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Co-production is about working and learning together, yet too often, we end up reinventing the wheel. Pilots in different contexts often uncover the same lessons. So how can we break this cycle and make sure we’re learning new ones? Here, we explore five lessons we don’t need to relearn—and how we can build on them.
Here are five common lessons from co-production pilots:
1. Involve people from the start.
Too often, the most important (and most interesting) decisions have been made before key partners and members of the public are brought in. As a person with lived experience, it is far more interesting and impactful for me to be part of addressing the central challenge than it is to be brought in later on to refine the communications around someone else’s solution.
2. Co-production takes time.
If co-production is not business-as-usual for your organisation (which is usually the case in the UK public sector), it can take time to get colleagues on board with a new way of working, and to build trust with those you serve or support. Including more diverse ideas and perspectives gets better results, but can mean there is more to work through together. Co-production will always take more time than a single person making the decisions, so plan this in from the start and acknowledge the added value that this extra time brings.
3. Keep involvement opportunities flexible.
If we want to involve a diverse group of citizens, especially those with the greatest barriers, we need to take a flexible approach. Offering multiple ways to get involved and going to people (rather than asking them to come to you) are good starting points. A small number of conversations with people from your target groups about how you could meet can go a long way. As someone who does lived experience work, don’t underestimate the power to participants of showing that you’re considering their needs.
4. Co-production can be emotionally challenging.
Co-production is not, in most places, the standard way of working. It shifts the balance of power between professional and citizen with outcomes that can’t be fully predicted at the beginning. All of this can cause discomfort. And when we do create safe and authentic spaces, we can end up sharing and hearing difficult experiences and feelings. Co-create have found that planning in time for reflection throughout the work is supportive.
5. Keep people informed.
Once we’ve co-produced something, focus naturally shifts to turning this into implementation. This is great, we want to put our work into action. But it’s important to ‘close the loop’ – showing those who have contributed that you’ve listened and something is changing. A common barrier is that it can take a long time to create change and people want to come back to participants with something tangible. At Co-create, we often encourage people to share a “you said, we will do” soon after the project end.
How can we avoid learning these lessons again?
Co-production works best when we try it out for ourselves, learning along the way. If we put the lessons others have learned into practice, we can learn new lessons – local ones that are tailored to the people that we work with, and broader learning that can help move us all forward.
The five lessons above can all be planned for, and taking them into account is a great start for any involvement project. There are plenty more out there, so look for reports of other people’s work or even better, get in touch with them. And you can always reach out to Co-create or other organisations who have supported co-production across multiple contexts – we can save a lot of time and effort through sharing learning from other places and supporting you to learn new lessons that can transform the way you involve people in your work.
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