Not all wisdom can be found within the public service, and public sector leaders who want to innovate are often looking to co-design to find strategic ways to address difficult problems.
Dr Emma Blomkamp – who trains, coaches and mentors people in co-design for public and social innovation – will present a masterclass on Co-Design in Public Innovation as part of ANZSOG’s upcoming Leading Innovation in the Public Sector: A Public Leadership Masterclass Series, which begins on Thursday 19 June.
She says that the principles behind co-design are sometimes poorly understood and applied, but that done correctly, the co-design process has the potential to effectively respond to wicked problems.
During the masterclass, she will outline four key principles of co-design, and show participants how to navigate different ‘shades of co-design’ giving them a better understanding of what level of co-design will work best for different problems.
Dr Blomkamp says that there are many uses of the word co-design, and it was sometimes used to label processes that only involved consultation.
“For me, the ‘co’ is short for collaborative, so the first part of co-design is simply about different kinds of people coming together to take action,” she said.
“If we want to get a little bit more specific, I’d say it’s an iterative process of innovation or change, that involves people with lived expertise and professional expertise coming together to share understanding and create different ways of taking action together.
“The crucial bit is supporting people to take action together -it’s not just about asking the public what we should do. If you support people to take action, then you can have a fantastic impact by building people’s agency and capacity that lasts beyond your project.
“Often when we think about innovation, we think about technology. But it’s important to recognise there are other kinds of innovation, like social innovation, where we might reframe problems and create new relationships between people or simply redesign services.”
Dr Blomkamp said that she was sometimes surprised by how little public involvement there was in designing and developing public services.
“The public sector tends to value professional expertise more highly than lived or living expertise. Sometimes there’s a culture of treating the minister as the customer, or the user, and designing for them rather than the people who are supposed to ultimately benefit,” she said.
When should you use co-design?
Dr Blomkamp says the co-design approach is already being used widely in areas such as mental health and disability – where advocates have consistently fought for a ‘nothing about us, without us’ approach from government.
“I’ve seen good co-design in things like a driver education program, redesigning vaccination services for students with disabilities, young people being employed to create a new youth employment strategy, and in a range of health services and programs,” she said.
“It works best where the issue is complex enough that there isn’t a simple answer, or a purely technical solution. For example, when it comes to homelessness, family violence, education and mental health, there are issues in each of these areas that connect with each other and don’t have simple answers.
“If we want to address these complex issues in a meaningful way, not just perpetuate the problems and dysfunctions in the system, we need to make sure we understand what’s really going on. To do that we need people with different perspectives building mutual understanding.”
“An approach like co-design allows us to go deeper with a smaller number of people rather than a wide scattergun consultation approach.”
“In co-design, it’s actually better to go deep than broad. You don’t need to involve 300 people in the process. You just need to get really clear on what kind of expertise, including lived or living experience, needs to be involved, and make sure there’s a small group of people with the right mix of knowledge and experience involved at key moments.”
Dr Blomkamp said that one of the risks that came with co-design was if there was not a strong commitment to follow through with what is being co-designed – whether due to funding issues or political changes.
“That can really let down the people that have been involved. That’s such a risk because then it can really contribute to distrust of government amongst that group. So, while you can’t always escape the politics, at least make sure you know what’s needed for implementation of the likely outcomes before you begin.”
Four principles of co-design
The masterclass will see Dr Blomkamp take her four principles of co-design – purpose-driven, inclusive collaboration, sharing power, and adaptive learning – and explain how to apply them to co-design projects:
She says that beginning a co-design project with a clearly understood shared purpose is vital.
“Rather than getting fixated in advance on the deliverables, let’s focus instead on what difference we’re trying to make, so we can be clear about the desired outcome. That way, you remain open to the many different possibilities that could be out there,” she said.
“If you knew everything you needed to know, you wouldn’t need to go through a co-design process, so you’re constantly learning. That means you will find that some of the assumptions you made at the start aren’t quite right, so you must be ready to adapt and iterate as you go and share the learning with others wherever possible.”
She said that co-design needed to involve practical change, and designers should think about producing prototypes – even if just a picture or something on paper – and get people involved in bringing them to life.
“We’ll talk about the principles of co-design, which I think anyone in the public sector can apply to some extent. They’re a good starting point for people to think about how they can make their work a little bit more creative and participatory.
Dr Blomkamp said that she wanted participants in the masterclass to leave with the goal of doing more co-design in the way they worked with their colleagues and communities.
“Where can they let go of a little bit of power and control in order to allow others to take action and collaborate? That’s one practice all of us can do, regardless of our role.
“I’d also like public sector leaders to understand how they are part of a system and how they can be part of creating conditions for co-design that addresses some of the barriers to participation that exist in that system.”
Dr Blomkamp is one of five presenters in ANZSOG’s 2025 Public Leadership Masterclass series: Leading Innovation in the Public Sector. This series, of five two-hour Masterclasses, will inspire public leaders to explore strategic vision, practical approaches, and innovation mindsets that can transform how they address complex challenges and create lasting impact in service to the public good.
The full list of presenters and topics is:
- Thea Snow (Centre for Public Impact) – Creating Conditions for Innovation: a Systems Approach
- Emma Blomkamp – Co-design in Public Innovation
- Eddie Copeland (London Office of Technology and Innovation) – Habits and Practices: a Practical Guide to Innovating
- Vafa Ghavazi (University of Sydney) – Navigating Values and Responsibilities in Public Innovation
- Brenton Caffin (States of Change) – Strategies for Building High-Performing Innovation Teams
The Public Leadership Masterclasses will be held weekly from 19 June – 16 July and registrations are now open. Join other forward-thinking public sector leaders as we discover how innovative mindsets can refresh and reinvigorate public leadership for the challenges ahead.