A critical actor in the co-creation of value and of collaboration architecture in the public sector is the cross-boundary facilitator. This actor works with boundary spanning leadership to design suitable processes and to facilitate network development through stages of exploration, clarification and implementation design to support understanding, refinement and implementation of complex policy responding to emergent social challenges. Drawing on the research literature and current practitioner experience in this space linked to co-design with academics, public sector leaders and community leaders, this paper explores the craft, the capability and the practice implementation of cross boundary facilitation.
The paper explores the capabilities that underpin engagement with critical actors in the co-creation space, e.g. academics, citizens, community bodies and others, and discusses professional facilitation as a craft. In doing so, I offer a model for complex facilitation in co-creation spaces as a guide to leaders, stakeholders and facilitators as they think about how to design and deliver a successful co-creation exercise. It draws on collaboration, boundary spanning, complexity and leadership literatures, in order to explore transdisciplinary knowledge processes. In practice, all such discussions are anchored in a contextual and situational perspective – in this instance, it is the perspective of experienced cross-boundary facilitation within a public management executive context.
A commonly used process for co-creation is to establish and build a collaboration space and to invite a broad mix of stakeholders into a shared space, with the intent of establishing a collaborative network. The intent is that the co-creative network can continue to come together in various ways to build mutuality, reciprocity and trust in order to influence policy thinking and service implementation. Public sector case studies are used to illustrate the value of the cross boundary facilitator in maximising value from co-creation and collaboration approaches.
The practice panel (Connecting researchers and practitioners SIG)
