cocreation

Co-creation, or cocreation, is a collaborative process in which organizations and a broad range of stakeholders—including customers, users, employees, suppliers, and communities—jointly participate in the creation of value. Rather than handing a finished product to users, cocreation engages participants in stages such as problem framing, ideation, design, testing, and evaluation, with the goal of producing outcomes that better reflect needs and context. The concept draws on ideas from participatory design and open innovation and has become widely used in product development, service design, and policy making.

Core principles include shared value creation, mutual learning, transparency, iterative experimentation, and equitable voice for participants. It often relies on structured forums, digital platforms, living labs, workshops, hackathons, or crowdsourcing to organize inputs and governance to address issues such as ownership, consent, and contribution rights.

Practices include co-design, co-ideation, user testing with real participants, and collaborative prototyping. Notable examples are LEGO Ideas, which invites fans to submit concepts; open platforms for software development; and corporate programs that invite customers to contribute to product roadmaps or service enhancements.

Benefits cited for cocreation include products and services more closely aligned with user needs, higher adoption rates, increased loyalty, and new business models. Challenges include coordinating diverse contributions, managing intellectual property and quality, the resource demands of facilitation, and ensuring representative participation.

Fields where cocreation is applied include consumer products, digital services, healthcare, urban development, education, and public policy. It is often contrasted with traditional design processes by its emphasis on stakeholder involvement and iterative learning rather than top-down specification.

Related concepts include participatory design, co-design, user-centered design, and open innovation.