our brand had a very positive impact, and our collaborators reported becoming more highly motivated. They told us that the presence of the brand made the task feel real and valuable, that the process no longer felt academic as it became evident that the designs might actually be built.

our collaborators, but it also
created a more accessible work-
ing environment and effective
stimulus for communication.

Support the skills gaps. We were confronted by the fact that structured design thinking and visual communication skills are often taken for granted by designers. At the same time, we realized these are skills our customers do not necessarily have, so we equipped each collaboration team with a trained visual communicator. This worked well, enabling higher-quality deliverables and better communication between teams.

Provide the same resources you’d expect to do the job. After our first co-design session, we realized that our collaborators didn’t seem to be emotionally engaged with the product concepts they had defined; in fact the process had seemed like more of an intellectual exercise. On reflection, we realized that we hadn’t provided personas for the services, implicitly expecting customers to design for themselves. We introduced persona creation to the sessions, which was effective in building emotional engagement and focus with the design activity.

Use the brand to focus the ses-
sion. We decided to introduce
the Vodafone brand as a design
consideration in the third ses-
sion; up to this point we had
presented ourselves simply
as a large telecom company.
Insights from an earlier proj-
ect showed that (at worst) this
was likely to have a marginal
effect, although we hoped for
a more positive outcome. In
fact we found that introducing
…about remote co-design teams
Remote social dynamics.
Throughout the sessions an
online team of four people
worked on the same tasks and
challenges as the studio team.
Initially we allocated a single
remote team member to each
studio group and discovered
that the studio teams really
needed to “adopt” the remote
members, as they wouldn’t
actively contribute unless they
felt included. In our sessions
a member of the studio team
adopted a remote member
by ensuring that the remote
member’s webcam could “see”
and “hear” visual stimulus
materials and people talking/
presenting in the studio, etc.
It was interesting and slightly
surreal to watch the adopter
walk around the studio holding
the laptop displaying the face
of the adoptee, pointing it (and
the laptop webcam) toward
visual and auditory sources.
Later we formed the remote
workers into a single team and
noticed some interesting social
dynamics. In several instances,
we found that a dominant and
directive team member tried
to drive and organize the rest
of the remote team. This was
counterproductive, as other
team members contributed and
communicated less and less
as the session continued. We
chose to intervene to resolve
this and instructed the team to
use text (via Instant Messenger)
instead of voice to commu-
nicate with each other. This
effectively changed the dynam-
ic; flattening communication
allowed a more egalitarian,
inclusive, and efficient dialogue
to emerge. Members could no
longer use verbal inflections,
tone, volume, or interrup-
tions to dominate. As in studio
teams, it is important that no
one person drives a team to
the detriment of others, and all
members are given the oppor-
tunity to contribute.