Draft:Collaboration Design

Collaboration Design
Collaboration Design is an emerging field that focuses on designing effective human-centered collaborative processes, systems, and interactions within organizations and beyond. Collaboration Design can be compared to more familiar concepts like Service Design and Learning Design that are well-known. Collaboration Design, designing collaboration, introduces a fresh and creative approach to human interaction planning. It is about designing how people are brought together to work and learn collaboratively. Planning Facilitation is quite close to Collaboration Design. Facilitation is often seen as a short-term process, for example, for one workshop or training day. Collaboration Intelligence is also the concept that is sometimes used in this context

Similarities with Organizational Facilitation: Collaboration Design shares similarities with organizational facilitation, but it broadens the focus to encompass larger human systems and inter-organizational dynamics.
 * Definition: Collaboration Design centers around creating intentional and harmonious collaboration among individuals, teams, and stakeholders. It aims to enhance cooperation, knowledge sharing, and collective problem-solving.
 * Scope: It extends beyond organizational boundaries, considering interactions between different organizations, communities, and ecosystems.
 *  Time Perspective: Collaboration Design takes a longer-term view, emphasizing sustained collaboration over time.
 * Role: A  Collaboration Designer facilitates collaborative processes, designs tools for effective communication, and fosters a culture of openness and trust.

Collaboration Design is a broader concept, and it contains the following:
 * Facilitative approach
 * Designing repeatable organization practices: different kinds of meetings, workshops, internal events, social learning programs, business processes, innovation
 * Design of organizational transformations and change management
 * Design of processes of larger human systems: municipalities, societies, and even global communities

Collaborative Design is quite different from Collaboration Design. The first is about doing design together, and the latter is about designing collaboration in any field.

All the organizational facilitation methods can be utilized as part of Collaboration Design and even expanded to larger human systems. Collaboration Design is not limited by time or size of the group. Collaboration Design can cover even millions of people and time perspective of multiple years.

Collaboration Design can contain elements of continuous exploration of both the subject matters and the methodologies used for collaboration. It can be as a light version of Action Research

Collaboration Design Training
Collaboration Design needs spefics skills and capabilities that require training. The first academic course, Collaboration Design, will start in December 2023 in LUT University, Finland. The creators and trainers in the course are professor Kirsimarja Blomqvist from LUT University and CEO Ilkka Mäkitalo from Howspace. The training is part of MBA studies of Knowledge Management.

New profession - Collaboration Designer
As we now have a new profession called Service Designers, there will be a new profession called Collaboration Designers. In some organizations, that role is already existing. The role can be internal in larger organizations or a consultative role in a consulting company.

Many forerunner companies like IKEA, H&M and CapGemini have Collaboration Designers.

Guiding principles of Collaboration Design
Guiding principles can be seen as an idealogical background of Collaboration Desing. There can be compared with Agile Manifesto and agile methods. Agile_software_development


 * Exploratory excerpt: learning by doing, bold experiments, reflecting together
 * Authenticity: encouraging everyone to be themselves in a safe environment
 * Dialogic: open dialogue, ensuring wide involvement and participation
 * Tolerance: inviting in multiple perspectives, constant talk about the tolerance
 * Polyphony: avoiding one single truth, making sure all voices are appreciated and heard
 * Maximizing the amount and quality of interaction
 * Organizing space for thinking and making people to stop and think
 * Aiming at new thoughts for individuals and the community of practioners
 * Enabling being impressed: space and opportunities to be impressed
 * True experienced involvement and meaningfulness
 * Feasibility and movement
 * Co-creation: creating something new and unique
 * Building the context to support mutual understanding
 * Granularity: involvement and participation in suitable doses
 * Frequency and rhythm: keeping the common journey on top of the mind of the participants
 * Combining synchronous and asynchronous collaboration
 * The balance of individual and collective activities
 * Breathability (inhale - exhale): expand and narrow down the scope
 * Relationality: using and building the relationship as import part of the process

Flipped Collaborative Design
Flipped Classroom is a well-known concept in Learning Design. In Collaboration Design, the flipped approach has some similarities and differences from flipped learning: the design starts with expected outcomes, effects and impacts. All these aspects can be achieved simultaneously, when participants are reflecting their work based on these aspects. Those can be divided to a few categories:
 * Subject: What would we like to achieve?
 * Ways of working: What would we like to learn about our way of working to create new practices and learn new methods while working with a case?
 * Relationships: What will happen to the participants' relationships in collaboration?
 * Impact: Who will be impacted by the Collaboration Design?

Collaboration Design is also effected by agile practices and Agile_learning.

Technologies supporting Collaboration Design
Technical tools and platforms can support Collaboration Design. They help the designers plan processes with larger groups, asynchronous work, and continuous collaboration. Technology, especially supported by AI, enables achieving results quicker with unlimited involvement.

Visual tools
 * Miro
 * Mural

Innovation tools
 * Viima

Large-scale involvement tools
 * Howspace
 * ThoughtExchange

When Collaboration Design is utilized for larger groups, the AI is essential in making the work efficient. Several platforms are already using or testing the AI support for the work.

Theoretical background
References

Authors: Meredith Fischer, Nadia Safaeinili, Marie C. Haverfield, Cati G. Brown-Johnson, Dani Zionts, Donna M. Zulman Abstract: This paper introduces the AHEAD framework, which combines human-centered design (HCD) principles with evidence-grounded health services research (HSR) methods. It provides a practical guide for designing creative, evidence-based solutions to modern healthcare challenges. Authors: Raina, A., Cagan, J., McComb, C. Journal: Journal of Mechanical Design Abstract: While not directly focused on Collaboration Design, this study explores the transfer of design strategies from human designers to computer-based systems. It highlights the importance of understanding human-centered approaches in design. Authors: Various Abstract: Although this study primarily discusses Industry 4.0, it emphasizes the shift toward individual customers being at the center of design activities. Understanding how human-centered approaches intersect with technological advancements is relevant to Collaboration Design. Authors: Google Scholar Abstract: While this reference doesn’t delve into Collaboration Design directly, it raises questions about whether organizational design can align with human-centered principles. Exploring this intersection can inform the broader field of human-centered approaches. Abstract: This chapter discusses the importance of human-centered design in achieving appropriate levels of human-robot collaboration. While specific to robotics, the principles apply to broader collaborative contexts.
 * “Approach to Human-Centered, Evidence-Driven Adaptive Design (AHEAD) for Health Care Interventions: A Proposed Framework”:
 * “Transferring Design Strategies From Human to Computer and Across Design Problems”:
 * “Human-Centered Design in Industry 4.0: Case Study Review and Implications”:
 * “Is Organizational Design a Human-Centered Design Practice?”:
 * “Human-Centered Approach for the Design of a Collaborative Robotics Workstation”:

Related topics:
 * Facilitation (organisational)
 * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systemic_intervention
 * Action research
 * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaborative_learning
 * Open Dialogue

Important Influencers


 * Glenda Eoyang: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenda_Eoyang
 * Professor Kenneth J. Gergen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_J._Gergen
 * Professor John Shotter: https://www.taosinstitute.net/about-us/people/in-memoriam/john-shotter