filtering based on general parameters (size, industry, type, … of organisation). During a workshop facilitated by Ithaki, a cross-functional team creates the plan.
• Implementing a specific practice, such as a process for strategy deployment (ensuring everyone is on the same page and works towards an aligned strategy). The knowledge Ithaki brings is specific experience with various best practices in a variety of contexts. Specifically for strategy deployment, we can choose from various possibilities, such as OGSM, Hoshin Kanri, OKR, BHAG and BSC. The end result might be a tailored, simplified version.

When you are dealing with an external party that is using a buzzword, there are a few signs that should make you suspicious whether they are selling bullsh*t:

• When a consultant says: “What would the solution be according to you?”, that consultant is hiding the lack of knowledge by using a coaching stance.
• “You shouldn’t do it that way!” or “That is not allowed (by …)” shows a certain dogmatism. You probably get a standard approach that can not be tailored to the context.
• If someone only knows one variant of a methodology, they are following a recipe and hence do not fully understand what they are doing (They are at maturity level ‘Shu’ within ShuHaRi). As an example, many consultants only know ‘Scrum’ as an Agile approach, which implies doing sprints (of 1-4 weeks).
• When someone gives a critique of another framework or methodology. There is value in every framework or methodology, otherwise it would not exist. Check whether the person has a good understanding of the framework or methodology that is criticized.
• When someone (e.g. a organisational coach) takes no responsibility whatsoever. Expensive isn’t it?

Read more about buzzwords & bullsh*t.