Stakeholder Involvement in Co Design An

M.A.
Cross Media
Stakeholder Involvement in Co-

design – An Exploratory Case Study
A Master Thesis by Anne Koslowski and Laura Schulz
University of Applied Sciences Magdeburg-Stendal
Breitscheidstraße 2,39114 Magdeburg
Supervisors
Prof. Björn Stockleben
Prof. Dr. Michael Herzog
Processing Period
June – November 2017

SELBSTSTÄNDIGKEITSERKLÄRUNG
Hiermit erklären die Autorinnen, Anne Koslowski und Laura Schulz, dass sie
die vorliegende Arbeit selbstständig verfasst und keine anderen als die
angegebenen Quellen und Hilfsmittel benutzt haben; dass alle Ausführungen,
die anderen Schriften wörtlich oder sinngemäß entnommen wurden, kenntlich
gemacht sind und die Arbeit in gleicher oder ähnlicher Fassung noch nicht
Bestandteil einer Studien- oder Prüfungsleistung war.
Dabei war die Aufteilung der Arbeit wie folgt:
Anne Koslowski: Organisation der Kooperation mit der Hochschule Utrecht;

Forschungsdesign Vorprojekt (Pre-Study); alleiniges Führen von 3/4
explorativen Interviews; Transkription 2/4 Interviews; Auswertung und
Zusammenfassung des Vorprojekts; Forschungsdesign Hauptstudie inklusive
theoretischer Vorannahmen und Methodik (Personatechnik und
Interviewleitfaden); Moderator bei 2/3 Stakeholder-Interviews; Transkription
1/3 Stakeholder-Interviews; Auswertung der Stakeholder-Interviews;
Entwicklung der Stakeholder-Profile und deren Papier-Prototypen;
Vorbereitung (schriftlich), Durchführung und Auswertung des Usability Tests,
Überarbeitung der Stakeholder-Profile, Abstract;
Laura Schulz: Transkription 2/4 Interviews (Pre-Study); Ausarbeitung der

gesamten Theoriebasis zu den Thematiken ‚co-design‘ und ‚stakeholder
management‘; alleiniges Führen 1/3 Stakeholder-Interviews; Transkription 2/3
Stakeholder-Interviews; Erstellung der Papier-Prototypen der Methoden-
Karten; Erstellung des Papier-Prototypen des Projektprozesses der Fallstudie;
Gemeinsam: Korrespondenz mit der Hochschule Utrecht; Erstellung Fragen für

explorative Interviews im Vorprojekt, Führen von 1/4 explorativen Interviews
im Vorprojekt; Erstellung der Mind-Map; 2/3 Stakeholder-Interviews;
Niederschrift des Projektprozesses (Padlet Board); inhaltliche Entwicklung der
Methoden-Karten; Zusammenführung der Papier-Prototypen; Vorbereitung
des Usability Tests (mündlich); Überarbeitung des 1. Prototypen (mündlich),
Einleitung, Fazit und Ausblick.
Anne Koslowski, Matrikel 20113415 Laura Schulz, Matrikel 20123560
Münster, 14.11.2017 Hamburg, 14.11.2017
II
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We wish to express our sincere thanks to all those who have inspired, supported
and encouraged us while writing this thesis. Special thanks go to:
Berit Godfroij and colleagues from the Co-Design Research Group at the
University of Applied Sciences Utrecht for inviting us to work with them, for
providing us with the topic and the case study, and helping us find our way in
this whole new study area.
Björn Stockleben, our supervisor, who gave us the key hint which made
everything fall into place eventually. He helped us with useful comments and
was always addressable when needed.
Nancy Brosig from the International office of the University of Applied Sciences
Magdeburg-Stendal for her kind support during our Erasmus-exchange with
the University of Applied Sciences Utrecht.
Kai Köllen for giving us the opportunity to get an extensive insight in his work
by inviting us three times to his office in Amersfoort for discussions and
interviews.
My (Anne) colleagues at Westfälische Nachrichten for allowing me to take six

months off from work, especially Lisa and Ann-Kathrin for assisting me with
creating the persona templates and the book cover.
My (Anne) friends Abdelilah, Elena, Jessika and Mileen for their proofreading,
valuable ideas and steady encouragement.
Finally, my (Anne) family that always cares about my troubles and is there for
me.
My (Laura) family for always being there for me and for supporting me over the
whole-time span, with special thanks to my father Günther Schulz and my sister
Anne Schulz for proofreading and giving me valuable ideas and impulses.
All my (Laura) friends for their mental support and for always pushing me
forward, with special thanks to Anne for giving me the opportunity to be her co-
author of this master thesis and for being a valued companion.
The participants in the Netherlands that answered our interview questions.
III
ABSTRACT
Co-design is an umbrella term for participatory, co-creation and open design
processes. For example, when re-designing a pharmacy service of a hospital or
carrying out the energy transition in a country many kinds of stakeholders are
involved. In the hospital a team of patients, staff, doctors and senior
management will co-create the new service. In the energy transition citizens,
municipalities, suppliers, financiers and many other must work together
shaping a multi-stakeholder environment. While it has been a key tenet of co-
design to make the end-users of the design, as experts of their own experience,
become central in the design process other stakeholders have been neglected.
Notably the involvement of professionals whose knowledge is required for the
development of the product or service has not been considered sufficiently. This
has led to a lack of design methods and strategy frameworks that assist the
designers as project facilitators to consider the expectations of professionals
while dealing with the design problems. With the help of an extensive literature
research the authors first answer the research question how professionals and
other stakeholders in co-design projects can be analysed and managed. Then
they explore the expectations of the professionals in the case at hand making
them the experts of their own experience with the help of the persona technique.
The result is a prototype for a tool that aims at helping the project facilitator to
make better choices when involving professionals answering the research
question whom to involve when, why and how.
IV
TABLE OF CONTENTS
List of Figures
List of Tables
List of Appendices
List of Abbreviations
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1
Structure of the Thesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3
CHAPTER 1
1 Pre-study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6
1.1 Findings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.2 Research Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
CHAPTER 2
2 What is Co-design? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.1 Definition of the Co-design Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . 14
2.2 The (Co-) Design Development Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18
2.3 The Changing Role of the Designer in the Co-design Context. . . . . . . . . . .22
2.4 Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25
2.5 Case Study: The “Green Deal” Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25
CHAPTER 3
3 (Project) Stakeholder Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
3.1 History of the Stakeholder Approach to Strategic Management. . . . . . . . . . 28
3.2 A Definition of Stakeholders. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
3.3 Why Stakeholder Management is needed
– Win-win Solutions rather than Trade-offs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
3.4 Stakeholder Management in Design Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .38
3.5 Stakeholder Management Methods
– Theoretical Overview of Existing Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .41
3.5.1 Stakeholder Identification and Prioritization – General Methods. . . . . .42
3.5.2 Stakeholder Mapping – An Overview of Existing Methods. . . . . . . . . . . 43
3.5.3 Stakeholder Involvement – An Overview of Existing Methods. . . . . . . .52
3.5.4 Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .65
CHAPTER 4
4 The Role of Commitment and Goals in Projects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
4.1 The Goal-directed Design Approach and The Persona Technique . . . .. . . . 69
4.2 Deduction of Interview Questions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
CHAPTER 5
5 Supplemental Data from Cultural Typologies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .78
5.1 Definition of Culture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .79
5.1.1 Organizational Culture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
5.1.2 Occupational Culture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .80
5.2 The Correlation between Profession and Design Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
5.2.1 Critique of David Kolb’s ELT and LSI. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..86
5.2.2 Testing the Learning Style: A Self-made Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
V
5.3 Measuring Organisational Culture Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions . . . . . .89
5.3.1 Other Models to Differentiate Organisational Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
5.4 Measuring Occupational Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..94
5.5 Interview Technique, Data Management and Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
CHAPTER 6
6 Persona Hypothesis and Persona-like Stakeholder Profiles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .98
6.1 Mapping the User. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .114
6.2 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
6.3 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
CHAPTER 7
7 The Paper Prototypes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .121
7.1 The Design Process of the “Green Deal” Project. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . 121
7.2 Putting Together the Prototypes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
7.3 Findings and Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
7.4 Method Cards. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .125
CHAPTER 8
8 Usability Testing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
8.1 Test Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
8.2 Findings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .128
8.3 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .130
8.4 Revision of the Stakeholder Profiles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
CHAPTER 9
9 Discussion and Prospects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Appendix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
VI
List of Figures
Figure 1: Old and new design disciplines. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Figure 2: Location of the new design disciplines in the design landscape . . . .16
Figure 3: The Double Diamond model proposed by the Design Council . . . . 20
Figure 4: Common simple presentation of the design process with fuzzy
front end. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Figure 5: Innovation Process of Beckman (2014). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Figure 6: Generic stakeholder map. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .44
Figure 7: Stakeholder map – Power/Dynamism Matrix. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .46
Figure 8: Stakeholder map – Power/Interest Matrix. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Figure 9: Stakeholder map – Power, Legitimacy and Urgency Model. . . . . . . 48
Figure 10: Stakeholder map for whole system engagement. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .49
Figure 11: Miller’s stakeholder map for whole system engagement in a
case study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .51
Figure 12: The Value Design Method:
Combining user needs and stakeholder requirements. . . . . . . . . . .54
Figure 13: Five Stage Stakeholder Engagement Framework. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Figure 14: Relevance of the principles of the five stages of the framework. . . 62
Figure 15: The Value Flow Model with transactions of value between the
actors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Figure 16: Interview subjects mapped across a behavioural axis. . . . . . . . . . . 72
Figure 17: The four key activities of the design process linked to learning
styles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Figure 18: Contextual inquiry with the project facilitator at his office . . . . . .100
Figure 19: Interview subjects mapped across a behavioural axis. . . . . . . . . . .114
Figure 20: Interview subjects and persona hypothesis mapped across a
behavioural axis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 115
Figure 21: First version of a prototype of the stakeholder profiles . . . . . . . . . 121
Figure 22: The case study mapped to the design process (Beckmann, 2014).123
Figure 23: Matching of the stakeholder profile cards with the project
process phases. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .124
Figure 24: Examples of the method cards. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .125
Figure 25: Method cards and stakeholder profile prototypes for usability
test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
Figure 26: Pictures of the revised prototypes of the stakeholder profiles. . . .134
List of Tables
Table 1: Chronological definitions of a stakeholder. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Table 2: Overview of the trends within the fields of design research,
and business and strategic management. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Table 3: Advantages and disadvantages of stakeholder involvement
methods.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Table 4: Tensions between the logic of public bureaucracies and
collaborative innovation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
List of Appendices
Appendix 1: The Green Deal “Smart Energy Cities” Program. . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
Appendix 2: Design Process of the “Green Deal” Project. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
Appendix 3: Design Process – Prototype 1. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
Appendix 4: Design Process – Prototype 2. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .156
Appendix 5: Method Cards. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .157
VII
Appendix 6: Exploratory Interview Questions for Pre-Study. . . . . . . . . . . . . .160
Appendix 7: Transcript of Exploratory Interviews from Pre-Study. . . . . . . . .162
Appendix 8: Interview Guideline Part I – Goals and Culture. . . . . . . . . . . . . .170
Appendix 9: Interview Guideline Part II – Process and Stakeholders . . . . . .174
Appendix 10: Interview Transcript User 1. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
Appendix 13: Learning Style Test from User 2. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234
Appendix 14: Learning Style Test from User 3. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
Appendix 15: Paper Prototype of Stakeholder Profiles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240
Appendix 16: Usability Test Transcript . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .242
Appendix 17: Spreadsheet of Interview Answers and Persona Hypothesis. . 249
Appendix 18: Revised Stakeholder Profile Prototype. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262
Appendix 19: Mind Map Pre-Study. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .265
List of Abbreviations
App. Appendices
Cf. compare (Latin: confer)
e.g. for example (Latin: exempli gratia)
Fig. Figure
ICB International Competence Baseline
(K)LSI (Kolb’s) Learning Style Inventory
(K)ELT (Kolb’s) Experiential Learning Theory
LST Learning Style Theory
MBA Master of Business Administration
n.d. no date
p. / pp. Page(s)
PMBOK® (Guide) Project Management Body of Knowledge
RQ Research question
SRI (International) Standford Research Institute
Tab. Table
TQM Total Quality Management
VIII
Introduction by Anne Koslowski and Laura Schulz
The term co-design can be described as an approach which attempts to actively

involve different kinds of stakeholders in a design project. These stakeholders
are typically actors from different disciplines with different backgrounds,
interests and perspectives on the project’s outcome (Sanders & Stappers, 2008,
p. 6; Steen, Manschot & De Koning, 2011, p. 53; Berger et al., 2005, as cited in
Petri, 2016, p. 4). This multiple stakeholder environment makes the
involvement of the project participants challenging. However, existing methods
regarding stakeholder involvement have had a general focus on only one
stakeholder group – the end-user. Design methods and strategy frameworks
that assist the designers as project facilitators with managing the expectations
and roles of other stakeholders including professional while dealing with the
design problems are scarce (cf. Gultekin et al., 2016, p. 97). This is due to a
general lack of theoretical framework in co-design (cf. Godfroij, Verhoeven &
van der Lugt, 2013, p. 3). Therefore, designers as project facilitators are facing
problems concerning orchestrating the different requirements of stakeholders
and their involvement.
The thesis at hand focuses on those stakeholders whose knowledge is needed for
the development of a new product or service, called professionals (cf. Tassi,
2009) or stakeholders subsequently. These professionals have the authority
and/or responsibility for the development of a product or service (cf. Cooper,
Cronin & Reimann, 2007, p. 53), for example engineers, architects, managers,
and consultants. As they have different expectations regarding a project
outcome, they experience the design process differently. Therefore, they need
another kind of involvement than users do. Negotiating their inputs becomes a
key part of the designer’s decision-making, as in the context of co-design,
designers play the role of designers and project managers at the same time.
The authors of this thesis want to explore: How do professional experience the
co-design process? Why are they involved? And how can their commitment and
steady contribution be ensured in favour of a better outcome? They approach
these questions by investigating the professionals and the process of a co-design
project in the Netherlands. The case study was provided by the Co-Design
Research Group at the University of Applied Sciences Utrecht. With the help of
qualitative interviews incorporating frameworks on occupational and
organizational culture the authors capture the different goals, motivations and
1
expectations of the professionals. They are synthesized into profiles, similarly
to personas1, and presented as a prototype. Moreover, the authors create a
model of the process of the co-design project showing its distinguishable steps.
Together they are tested in the field in order to find out if they help the project
facilitator to plan stakeholder involvement more effectively and efficiently. The
thesis is backed up with an extensive benchmarking on existing stakeholder
analysis and management methods.
1 Personas are the results of applying the persona technique to analyse and describe (any
kind of) users (including stakeholders). The advantage of the persona technique is that
it gives the possibility to analyse users by incorporating the network that influence them
(cf. Cooper et al., 2014, p. 76).
2
Structure of the Thesis by Anne Koslowski and Laura Schulz
The authors start this thesis by presenting the pre-study (1.1) describing the
exploration process of the initial assignment given by the Co-design Research
Group at University of Applied Sciences Utrecht. Furthermore, they
demonstrate their findings which finally lead to the research questions (RQ1 &
2) which are presented (and also how they will be approached) in chapter 1.2.
In chapter 2.1 the authors define the term co-design (2.1.1) looking at different
approaches to the co-design process (2.1.2) which plays a greater role for the
stakeholder involvement tool in the empirical part of this thesis. Moreover, the
role of the designer in the co-design context is explained because this role is
tremendously challenging (2.1.3). For instance, it is the designer’s obligation to
develop a vision “that the entire team believes in” (Cooper, Cronin & Reimann,
2007, p. 54) in order to keep the collaboration meaningful and successful (cf.
Brause, 2017, p. 80). After giving a conclusion on the previous chapters, the
authors finally present the case study of this master thesis: the Green Deal
“Smart Energy Cities” project (2.1.5).
As both management studies and design studies stress the crucial role of
stakeholders in projects (cf. Project Management Institute, 2004, p. 24; Cooper,
Cronin & Reimann, 2007, p. 54) who should get a lot of attention already in the
pre-phase of a project (cf. Cooper, Cronin & Reimann, 2007, p. 53; Jani,
Sawhney, 2012, p. 55) the authors give a definition of how the term stakeholders
is understood in the context of this thesis (2.2.2). Before they give a brief
overview of the history of the stakeholder approach (2.2.1). In chapter 2.2.3 the
authors demonstrate why stakeholder management is needed (win-win
solutions rather than trade-offs), and how stakeholder management is applied
in design practice (2.2.4). An overview of existing stakeholder management
methods is shown in chapter 2.3 regarding the processes of stakeholder
identification and prioritization (2.3.1), stakeholder mapping (2.3.2) and
stakeholder involvement (2.3.3). As a result, a comparison of the stakeholder
involvement methods is presented in a table summarizing their advantages and
disadvantages (2.3.4).
To lead over to the goal-directed design approach of Cooper et al. (2014) chapter
4 explains which role goals in projects play, how they can differ between
stakeholders or be even reluctant, and how this affects the commitment of the
project participants. In chapter 4.1 Cooper’s et al. (2014) goal-directed approach
3
to the persona technique will be presented justifying why it was chosen for this
research and showing how the goals of each stakeholder can be captured. First
questions for the semi-structured interview guideline will be derived from that
method in chapter 4.2. As Cooper et al. (2014) suggest including the culture of
each stakeholder in a persona, and based on the findings from the pre-study
concerning different cultures in co-design projects chapter 5 looks at the
concept of culture. It starts with defining culture and the different layers of it.
Chapter 5.2. explains how professions differ in culture and how members of
professions cultivate different learning styles depending on their degree course
and in their current job role. Furthermore, it will be clarified how the concept of
learning styles matches with the design process continuing with the design
process suggested by Beckman (2014) as explained before in chapter 3.4. It also
clarifies how the framework of learning styles helps the authors making
predictions about and finding patterns in behaviours of the stakeholders of this
case study. After a critique of the concept of learning styles in chapter 5.2.2 the
authors present ways of measuring the different layers of culture in order to
operationalize it for their own data collection. In this chapter, more questions
for the interview guideline are being deduced. Finally, chapter 5.3 explains the
interview technique used as well as how the collected data was managed and
analysed.
In chapter 6 the authors present their stakeholder profile prototypes derived

from the interviews and the cultural patterns found in supplemental literature.
They illustrate the design process of the Green Deal “Smart Energy Cities”
project which they learned about in one of the interviews and how it was
mapped to the design process of Beckman (3.4). The first prototype testing is
documented in chapter 7.2 showing the process of putting together the
prototypes (project process and stakeholder profiles) and in 3.6 reflecting on its
outcomes. In chapter 7 the authors present the prototypes of their methods
cards which they developed for their final usability testing where the first
prototype of their tool was taken back to the user (3.8). Chapter 8.4 shows how
the stakeholder profile prototype was revised based on the findings from the
usability test tying in with the research on stakeholder management and
analysis methods. It presents the third and final version of a prototype in this
thesis.
4
Finally, the authors end in chapter 9 with a conclusion of their research and
future prospects as a groundwork for further research on the topic stakeholder
involvement in co-design projects.
5
CHAPTER 1
1. Pre-Study by Anne Koslowski
When the authors started out to explore the initial assignment given by the Co-
design Research Group at University of Applied Sciences Utrecht they realized
after a while: There is a lack of established theoretical framework in service
design and co-design (cf. Godfroij, Verhoeven & van der Lugt, 2013, p. 3; Han,
2010, p. 19). The approach of stakeholder involvement in the design process is
a new topic of study in the design field (cf. Gultekin et al., 2016, p. 97). The initial
assignment was:
“Co-Design (originally co-operative design) is often seen as involving users in the

design process. However, also professionals are frequently involved in design
activities such as workshops and creative sessions. Professionals do have different
kinds of interests, commitment and expectations regarding results than users do.
Hence, they need a different kind of involvement. When studying the collaboration
between designers and their clients in service design projects, we noticed that both
can be (very) enthusiastic about a project but when asking other actors that are
involved in the process (e.g. engineers, architects, innovation manager, creative
consultants, program manager) about their experience in service design/Co-
design activities, they perceive a feeling of an outsider. Those actors are
stakeholders but there are difficulties in involving them, in getting their
commitment, in knowing what they perceive in defining (shared) goals, etc.”2
The authors decided to approach this problem with the help of an exploratory
pre-study. Pre-studies are useful in order to gain “an understanding of the
system in which you will be researching” (Adams, Khan & Raeside, 2014, p.
143). Moreover, they help developing scientific research questions (cf. Döring &
Bortz, 2016, p. 192) which was the goal of the authors.
For the pre-study the authors defined stakeholders as those who have authority
and/or responsibility for the product being designed (cf. Cooper, Reimann &
Cronin, 2007, p. 53), following the definition of Cooper et al., who describe that
“stakeholders are key members of the organization commissioning the design

work, and typically include executives, managers, and representative
contributors from development, sales, product management, marketing, customer
2
Assignment sent by Berit Godfroij via E-Mail on January 17th 2017, Utrecht
6
support, design, and usability. They may also include similar people from other
organizations in business partnerships with the commissioning organization”
(Cooper, Reimann & Cronin, 2007, p. 53).
Hence, the authors refer to those as stakeholders who shall, must or want to
participate in the design process “by contributing contextual information of
domain specific expertise” (Miettinen, 2013, pp. 58) except the end-users3.
Further stakeholders can be communities, shareholders, investors, government
regulatory agencies, industry trade groups, labour unions, professional
associates, and competitors (Tassi, 2009, n.d.).
For the exploratory pre-study the authors interviewed four researchers from the
Co-design Research Group: Remko van der Lugt, Berit Godfroij, Fenne
Verhoeven and Rosa de Vries. The authors decided to conduct semi-structured
guided interviews (Appendix 6) which provide “enough openness for participant
comfort and enough focus for the structure to work” (Granot & Greene, 2014, p.
78).
Three of the interviews were conducted face-to-face at the University of Applied

Sciences Utrecht. They lasted about one hour each and were recorded as audio
files. The forth interview took place during a Skype session and was recorded as
well. Afterwards the authors evaluated the interviews by transcribing the most
relevant parts and clustered them in a mind map (Appendix 19)4. Since mind
mapping is a creativity technique to structure plenty of information
hierarchically (cf. Brandes, Erlhoff & Schemman, 2009, p. 179), the authors
used that method to get a better overview over the information from the
interviews. It starts with putting the central topic in the middle of a blank space,
then key words (or visuals) can be put into relation growing into a network
which ideally isolates a problem (cf. Wastian et al., 2012, p. 86). In this case the
authors put the words “successful” and “unsuccessful” in the centre. Around
these two states of things the authors put all evidences that could be reasons for
the success or failure of projects.
Afterwards the data was re-organized by assigning it to four areas of interest.

These areas of interest had been found out in an iterative and open-coding
3
Users are those who are “exposed to interaction with a product or service or so-called
secondary users such as service personnel and employees of the service provider who
are involved in the provision of the service“ (Stickdorn & Schneider, 2013, p. 58).
4 Please find the mind map also online for interactive use: http://bit.ly/2j1fSFA l
(available until May 5th 2018).

7
approach of interviews and further data from designer-provider communication
by Godfroij, van der Lugt & Verhoeven (2013, p. 6):
1. context of collaboration
2. shared understanding between design consultant and service provider
3. stakeholder commitment
4. deliverables
Additionally, the authors gave their data different colours to point out their
affiliation to the four areas of interest5. All evidences concerning context,
including origin and duration of relationship, approach and focus as well as
culture and organizational change was coloured blue; evidences regarding
shared understanding, including knowledge generation and knowledge
communication got the colour became red; stakeholder commitment, including
trust, provider involvement ownership and internal communication were
assigned yellow; and deliverables, including stakeholder interest and evaluation
was assigned green. After that, the authors could recognize easily that the yellow
statements dominate all other colours.
1.1 Findings by Anne Koslowski
Through the pre-study the authors gained valuable insights which helped them
to understand the problem better. The authors found out, that these insights are
similar to the results of the study by Godfroij, van der Lugt and Verhoefen
(2013): There are a lot of question marks when it comes to stakeholder
commitment and involvement. For example, one interview partner said that
“maybe some people who are involved and attending aren’t actually the most
important stakeholders”. Another one had major doubts about the engagement
of stakeholders: “To what extent are people from the inside and the outside
engaged in the process? To what extent can you keep that engagement and not
lose it over time? (…) How much can you expect from them and how much do
they expect?” The same problem topic came up again in another interview:
“Should different stakeholders be treated differently?”, “Maybe not every
stakeholder has to attend every meeting”, and “who is going to decide?” as well
as “who has which decision power?”
Not only the insecurity about not knowing when to involve whom, how and
when is an issue in co-design according to the findings. The researchers also
5 Streich & Brennholt (2012, p. 62) name three similar levels of

8
determined that different mindsets and approaches between designers and
other professionals involved in the project can cause difficulties in the process:
• “The way of making choices is a big difference because healthcare

professionals are following a lot of protocols. (…) They are used to filling
in forms and not to qualitative interviews.” (Rosa de Vries)
• “Designers usually focus more on the design process, managers for
example tend to focus more on a tangible product and not the process
itself.” (Venne Verhoeven)
• "I have a tendency towards very open processes. And we involved a lot
of people from a tax agency. You can imagine they are not so comfortable
with an open process design. That created a lot of friction as well. They
really wanted to have a plan what's going to happen over time. I must
say: I would never do it again that open.” (Remko van der Lugt)
• “I came up with some ideas and they wanted to know how I got it. And I
said well it’s just my creative mind. Explain yourself why you are doing
this that’s what they are used to not just trying things.” (Rosa de Vries)
• “Partners want to build something, want to be dynamic right from the
start. Designers try to do the design process more systematically,
involving steps like talking and lots of research.” (Venne Verhoeven)
Consequently, a better understanding and gaining deeper insights into the

minds of the different stakeholders might help facilitators of a co-design project
to manage the process. However, there is a limited number of “approaches and
methods that guide the designers in developing design solutions by considering
diverse stakeholder perspectives” (Gultekin et al., 2016, p. 97). This can be
explained by “a deep-rooted lack of attention to design within management and
organisation studies” (Godfroij, 2013, p. 4). Another reason why stakeholder
analysis and management are no common practices among co-design
facilitators – even though it is well-established in management studies – is
because design has been strictly user-centred “putting user/customer at the
heart of the design process” (Han, 2009, p. 4) while neglecting other
stakeholders (cf. Han, 2010). For example, Godfroij, van der Lugt and
Verhoefen (2013, p. 2) describe in their study about barriers in designer-
(service) provider collaboration how clients frequently get underestimated and
how the connection to them gets lost “in the heat of the process” even though
their “involvement throughout the process in order to successfully steer, design
9
and implement a service innovation” is crucial. This condition was also stressed
in one of the four exploratory interviews:
“We were looking full force at the outside world or the users but kind of
ignoring a little bit the people that are going to build the intervention.
Nowadays I think much more in terms of having these flows of reaching out
to the outside world or users but then also reaching out to the people who are
going to need to work with our material. Back then we felt like we need to do
this evangelizing. User-centred design is almost like a belief. We need to
convince them. But we stepped away from this. It's not so necessary anymore.
A lot of people are aware that we need to include the users in the process.”
(Remko van der Lugt)
Paying close attention to stakeholders is especially important for co-design

projects because they deal with wicked problems (chapter 2.3) which cannot be
addressed by an individual (cf. Sanders, 2012, p. 22). Therefore, these projects
highly depend on input from many people, not just the designer. “They rely on
the collective creativity of designers working together with non-designers,
[because] they deal with very complex challenges such as social change and
organizational transformation” (Sanders, 2011, p. 1). In those cooperative
projects different kinds of specialists with different professional backgrounds,
different (functional) cultures, approaches and languages join in for a limited
time frame. Furthermore, they often have other duties at the same time and
suffer from multiple responsibilities (cf. Schröder, 2010, p. 95; Wastian et al.,
2012, VII).
This leads to the problem that stakeholders do not pay attention in co-design
workshops and meetings. Instead they work on other things simultaneously,
getting called away as one interviewee told in the pre-study, or drop out of the
project completely: “We observed some stakeholders leave (..) halfway, or
individual representatives from organisations being replaced. If there is no
alignment of values, contribution, or expectations, people quite naturally drift
apart” (Raijmakers, Vervloed & Wierda, 2015, p. 27).
This quote shows that it is not only important to know the stakeholder’s multiple
responsibilities and their availabilities but also to know their expectations,
values and what they want to contribute. Other than hiring practice, project
teams are often composed with little or no systematic. It is most probable that
team members simply get delegated (cf. Wastian et al., 2012, p. 129). Yet, the
stakeholders’ reasons for being part of a project determine their motivation and
10
commitment (cf. Schröder, 2010, pp. 94). For example, when the project is
meaningful for the team member’s personal career development, and the
delegating company supports their endeavour, and when the stakeholders have
the authority to make independent decisions, then their commitment to the
project will be rather distinctive (cf. ibid, p. 95; pp. 179, p. 190). If this is not the
case decision-making processes slow down (cf. ibid, pp. 90), information flows
stagnate (ibid, p. 182), and conflicts arise.
Therefore, it is paramount to understand stakeholder needs, interests, and

powers (Han, 2009, pp. 3) and ensure a high level of commitment since it is one
of the most crucial ingredients for success in terms of design quality (cf. Brause,
2017, p. 177; Enninga et al., 2013, pp. 43). Commitment ensures that project
members have “the patience, creative endurance, and personal backbone to
argue respectfully and demand the most of all members – rather than run –
when things get difficult” (Brause, 2017, p. 170). They generally do get difficult
at some point in any project (cf. Wastian et al., 2012, p. 98) but especially in
innovation projects such as co-design projects where “innovating is often
painful for those involved because it is destructive as well as productive” (Agger
& Sørensen, 2016, p. 3). Depending on the role and power of the stakeholder, it
is also important because “this commitment helps to open doors, procure
resources, or connect with the client’s clients. The actual implementation within
the organization is also more likely to be a success if the organization is
committed to the project” (Enninga et al., 2013, p. 44).
1.2 Research Design by Anne Koslowski
As the authors found out in their pre-study it is crucial in any project but
especially in a co-design project to succeed in understanding who to involve,
why, how, and when. Contributing to fill the knowledge gap in the area of
stakeholder involvement in co-design projects the authors will answer the
following research questions (RQ):
RQ 1: How can facilitators of a co-design project identify their key stakeholders

(WHO/WHY)?
RQ 2: At what point (stages and activities) and to which extent should and could
these stakeholders be involved during the process design
(WHO/WHEN/HOW)?
11
RQ1 will be answered by an extensive literature research on stakeholder theory.
The goal is a benchmarking of existing stakeholder management methods in co-
design. Apart from giving an overview of what is already there, the authors aim
at finding a missing link where their tool for stakeholder involvement bridges a
research gap between design and management studies. RQ2 will be answered
by exploring the case study of the governmental Green Deal project given by the
University of Applied Sciences Utrecht. Case studies are suitable for
approaching a certain situation or an event in depth (cf. Brandes, Erlhoff &
Schemman, 2009, p. 171). Whereas their results cannot be generalized they can
help describing and understanding the subject matter and therefore contribute
to theory building.
The research objective of this master thesis is to develop a tool that helps
facilitators of co-design projects to involve the right stakeholders at the right
time. This will be done by applying the persona technique. It is an elaborated
and widely used tool among (co-)designers to learn about stakeholders
respectively professionals (c.f. Tassi, 2009, n.d.). As a result, the authors will
create a paper prototype of persona-like stakeholder profiles. The profiles will
only be like personas because they will be based on a very limited number of
interviews due to a low number of stakeholders in this case study6. These
profiles shall be matched with the phases of the design process. Therefore, the
process of the Green Deal project will be described retrospectively by
interviewing the project facilitator. With his help, the authors will learn about
the process, its single steps, methods used in each meeting and workshop, and
the expenditure of time needed. Afterwards the authors will link this empirical
data to the design process suggested by Beckman (2014), who links the phases
and key activities of the innovation process to the specific skills and styles
needed from stakeholders (2014, p. 65). This will give the authors a first
reference point regarding RQ2.
The data for the stakeholder profiles will be derived from semi-structured
guided interviews with the stakeholders of the Green Deal project. The interview
questions will be deduced from Cooper’s et al. goal-directed design approach
and supplemental data, including Kolb’s Learning Style Theory as well as
frameworks about occupational and organisational culture.
6
Depending on the product Cooper et al. (2014, p. 49) suggest conducting six to twelve
interviews for each user type postulated in the persona hypothesis.
12
Finally, the authors test their early stage paper prototype in a real-life situation
with the project facilitator with the help of a usability test. This prototype will
be then revised and presented as a digital and final version of this project.
13
CHAPTER 2
2. What is Co-design? by Laura Schulz
The proposed research questions (chapter 1.2) investigate the roles and
responsibilities of stakeholders and/or stakeholder groups, the activities they
are involved with, the (co-) design process, and most importantly, how
designers contribute and manage stakeholder involvement effectively and
efficiently.
The purpose of this chapter is to outline the development of the co-design

approach and how it is applied to the general design process. Furthermore, the
authors examine the changing role of designers as (design) project
managers/facilitators concerning stakeholder involvement, especially in the
case study of this master thesis (chapter 2.5).
2.1 Definition of the Co-design Approach by Laura Schulz
“Our process determines the quality of our product. If we wish to improve our
products, we must improve our processes; we must continuously redesign not
only the products but also the way we design.” (Dubberly, 2004, p. 5)
The term co-design is related to participatory, co-creation7 and open design

processes and is characterized by a collective creativity applied across the whole
span of an innovative design development process. It can be described as an
approach to design attempting to actively involve different kinds of stakeholders
(chapter 3.2), including employees, managers, consumers, users, communities
and the public as a whole, as participants throughout the design process to
ensure that the result meets the stakeholders’ needs and is usable (cf. Sanders
& Stappers, 2008, p. 6; Steen, Manschot & De Koning., 2011, p. 53; Berger et al.,
2005, cited in Petri, 2016, p. 4).
The authors of this research use the term co-design especially with regard to the
collective creativity of designers (in the role of a design project’s facilitator) and
people not trained in design working together throughout a specific design
development process.
7 The terms co-design and co-creation are often used synonymously, whereby co-
creation describes “any act of collective creativity” (Sanders & Stappers, 2008, p. 6) and
co-design relates to collective creativity applied across a design process. Thus, co-design
can be seen as a specific instance of co-creation.
14
Back in 1960s and 1970s, the notion of co-design (at first in Scandinavian
countries) dramatically changed the designer-stakeholder relationship in
design practice, especially in the public sector. Initially, the idea of co-design
was to create a democratic working environment for employees, as Kotter and
Schlesinger argued that “in general, participation leads to commitment, not
merely compliance” (Kotter & Schlesinger, 1979, p. 10). Since then, practice and
research on this inclusive design philosophy has been developed in many
directions, along with other notions such as user-centered design8 and human-
centered design9. In recent years, design practice has been moved from a
preoccupation with the making of stuff to a focus on the purpose of designing
and on making stuff for people in the context of their lives. The new and
emerging design domains (Figure 1 & 210) are bigger and more ambitious than
the traditional design disciplines and require the collaboration of people from
many different backgrounds, including both designers, who normally do not
undertake any managerial education, and non-designers, who neither were
trained in nor were experienced working with design (Sanders & Stappers, 2014,
p. 17).
Figure 1: Old and new design disciplines (from a focus on the design object to a focus on the purpose of
designing)
Source: Sanders & Stappers, 2014, p. 17
8 User-centered design is firstly presented as a design approach in The Design of
Everyday Things. Norman (1988) suggests that designers should focus on users’
everyday life experience and their unspoken needs while designing products.
9
As user-centered design suggests that design should be carried out in a manner that
considers user’s needs as paramount, human-centered design extends this idea and
suggests that all stakeholders involved in the production and consumption (directly or
indirectly) of the design solution should be considered (cf. Novoseltseva, 2017)
10
Located in the upper right area (yellow zone); for more information, see Sanders &
Stappers, 2014, p. 21
15
Figure 2: Location of the new design disciplines in the design landscape
Source: Sanders & Stappers, 2014,p. 21
As mentioned before, co-design is confirmed as a process of knowledge

generation and diffusion that integrates the collective intelligence of all
stakeholders of a design project. Involving different stakeholders gives access to
a richer stock of experience and more creative thoughts (cf. LSE Enterprise,
2009, cited in Petri, 2016, p. 7). Recent research has shown that designers create
more innovative concepts and ideas that better meet the needs of the (end-)
users when working within a co-design environment with others than they do
when creating ideas on their own (see e.g. Kimbell, 2014; Mitchell et al., 2016).
In this context, designers select or mix, often intuitively, three inter-related yet
different approaches in order to maximize the impact of design: leading,
facilitating and producing. All three design approaches can support
management work in generating stakeholders’ participation and involvement
(cf. Han, 2010, pp. 188)
However, designers may encounter resistance to change which can be caused by

self-interest, misunderstanding, a different assessment of the situation, or a low
capacity for achieving the desired change (cf. Kotter & Schlesinger, 1979).
“Many projects have multiheaded clients, made up of public entities or
corporate clients, community stakeholders, regulatory agencies, designers,
consultants, contractors, fabricators, funders, and others, all coming to a project
with their own needs and desires. Design projects have particular conflicts
which may be intensified by the structure of the contract or the distinct methods
and backgrounds of the diverse project partners. Moreover, environmental
16
goals, or financial concerns.” (Brause, 2017, p. 174). This quote mentions both
internal and external factors that have an impact on a project team member. On
the one hand, there are “environmental goals”, “financial concerns”, and
contractual conditions that can influence an individual and the company it
works for. On the other hand, it mentions “distinct methods and backgrounds”
as well as “design values” as internal viewpoints that individuals act upon.
Hence, there are many different influences that steer the behavior of a person
in a project team.
Furthermore, most co-design efforts fail because they don’t get enough
submission. Stakeholders either do not have time as they are quite busy, nor
they aren’t enough interested in spending their valuable time giving ideas to
benefit the co-design project outcome. It is essential to get a critical mass of
people, otherwise the chances of co-creation success drop. As a result,
understanding the motivations of co-creators is critical for activating them to
submit good ideas. Furthermore, to make co-creation successful it is needed to
convince stakeholders of the value of the co-design approach (cf. Ramaswamy
& Gouillart, 2010; Bughin, 2014; Kohler, 2015, all cited in Petri, 2016, p. 9).
One of the goals of the co-design process is that all actors involved in the design
project share and create knowledge through design, communication, knowledge
creation and integration. But, as mentioned before, the creation of shared
understanding between actors from different disciplines is difficult as these
actors have different backgrounds, interests and perspectives on the project’s
outcome (cf. Dougherty, 1992; Bond & Ricci, 1992, both cited in Kleinsmann &
Valkenburg, 2008, p. 371; Wastian et al., 2012, p. 239) Moreover, non-designers
are often faced with the problem that they aren’t familiar with the design process
in general. They easily get lost in the process since they don’t know design
techniques. Earlier research on shared understanding in co-design teams has
found that a lack of shared understanding causes unnecessary iterative loops in
the process of design and results in a decrease of the stakeholders’ commitment
and involvement (cf. Valkenburg & Dorst, 1998, cited in Kleinsmann &
Valkenburg, 2008, p. 371; Enninga et al., 2013, p. 43). “Ultimately a lack of
shared understanding reduced the quality of the final product, because not all
problems have been solved in the end.” (Kleinsmann & Valkenburg, 2008, p.
371). These findings highlight the importance of having shared understanding
in (design) project teams, whereby some researchers put especially emphasis on
17
the process of creating shared understanding (see e.g. Dong, 2005; Mulder,
Swaak & Kessels, 2002).
Project commitment is characterized by individuals’ acceptance of and a strong

belief in the project goals and by the willingness to maintain membership and
to engage in a project team (cf. Hoegl, Weinkauf & Gemuenden, 2004, p. 40;
Kleinsmann & Valkenburg, 2008, p. 444; Enninga et al., 2013, p. 93). “By
demonstrating a supportive position toward the team and its objectives,
managers have the capacity to influence individuals’ project commitment and,
in turn, team outcomes.” (Ehrhardt et al., 2013, p. 457). This means that in the
beginning of the project it is important to “ferret out language gaps and barriers
and reframe the problem with a common understanding” (McGowan, 2014, p.
28). When shared understanding is created among all team members even
conflict and different intentions can be drivers for innovation and may result in
high quality innovations. Additionally, Hoffmann, Bittner and Leimeister
(2013) point out that shared understanding is a dynamic state because team
members keep learning in the course of the project (cf. ibid, pp. 175).
From this perspective, the design process becomes a necessary embodiment of

participation of different stakeholders where multiple aspects are added
through multiple stakeholder involvement. The design process nowadays can be
seen not only as a mechanical problem-solving process, but rather as a multi-
dimensional knowledge transfer process among all parts involved. Within the
design process designers cannot complete their design actions without studying
and interacting with the outside world, especially the people in that world.
Negotiating stakeholder inputs in different stages becomes a key part of the
designer’s decision-making, however, designers can still face problems
concerning stakeholder management. As a result, the challenging questions of
how to contribute and involve various kinds of stakeholders in the process of a
co-design project in the most effective and efficient way still requires more
theoretical and practical research.
2.2 The (Co-) Design Development Process by Laura Schulz
Despite slight variations in the details, early research and practice often
presented the design process in two main stages: problem definition (analysis:
focus on discovery or finding) and problem solution (synthesis: focus on
invention and making) or synonymously planning and creating. These two
stages were then divided into smaller steps (cf. Buchanan, 1992, p. 15; Spinelli
18
& McGowan, 2013, pp. 65). Jones presented a codified three-stages process,
which had a significant influence on design methodology in research and
practice.11 This model shows a design process through three stages, these being
analysis, synthesis and evaluation. Jones named and explained these as
divergence (breaking down the problem into smaller pieces), transformation
(putting the pieces together in a new way) and convergence (putting this new
arrangement into practice) (cf. 1992, p. 63). These early design process
frameworks are criticized for promoting “an illusion of linearity and
mechanism” (Dubberly, 2004, p. 12). The fundamental assumption behind
these linear models of the design process is that a design problem can be defined
fully at an early stage, then solved in a later stage while the problem situation
does not change. However, Buchanan points out that the nature of design makes
it an exploratory process of enquiring and creating in complex environments
(cf. 1992, p. 15). Proposals for a normative process in the past took a
fundamentally rational approach to the design process and how designers work
by ignoring the importance of embracing the random nature of creative
thinking. In contrary, the design or innovation process should be seen as an
interactive process where recursivity is the norm and phases are conflated. As a
result, nowadays models which reflect the iterative nature of design and
emphasize feedback loops in decision-making, like the Double Diamond model
(Figure 3) have gained popularity. The Double Diamond model12 was proposed
by the Design Council in 2005 to represent the four phases of the design process
these being Discover, Define, Develop and Deliver (Design Council 2015).
11 For example, the Design Council describes their Double Diamond Model as moving
through divergent and convergent phases which is similar to some of Jones’s

explanation of the design process.
12 The Design Council argue that the Double Diamond model differs to most 1960s
models where it places emphasis on the Discover phase as one of the most critical, and
the one which makes best use of the designer’s knowledge and skills. In this phase, the
designer explores a design problem through user research and creative thinking and
notices new things and gather insights. This broad phase involves divergent though
which seeks to generate a multitude of ideas for decision-making for the next Define
phase (cf. Design Council, 2007, pp. 6; Design Council, 2015).
19
Figure 3: The Double Diamond model proposed by the Design Council
Source: Design Council 2015
In recent design literature there is a large and growing emphasis on the front
end, formally called pre-design, which is often referred to as fuzzy because of
the ambiguity and chaotic nature that characterize it (Figure 4). In the fuzzy
front end, it is often not known what the deliverable of the design process will
be, e.g. a product or a service. Considerations and explorations of many natures
come together in this increasingly critical phase with the goal to determine what
is to be designed (cf. Laurel, 2003, p. 145; Sleesvijk Visser, 2009, p. 27). The
fuzzy front end is followed by the traditional design process where the resulting
ideas for product, service, interface, etc. are developed first into concepts, and
then into prototypes that are refined based on the feedback of future users (cf.
Sanders & Stappers, 2008, p. 7).
Figure 4: Common simple presentation of the design process with fuzzy front end
Source: Sanders & Stappers, 2008, p. 7
20
Sanders and Stappers (2008) as researchers and practitioners, point out that
“co-creation practiced at the early front end of the design development process
can have an impact with positive, long-range consequences” (Sanders &
Stappers, 2008, p. 13). Other researchers have also acknowledged that
gathering information about the needs and wishes of users (as one stakeholder
group) in the fuzzy front end creates a deeper shared understanding and is a
determinant of success, because if choices are embedded in the values of the
user this prevents mistakes later in the process (see e.g. Kujala, 2003; Ramesh
& Tiwana 1999; Kleinsmann & Valkenburg, 2005; Sanders & Stappers, 2008).
Thus, the application of the co-design approach both in the moment of idea
generation and continuing throughout the design process at all key moments of
decision, will change design.
The Innovation Process of Beckman
The authors of this thesis selected the Innovation Process of Beckman (2014) as
the theoretical design process framework for their specific research case aiming
to get a first reference point regarding RQ 2 (chapter 1.2). It contains the four
key activities that are core to innovation: Observations, Frameworks,
Imperatives, and Solutions (with a highly iterative nature) along the process
stages of problem framing (analysis) and problem solving (synthesis) (Figure
5):13
Figure 5: Innovation Process of Beckman (2014)

Source: Adapted from Beckman, 2014, p. 67
13 See for further information: Beckman, 2014, pp. 67

21
The Observations phase focuses on learning in great detail about the lives of the
customers targeted by the innovation and also entails learning about the
industry ecosystem in which the company competes: the core competencies the
company can leverage, key discontinuities that might provide an opening for
innovation, and industry orthodoxies that, if broken, might yield new ways of
framing and solving the innovation challenge (cf. Beckman, 2014, p. 67)
The Frameworks phase requires taking all the messy data captured in the
Observations phase and extracting key insights. A wide variety of tools is used
at this phase, e.g. customer journey maps that facilitate understanding customer
needs, industry maps that help identify alternative bases for competition, and
business model canvases that display core elements of a business and their
interactions (cf. ibid).
The Imperative phase moves the team into synthesis work where choices are
made as to which of the insights generated in the Frameworks phase are most
important. Then ideas are generated to respond to those insights. In short, the
team goes from framing the problem to solving the problem, moving from
opportunity recognition to value creation (cf. ibid).
Finally, the Solution phase takes the concepts generated in the abstract and
makes them concrete, building prototypes (e.g. physical products, storyboards,
simulations or business models) and taking them back to customers and users
for testing (cf. ibid).
Beckman (2014) matched this Innovation Process with four different learning
styles that are best suited to lead and execute (chapter 5.2).
2.3 The Changing Role of the Designer in the Co-design

Context by Laura Schulz
As Buchanan (1992) argued design problems are often not determined and
cannot be formulated; rather, all design deals with wicked problems that have
no answer but only possibilities, where design is the domain of operation.
However, designers are not the only professionals who have the capability to
create or see these possibilities. The role of the design project facilitator, usually
undertaken by the project designer, becomes an essential component of a
successful co-design project. This project facilitator should be able to provide
ways for people to engage with each other as well as providing ways to
communicate, be creative, share insights and test out new ideas (cf. Steen,
22
Manschot & De Koning, 2011, p. 59; Kleinsmann & Valkenburg, 2008, p. 384).
Press and Cooper (2003) illustrated the multifaceted roles of design managers
in practice in various contexts. They also suggested that the shared goal of
Design Management is to “enable design to be used effectively” (Press &
Cooper, 2003, p. 194) in organizations. As a result, nowadays the role of a
designer in the design process has more to do with integrating “the ideas of
designers and manufacturers about their products; the internal operational
logic of products; and the desire and ability of human being to use the product
in everyday life in ways that reflect personal and social values.” (Buchanan,
1992, p. 20).
In the context of co-design, designers as project facilitators start to play the role
of designer and design manager at the same time – producing design solutions
as well as coordinating multiple stakeholders, adopting management languages
and giving suggestions on business development. They play multifaceted roles
to achieve different purposes, creating collective tacit and explicit knowledge14,
articulating and facilitating new knowledge generation, and integrating
knowledge from different sources into the outcomes. Designers in the 21st
century are likely to build on their recognized skills of creativity and synthesis,
and furthermore become negotiators of value, facilitators of thinking,
visualizers of the intangible, navigators of complexity, mediators with
stakeholders, and coordinators of exploration (cf. Inns, 2007, p. 25; Press &
Cooper, 2003, pp. 154; Manzini, 2009, p. 11; Julier, 2007, p. 208; Morelli, 2007,
p. 6; Thackara, 2006, p. 7; Burns et al., 2006, p. 27; Lee, 2008, p. 36; Body,
Terrey & Tergas, 2010, p. 64).
In the field of design, the role of the designer as facilitator is commonly

acknowledged. Nevertheless, the design literature does not elaborate on this
role, nor does it explore its practices (cf. Tan, 2012, p. 180). Body, Terrey &
Tergas (2010) provide one of the most comprehensive descriptions of the
practices of a design facilitator and ascertain what this role includes:
• The establishment of a clear and shared intent;

• The assembly of the right people to address the challenge;
• Being able to determine the best process and techniques;
14 Explicit knowledge may be provided by the client and stakeholders in the form of
regulations, documents, websites, and artefacts; whereas the tacit knowledge is

inhabited in silent designers (the term silent designers will be explained in chapter 3.2)
(cf. Gorb & Dumas, 1987).
23
• Managing events, e.g. workshops;
• Focusing on design thinking; and
• Ensuring the design outputs get closer to addressing the challenge
(summarized from Body, Terrey & Tergas, 2010, p. 64).
It is obvious that the success of the project largely relies on the designer’s ability
to build relationships and trust in other stakeholders. Establishing these
necessary relationships and effective communications with key stakeholder
groups is a crucial issue in managing co-design projects. This can be challenging
for co-designers; even if the designers’ ability to holistically study people’s life
and experience and to empower creativity and collaboration among all
participants is increasingly recognized in the management context. As
knowledge agents, designers have to develop power-sensitive skills while
working in an increasingly complex stakeholder environment of innovation.
However, designers already do have the advantage of using rich communication
methods, such as visualization and metaphoric storytelling, to achieve empathy
among stakeholders. Nevertheless, designers as it seems often still rely purely
on experience and gut feeling to adjust their relationships with other
stakeholders at different stages of the design process (cf. Kouprie & Sleeswijk
Visser, 2009, pp. 437; Han, 2010, pp. 38)
The literature describing methods of collaboration between organizations and

designers is widely available. Various kinds of models of the design process or
design management toolkits were presented in the past, in order to encourage
more effective communication between the designer and (key) stakeholders in
a project.15 These tools and methods in design have equipped designers with the
capability not only to develop useful design solutions but also to improve
stakeholder involvement in design projects. Nonetheless, there is still a need of
exploration and guidance on how to involve the stakeholders in the most
successful way (chapter 1). The discussion in research and practice in the design
field, especially in the service design sector, have been largely focused on only
one stakeholder group - the (end-) users; less discussion has been carried out
15IDEO, for instance, launched in 2009 their Human-Centered Design Toolkit for
non-governmental organizations (NGO) and social enterprises to help stakeholders to
understand the value of design and to sustain design management throughout the
process (IDEO, 2015). The Service Design Tools site, e.g., also provides a wide range of
tools and techniques to support the co-design process (for more information, see
http://www.servicedesigntools.org). Furthermore, the textbook This is Service Design
Thinking illustrates methods and tools of service design as a kind of toolkit (cf.
Stickdorn & Schneider, 2016)
24
regarding the relationships with other (key) stakeholder groups. Hence, studies
concerning various stakeholder groups and designers’ contributions to their
collaboration are lacking (cf. Walker & Marr, 2001, p. 92; Han, 2010, p. 4;
Sanders & Stappers, 2014, p. 23; Gultekin et al., 2016, p. 97).
2.4 Conclusion by Laura Schulz
The term co-design can be described as an approach to design attempting to

actively involve different kinds of stakeholders. It is defined as a process of
knowledge generation and diffusion that integrates the collective intelligence
and creativity of all stakeholders of a design project. These stakeholders of a co-
design project are typically actors from different disciplines with different
backgrounds, interests and perspectives on the project’s outcome which makes
it difficult to create a shared understanding among them.
In the context of co-design, designers as project facilitators start to play the role
of designer and project manager at the same time. They play multifaceted roles
to achieve different purposes, creating collective tacit and explicit knowledge,
articulating and facilitating new knowledge generation, and integrating
knowledge from different sources into the outcomes. Negotiating stakeholder
inputs in different stages becomes a key part of the designer’s decision-making,
however, designers are still facing problems concerning stakeholder
management.
This research, therefore, focuses on the study of managing multiple stakeholder

involvement in a co-design project, especially from a designer’s perspective as
the project manager/facilitator. The initial research questions (chapter 1.2)
investigate the roles and responsibilities of stakeholders or stakeholder groups
and how designers contribute and manage their involvement effectively and
efficiently.
2.5 Case Study: “The Green Deal” Project by Laura Schulz
The Green Deal project (as one part of the Green Deal “Smart Energy Cities”
program (Appendix Fehler! Textmarke nicht definiert.) was given to the
authors as the case study of this master thesis by the Co-Design Research Group
at University of Applied Science Utrecht. The program was created by the Dutch
Government at the end of 2013 as a public-private partnership aiming to
provide 100.000 homes and neighborhoods with (state of the art) solutions for
25
smart, decentralized energy services.16 According to the government, besides an
accelerated transition to a smarter, more sustainable energy supply there is also
an effective but social approach by activating and consulting residents and
owners of buildings.
For twelve projects in five municipalities, several “Smart Energy Cities” teams
have been compiled. These integral teams consist of market experts including a
creative producer (who encourages the demands of residents), an innovation
coach (as energy expert), and a representative of the network administrator.
Participants of the “Smart Energy Cities” program are17:
• The municipalities of Amsterdam, Arnhem, Eindhoven and Enschede

• The network administrators
• The sectors of the energy and creative industry
• The ministry of economic affairs, infrastructure and environment
(“ministeries van Economische Zaken, van Infrastructuur en Milieu en
van Binnenlandse Zaken & Koninkrijksrelaties”)
The authors’ contact person18 concerning the case study (working as a partner
and service designer for a service design counseling agency in the Netherlands)
participates in the projects of Eindhoven. He has the position of the creative
producer (project facilitator) and is therefore responsible for the following
tasks:
• Building shared understanding in this multi stakeholder environment

• Creating user insights, understanding context
• Exploring creative solutions
• Designing new forms of organizational learning
In the first interview with the project facilitator, he stated the following people
as the key stakeholders of the project that was given to the authors as their case
study:
16 Including energy saving, the application of local, renewable energy sources and new,
smart energy services and furthermore, optimizing the heating, cooling and electricity
infrastructure. This program is in some extent comparable to the energy system
transformation in Germany (more information:
https://www.bundesregierung.de/Webs/Breg/DE/Themen/Energiewende/_node.ht
ml)
17 More information: http://www.smartenergycities.nl
18 called user 1 by the authors (chapter 6)
26
• P. van P.19 (Developer of 3D-Tool)
• A. V.20 (Sustainability Manager)
• J. R.21 (Innovation Coach)
• H. K.22 (Area Manager)
In chapter 7.1 the design process of the “Green Deal” project will be presented
in greater detail.
19 called user 2 (chapter 6)

27
CHAPTER 3
3. (Project) Stakeholder Management by Laura Schulz
The purpose of this chapter is to outline the development of the idea of

stakeholder management (as it has come to be applied in strategic
management). The authors begin with an overview of the history of the concept
and then review recent work on stakeholder theory to show how stakeholder
management has affected the practice of project management, especially in
design practice. In the following paragraphs, the fundamentals of stakeholder
theory and the current status of knowledge of this research area will be
presented as a result of secondary research (systematic literature review and in
some extent qualitative meta-synthesis23). Finally, a scientifically proven basis
for discussion will be given for answering the two research questions (chapter
1.2).
3.1 History of the Stakeholder Approach to Strategic

Management by Laura Schulz
As Eskerod, Huemann, and Savage (2015) point out in their special issue on
project stakeholder management (Project stakeholder management – past and
present), the origins of project stakeholder management are not found in the
project management field itself. They rather originates from theories of strategic
management, where the stakeholder approach to strategy emerged in the mid-
1980’s. A focal point in this movement was the publication of Freeman’s book
Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach in 1984, in which he
encouraged a Stakeholder View of the Firm, to enhance another perspective of
companies which differed from dominant views where production and
management processes are in focus (cf. Freeman, 1984, p. 25; Eskerod,
Huemann & Savage, 2015, p. 6; Freeman & McVea, 2001, pp. 18). He proposed
his stakeholder management concept as a response to the inadequate theories
23 A systematic literature review discusses published information in a particular subject
area (often within a certain time period) and provide a solid background for a research
paper’s investigation. The focus of this method is to summarize and synthesize the
arguments and ideas of others without adding new contributions but, depending on the
situation, it may evaluate the sources and advise the reader on the most pertinent or
relevant. A qualitative meta-synthesis is an approach to analyse data across qualitative
studies and can be described as a process that enables researchers to identify a specific
research question and then search for, select, appraise, summarize, and combine
qualitative evidence to address the research question (cf. Erwin, Brotherson &
Summers, 2011; Ahrens, 2014, pp. 120; The Writing Center, n. d.; Gunnarsson, 2014).
28
of the 1960s and 1970s that were neither helping managers develop new
strategic directions nor were they helping them understand how to create new
opportunities in the midst of environmental turbulence and change. His
proposal aimed to broaden the concept of strategic management beyond its
roots in economic terms (cf. Freeman & McVea, 2001, pp. 4). As Freeman
observed “[O]ur current theories are inconsistent with both the quantity and
kinds of change that are occurring in the business environment of the 1980’s. A
new conceptual framework is needed.” (Freeman, 1984, p. 5).
While the 1980’s provided an environment that demonstrated the power of a

stakeholder approach, the idea was not entirely new. The use of the term
stakeholder grew out of the pioneering work at Stanford Research Institute
(SRI; now SRI International)24 in the 1960’s. SRI argued that managers needed
to understand the concerns of stakeholders (individuals and groups) like
shareholders, employees, customers, suppliers, lenders and society, in order to
develop objectives, they would support. As this support was necessary for long
term success, management should actively explore its relationships with all
stakeholders (internal and external) in order to develop business strategies (cf.
Freeman & McVea, 2001, pp. 4).
Another inspiration for the stakeholder management theory and the conceptual
construct stakeholder originated from Scandinavian as recent research by
Robert Strand along with Freeman shows (cf. Strand & Freeman, 2015): In 1968
Rhenman, a Swedish researcher, explicitly used the stakeholder term in his
book Industrial Democracy. He pointed to the mutual dependencies between
the company and its stakeholders. According to him these stakeholders were
dependent on the company to be able to realize their personal goals, whereas
the company was dependent on the stakeholders to realize the company’s
objectives (cf. Eskerod, Huemann & Savage, 2015, p. 7).
Concerning the benefit from letting stakeholder groups actively participate in

decision-making, Dill (1975) argued:
24 The SRI International is an American independent, nonprofit research center

headquartered in Menlo Park, California and was founded as the Stanford Research
Institute in 1946. It works with clients to take the most advanced R&D from the
laboratory to the marketplace. Serving government and industry, they collaborate
across technical and scientific disciplines to generate real innovation and create high
value for their clients. For more than 70 years, they have led the discovery and design of
ground-breaking products, technologies, and industries (for more information, see
https://www.sri.com).
29
“For a long time, we have assumed that the views and initiative of stakeholders
could be dealt with as externalities to the strategic planning and management
process; as data to help management shape decisions, or as legal and social
constraints to limit them. We have been reluctant, though, to admit the idea
that some of these outside stakeholders might seek and earn active
participation with management to make decisions. The move today is from
stakeholder influence towards stakeholder participation.” (cited in Freeman,
1984, p. 38).
Initially, these developments mostly had a relatively small impact on the

management theories of the time. But these theoretical frameworks in
Stakeholder Management soon gained wide recognition among management
practitioners. Stakeholders were perceived not only as actors that controlled
important resources, they also became legitimized actors to be acknowledged by
organizations (cf. Müller et al. 2013, cited in Eskerod, Huemann & Savage, 2015,
p. 8; Cooper et al., 2014, pp. 39). Collins and Porras (1994) echoed Freeman’s
stakeholder management approach in their publication Build to Last with
empirical studies based on financial analysis of successful and unsuccessful
firms in the 20th century. They suggested that for long-term success a strong set
of core values is necessary, and that collaborative stakeholder relationships play
an essential role in developing and maintaining these core values over time. In
their case studies, companies such as HP and Walt Disney demonstrated how
organizations could achieve constant business success by embracing a wide
range of stakeholder benefits in their corporate core values.
The highly developed communication technology and global market

competition of the 21st century also have made changes to the boundaries
between firms, industries and public and private lives making them turbulent
and interconnected. Stakeholders in such a network are now more likely to have
existing or potential relationships with each other. Therefore, managing
stakeholder relationships becomes an essential element of good project
management practice involving communicating, negotiating, contracting, and
motivating with a partnering mentality (cf. Freeman & McVea, 2001, p. 22).
3.2 A Definition of Stakeholders by Laura Schulz
The Stanford Research Institute (SRI) defines stakeholders as “those groups

without whose support the organization would cease to exist” (cited in Freeman,
1984, p. 31). They are “[…] persons or groups with legitimate interests in
procedural and/or substantive aspects of corporate activity. Stakeholders are
30
identified by their interests in the corporation, whether the corporation has any
corresponding functional interest in them” (Donaldson & Preston, 1995, p. 67,
emphases in original).
According to the project management literature project stakeholders are

important for project success for at least four reasons: (1) The project needs
contributions (financial and nonfinancial) from those stakeholders, (2)
stakeholders often establish the criteria for assessing the success of the project,
(3) the stakeholders’ (potential) resistance may cause various risks and
negatively affect the project’s success, and (4) the project may affect
stakeholders in both negative and positive ways (cf. Eskerod, Huemann &
Savage, 2015, p. 9).
Table 1 presents a chronological order of the definitions of stakeholders from

existing literature and presents how the definitions of a stakeholder have
unfolded over the years. According to Mitchell, Agle and Wood (cf. 1997, p. 857)
some of these definitions were considered to be motivated by either broad or
narrow views. Narrow view definitions of stakeholders seek to describe relevant
groups based on their direct impact on the firm’s main economic interests;
whereas the broad view definitions of a stakeholder are said to draw on the
practical reality that organizations can be affected by almost anyone and vice
versa. As Scholl points out, the broader definitions of a stakeholder have been
described to generally find acceptance with those in the “business ethics tracks”
and the narrower definitions of a stakeholder are favored by those in the “social
science track” (cf. Scholl, 2001, p. 4).
Typical project stakeholders identified by the literature include investors,

suppliers, shareholders, employees, customers, users, authorities, neighbors,
media and so forth (cf. Eskerod, Huemann & Savage, 2015, p. 9; Freeman &
McVea, 2001, p. 11). Extant research has concentrated on proposing schemes of
various stakeholder categories. Freeman (1984), for instance, initially schemed
stakeholders into internal and external distinctions according to their relational
position to the organizational boundary.
31
Table 1: Chronological definitions of a stakeholder
Source: Mitchell, Agle & Wood, 1997, p. 855
32
However, the dyadic relationship between the organization and their
stakeholders was increasingly considered more complex and dynamic over the
years. Thus, modern stakeholder theories “have moved away from an entirely
corporate-centric focus in which stakeholders are viewed as subjects to be
managed towards more of a network-based, relational and process-oriented
view of company-stakeholder engagement.” (Andriof & Waddock, 2002, p. 19).
Clarkson (cf. 1995, pp. 106) suggested the categories of primary and secondary
stakeholders. According to him primary stakeholders are those who are crucial
to the survival of the organizations, e.g. the government providing the
infrastructure and legal framework where the organization operates. Secondary
stakeholders are the ones who can affect and can be affected by the organization,
but who are not essential to the organization’s survival, e.g. the media. Similarly,
Karlsen (cf. 2002, pp. 20) categorizes stakeholders by analyzing the power
relations between the organization and its stakeholders and points out that
stakeholders hold different powers that affect the results of a project: The more
powerful ones are considered with a higher priority and can be categorized as
immediate, whereas the rest can be categorized as extended stakeholders. Thus,
some stakeholders have control over the information and resources, while
others hold the decision of whether the project is a success or not. These power
relationships form a highly complex and changing network within which project
management is operating. Ignoring, misunderstanding or mismanaging such
(key) stakeholder groups can cause unexpected problems to the project’s
progress and increase the risk of failure. Hence understanding stakeholder
needs, interests, and powers becomes an increasing requirement for the
management of (any types of) projects (see also Cleland, 1998; Jergeas et al.,
2000; Elias, Cavana & Jackson, 2002; Han, 2010). In the case of a co-design
project, stakeholders can be defined as those individuals or groups who are vital
in defining value, and ensuring the success of the co-design process, and its
outcome (cf. Freeman, 1984, p. 31; Eskerod, Huemann & Savage, 2015, p. 7).
As shown, the definition of the term stakeholder has been developed and
extended over the years. Furthermore, an increasing recognition of various
stakeholders or stakeholder groups as a whole can be observed. Nevertheless,
among stakeholder theories (end) users (as the ones who are going to use the
project outcome) are often emphasized as the primary or immediate
stakeholders. The focus on end users of business offerings was given
“tremendous emphasis toward the twentieth century as organizations adopted
33
“searchers for excellence” and various forms of Total Quality Management
(TQM)” (Walker & Marr, 2001, p. 92).
Within stakeholder theory in stakeholder management literature the term

hidden silent designer is also mentioned by several authors. For instance, Gorb
and Dumas (1987) introduced the term silent design in a service context and
defined it as a “[..] design by people who are not designers and are not aware
that they are participating in design activities” (Gorb & Dumas, 1987, p. 150).
They defined that a silent designer could be a manager who comes up with a
new idea for his staff to improve an inefficient procedure, or a member of staff
who helps customers with inquiries over the phone. They both, in some way,
design the interactions that directly or indirectly influence the customer’s
experience of the service they deliver and sometimes, their intuitive actions
result in innovative solutions that nobody thought of previously. To develop the
silent design concept further, Dumas and Mintzberg (1991) explored how
managers and leaders practice silent design internally and how they influence
decision-making in innovative processes. They argued that stakeholders, as
silent designers, take on important but often overlooked roles in design projects
(cf. Dumas & Mintzberg, 1991, cited in Han, 2010, p. 33). However, hidden
silent designers make it difficult for design decisions to be highly effective. To
overcome this difficulty caused by silent design, Gloppen (2009) suggest that an
enlightened understanding among stakeholders, and a clear strategic attitude
acknowledging the value of design, may become powerful tools to “turn
unconscious “silent designers” into conscious strategic “design thinkers””
(Gloppen, 2009, p. 2).
When the authors of this thesis use the term stakeholders they refer to anyone
who will be affected by or will affect [the organization’s] strategy - except the
(end-)user. Users are those stakeholders who are “exposed to interact with a
product or service or so-called secondary users such as service personnel and
employees of the service provider who are involved in the provision of the
service” (Stickdorn & Schneider, 2016, p. 58). Instead the authors define those
stakeholders who have authority and/or responsibility for the product or service
being designed and therefore can be categorized as primary or key stakeholders
because they are considered as vital to the success of a co-design project. They
refer to those who shall, must or want to participate in the design process by
contributing contextual information of domain specific expertise (chapter 1) –
adhering to Alan Cooper’s et al. definition that
34
“[…] stakeholders are key members of the organization commissioning the
design work. Typically they include executives, managers, and representative
contributors from development, sales, product management, marketing,
customer support, design, and usability. They may also include similar people
from other organizations in business partnerships with the commissioning
organization.” (Cooper et al., 2014, p. 39).
3.3 Why Stakeholder Management is needed – Win-win

Solutions rather than Trade-offs by Laura Schulz
Projects with cross-functional teams are encouraged to pool a wide range of

expertise from various units to obtain sufficient support from different
stakeholders, ensuring political correctness, and enhancing the quality of
decision-making by drawing on multiple perspectives. As a result, any
organization must ensure that both internal operations and external alliances
are sufficiently flexible and communicative in order to guarantee its ability to
deliver highly experience-oriented offerings. Problems and difficulties that are
exposed during the project process must be resolved collectively and creatively.
In order to develop a successful product or service that meets the client’s or
customer’s need, the (design) team cannot work in isolation, rather inputs from
all stakeholders is required (cf. Edvardsson et al., 2000, pp. 2; Enninga et al.,
2013, p. 103).
Performing stakeholder analysis serves two purposes for project

representatives: (1) Resource procurement: It helps them accomplish the
project by identifying ways to procure the necessary financial and nonfinancial
resources, which includes to avoid counter actions. Also the project
representatives will be enabled to find ways to make the stakeholders willing to
actively participate in the project as well as to contribute the needed resources
in order to achieve the benefits they strive for to fulfill their needs. (2)
Procurement of knowledge about the stakeholders’ needs and concerns: This
serves the purpose of understanding how the project representatives find ways
to satisfy the needs of the stakeholders and figuring out how to enhance project
success in the form of stakeholder satisfaction (cf. Eskerod, Huemann & Savage,
2015, p. 10)
Project stakeholder analysis increases the possibilities of combining the “of

stakeholders” and “for stakeholders” approaches and thereby boosts the
likelihood for both project management success (e.g., finishing the project on
35
time, within budget, on specification, and to stakeholder satisfaction) and
project product success (e.g., fulfilling the purposes of the project and
harvesting stipulated benefits for the investor and other stakeholders). It helps
the project manager and the project team to see, in proper time, the project
through more lenses – the project’s lenses and the stakeholder’s lenses – to
finally seek win-win solutions rather than trade-offs (cf. Eskerod, Huemann &
Savage, 2015, p. 10). But “To obtain this it is, however, necessary that the
applied project stakeholder analysis methods are appropriate, and neither too
complex (so that they are difficult to apply, or the data produced too
overwhelming to make use of) nor too superficial (so that the data produced are
not relevant or sufficient).” (Eskerod, Huemann & Savage, 2015, p. 10).
As Freeman points out “The primary responsibility of the executive is to create

as much value as possible for stakeholders.” (Freeman, 2011, p. 3, emphasis
(italic) in original). If conflicts concerning stakeholder interests arise, the
project executive has to find a way to rethink these problems so that the various
interests don’t clash but even more value can be created for each. Making trade-
offs because of a failure of imagination, time pressure, or other reasons should
be avoided. The aim should always be to determine how to improve trade-offs
for all sides (cf. ibid) because “[…] if managers look for trade-offs among
stakeholders, then they will create trade-offs and they may never find the “sweet
spot” that signifies the joint interest of all key stakeholders.” (ibid, p. 2). Jepsen
and Eskerod (2009) also point out that (project) stakeholder analysis increases
the possibility to “anticipate opportunities and problems for the project at a time
when the project team still has time and opportunity for maneuvering” (Jepsen
& Eskerod, 2009, p. 336).
The analysis of the stakeholders’ potentials for supporting or threatening the

organization, however, should not alone form the basis of how they are treated.
It seems clear that the normative statement above has to be more qualified,
because organizations, and especially projects as temporary organizations, face
many stakeholders with interests that conflict with the interests of other
stakeholders. Moreover, organizations have legitimate interests of their own
that they must fulfill in order to survive. Thus, the normative statement that
organizations should search for win-win solutions, given the ability to find one
– in due time, and with an appropriate effort – is very challenging, particularly
for projects that are temporary endeavors. On the other hand, many projects
have long-term irreversible implications. This tension between limited project
36
time and long-term consequences makes the stakeholder management of and
for projects such an interesting and fundamental question (cf. Eskerod,
Huemann & Savage, 2015, p. 9).
This experiential nature of stakeholder relationships presents project managers

with the challenge and at the same time with the opportunity to come up with
imaginative plans for how their actions might affect stakeholders, and thus
future scenarios for strategic decision-making can be created. Managing
stakeholder involvement requires to understand stakeholders as social
individuals as well as rational decision-makers impacting project manager’s
performances (cf. Partridge et al., 2005, p. 6).
Research on stakeholder theory over the last decades has led to a rich and varied
amount of literature and various contributions25. Stakeholder involvement
plays an increasing role in today’s design processes. The next step is to see the
existing stakeholder theory as a way to redefine how we think about value
creation through stakeholders in co-design projects. In classical project
management approaches it is characteristic that the relationship between the
project and the stakeholders are typically seen as dyadic (rather than a network
approach), placing the project in the middle26. Furthermore, traditional views
of strategy often have ignored some stakeholders, marginalized others and
consistently traded-off the interests of others against preferred stakeholder
groups. According to Freeman and McVea (2001) “such an approach may well
be appropriate in a relatively stable environment.” but “[…] in a world of
turbulence and accelerating change the limitations of traditional approaches to
strategic management become increasingly apparent. The interests of key
stakeholders must be integrated into the very purpose of the firm, and
stakeholder relationships must be managed in a coherent and strategic fashion.”
25 Recent examples of articles within the project management field are Littau, Jujagiri,
and Adlbrecht (2010) and Mok, Shen, and Yang (2015). Recent examples of articles that
draw on process analyses are Beringer, Jonas, and Gemünden (2012); Jepsen (2013);
Eskerod and Vaagaasar (2014); and Yang, Wang, and Jin (2014). Even doctoral theses
on project stakeholder management can be identified, for example, Bourne (2003)
(referred to in Walker (2014)) and Aaltonen (2010), as well as these scholars’
subsequent publications, for example, Bourne (2009), Aaltonen and Kujala (2010), Han
(2010) and Aaltonen (2011).
26 This project-centric approach has a number of weaknesses as several authors have
pointed out (see e.g. Freeman, 1984; Savage et al., 2010; Aaltonen, 2011; Ackermann &
Eden, 2011; Eskerod & Jepsen, 2013). It does not acknowledge that (1) the project may
not be the center of attention for the stakeholders as they have their own set of
stakeholders to relate to (and some of them may even be more important), (2) the
project stakeholders may relate to each other and even be more influenced by some of
the other stakeholders than the project team, and (3) the project stakeholders may form
coalitions and be much more powerful than a dyadic analysis can detect.
37
(Freeman & McVea, 2001, p. 12). Stakeholder management calls for an
integrated approach to strategic decision-making where managers find ways
to satisfy multiple stakeholders simultaneously in a way that ensures the long-
term support of all stakeholders (cf. Freeman & McVea, 2001, p. 15). Other
authors within the project management literature also claim that the current
methods for project stakeholder analysis are of limited value. For instance,
Jepsen and Eskerod (2009) state that “the current guidelines for project
stakeholder management should be considered as a conceptual framework
rather than instructions on how to do a real-world stakeholder analysis.”
(Jepsen & Eskerod, 2009, p. 335; see also, e.g. Eskerod & Vaagaasar, 2014).
Furthermore, Eskerod and Huemann (2013), have analyzed the international
standards and bodies of knowledge (e.g. A Guide to the Project Management
Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide), the International Competence Baseline
(ICB), and PRINCE2) and argue that today’s working forms of stakeholder
management have a number of limits, because (as the core argument) they are
not suited for grasping the increased complexity facing project managers and
project teams (cf. Eskerod, Huemann & Savage, 2015, p. 10).
3.4 Stakeholder Management in Design Practice

by Laura Schulz
Design is a creative activity that is a part of an interdisciplinary process of

product or service development, which requires people or organizations with
different skills and knowledge to collaborate through the typical design stages
composed of concept generation, design, prototyping, testing, production and
market introduction (chapter 2.2). Throughout this development process
decisions are usually taken within a company and collaboration occurs between
the different departments of the same organization. However, emerging
technological and economic changes influence this more or less closed and
linear process, and require a more collaborative and flexible approach to
innovation (cf. Gardien et al., 2014, cited in Gultekin et al., 2016, pp. 97) The
value of co-design is receiving more attention and consequently businesses
increasingly leave the single company perspective and choose to engage in many
inter-organizational relationships (cf. Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004; Binder et
al., 2008, all cited in Gultekin et al., 2016, p. 89). They adopt a more open
approach to innovation, in which they gather information with/from
internal/external partners through innovation networks and finally develop and
deliver products and services via complex processes, exchanges and
38
relationships to their users (cf. Basole & Rouse, 2008; Gardien et al. 2014, all
cited in Gultekin et al., 2016, p. 98)
In innovation networks, the value for the users is created through direct and
indirect relationships with many partners at the network level. The design
proposal and the idea of how to realize the solution are both defined in relation
with the input of the stakeholders based on their knowledge, resources and
expectations (cf. Basole & Rouse, 2008; den Ouden & Valkenburg, 2011; Tomico
et al., 2010; Brand & Rocchi, 2011, all cited in Gultekin et al., 2016, p. 98)
Gultekin et al. (2016) emphasize that “defining the complementary knowledge
and resources to generate value (how), and bringing the right collaborators
together (with whom) becomes as equally important as determining the
solution (what).” (Gultekin et al., 2016, p. 98). In this context designers have to
deal with some challenges, which require new approaches in practice
concerning the design process. Firstly, the complexity of design problems
requires that designers consider a broader technological and social context.
Secondly, designing in this new domain requires consideration and inclusion of
(all necessary) stakeholders who are affecting, or being affected by the problem
or the solution from the very beginning of the design process (cf. ibid, p. 97).
Throughout traditional design research methods, the focus has been to

understand the user and the use situation and to design for the user’s experience
(cf. Han, 2010, p. 4; Sanders & Stappers, 2014, p. 23; Gultekin et al., 2016, p.
97). Dealing with the challenges in the new design context, however, requires a
design perspective beyond the user-centered focus. The involvement of a wider
range of related stakeholders in the design process is a new topic of study in the
design field, therefore, approaches and methods that guide designers in
developing design solutions by considering diverse stakeholder perspectives are
limited. While the benefits of the co-design approach are widely investigated
and recognized27, Gultekin et al. (2016), for instance, point out that there is a
lack of design methods and strategy frameworks that assist the designers in
gathering and interpreting external knowledge into the design solution and
helps to consider stakeholder expectations and roles while dealing with the
design problems (cf. Gultekin et al., 2016, p. 99). Table 2 demonstrates how the
“foci of study and methods” in the fields of “Design research”, and “Business and
27See e.g. Steen, Manschot & De Koning, 2011, Smith & Fischbacher, 2000; Mok &
Shen, 2016; Han, 2010; Kleinmann & Valkenburg, 2008; Segelström, 2013
39
strategic management” has developed to support the value co-creation and has
networked innovation practices.
Table 2: Overview of the trends within the fields of design research, and business and strategic
management
Source: Gultekin et al., 2016, p. 99
Complex design problems require a more explorative approach in the early

stages of the design process to understand the nature of the problem and,
moreover, the value of co-design. The direct involvement of stakeholders in the
design process is needed and therefore a “shift from an understanding of users
[and other stakeholders] as a subject of study towards an understanding of
users [and other stakeholders] as experts of their own experience” is taking
place (cf. Sanders & Stappers, 2014, cited in Gultekin et al., 2016, p. 100). The
emerging approaches within the design field (as co-design) are looking for ways
to support active stakeholder involvement in the design process through
collaborative ways (cf. Buur & Metthews, 2008; Mattelmäki & Visser, 2011, all
cited in Gultekin et al., 2016, p. 100). Useful approaches for solving design
problems with many stakeholders include integrating business insights in the
concept development stage and involving stakeholders early in the design
process. As a result, a growing research direction towards more participative,
integrative and design-led approaches can be found that support value co-
40
creation and networked innovation practices and methods that aid designers for
these purposes (cf. Gultekin et al., 2016, p. 100).
As mentioned in the pre-study (chapter 1), “stakeholder involvement in the

design process is [still] a new topic of study in the design field” (ibid, p. 97) due
to a “lack of established theoretical framework [especially] in Service Design”
(Han, 2010, p. 19). In the co-design field there is still a need of theoretical and
practical exploration.
“As a designer, engaging with all key stakeholders on a given project […] may
be viewed either as cumbersome and time consuming or as an opportunity to
create better outcomes. Embracing the latter in a strategic way often achieves
greater consensus for a project throughout the design process. However, in
order to make it meaningful to the participants, the client, and the design
team, you have to ask the right questions, distinguish definite needs from
wants, and ensure that everyone – not just the one with the loudest voice – has
an opportunity to participate in the discussion.” (Lee, 2015)
3.5 Stakeholder Management Methods – Theoretical

Overview of Existing Methods by Laura Schulz
Stakeholder management means identifying who the stakeholders are, and

prioritizing them based on relevant attributes. These attributes can be the
degree of their influences on the activities of the organization, e.g. their powers,
legitimacy, urgency, and interests. It is important for an organization to be able
to bring stakeholders on board in order to create mutual value, understanding,
cooperation, and shared objectives. Stakeholder involvement and engagement
is described as fundamental to a successful business (cf. Stakeholder Research
Associates, 2005, cited in Alade, 2013, p. 7).
Stakeholder management, or more specifically stakeholder involvement, is

characterized by a partnering mentality that involves communication,
negotiating, contracting, managing relationships and motivating seeking to
create a transparent and participatory approach. In order to successfully
interact with each stakeholder strategies must be well chosen. The basis for
managing stakeholders is the stakeholder identification process that can be seen
as one of the most important processes to ensure that the requirements, wishes,
and concerns of all necessary stakeholders related to the project are satisfied
and fulfilled and the project will be completed successfully (cf. Karlsen, 2002;
Littau, Jujugiri & Adlbrecht, 2010; Yang et al., 2011; Eskerod & Huemann, 2014,
41
all cited in Eskerod, Huemann & Savage, 2015, p. 10; Freeman, 2011, p. 2).
Prioritization plays often an important part of this strategy planning, as
conflicting interests may exist between the project team and various
stakeholders or across one or more of the stakeholders (cf. Jepsen & Eskerod,
2009, cited in Eskerod, Huemann & Savage, 2015, p. 10).
Various tools and techniques are presented in textbooks that are meant to help
(service) designers to learn about and from stakeholders aiming to give them
the capability not only to develop useful design solutions but also to improve
stakeholder involvement in design projects.28 Nevertheless, most of these books
focus on either research or on making the business case rather than teaching
how to properly use the tools. The literature is not yet mature enough to provide
much sufficient guidance or insights for (service) designers. Moreover, many
existing studies on value proposition in design projects have a strong emphasis
on customers or users which means that there’s still a general focus on one
particular stakeholder group – the end users (chapter 1).
3.5.1 Stakeholder Identification and Prioritization – General

Methods by Laura Schulz
For identifying a comprehensive list of stakeholder interviews, brainstorming

and other forms of research is necessary. At the very beginning a look at the
project charter and contract documents usually reveals the names of some
influential stakeholders, e.g. the project sponsor, top management, suppliers,
local agents etc. If possible, it is also quite useful to rely on existing documents
and/or checklists and lessons learned from previous (and maybe similar)
projects which may give some information about stakeholders. Furthermore,
Usmani (n. d.) suggest a review of the “enterprise environmental factors” and
“organizational process assets” that provides information of many stakeholders.
Enterprise environmental factors can be either internal or external. External
enterprise environmental factors are e.g. government regulations or market
conditions. Examples for internal enterprise environmental factors are
28 This is Service Design Thinking (Stickdorn & Schneider, 2016) is one popular
textbook which features a distinct section on tools for service design. The Service Design
Tools website is also widely recognized as a platform that illustrates various
communication methods supporting the design process (Tassi, 2009). The publication
Multi-stakeholder management: Tools for Stakeholder Analysis: 10 building blocks for
designing participatory systems of cooperation (Zimmermann & Maennling, 2007)
takes a realistic look at practical development cooperation. This volume was designed
to serve practical aspects by illustrating ten building blocks, with procedures and
suggestions for visualization for practical use.
42
organizational culture (chapter 5.1.1) or available resources. Organizational
process assets include the following: policies, procedures, general guidelines.
Interviewing experts, the highly influential stakeholders, on a one-to-one basis

also reveals relevant information about the stakeholders. Conducting
brainstorming sessions is also a good way to identify stakeholders for the
project. These sessions can be conducted with team members and experts.
During a brainstorming session, various questions concerning the project
should be answered, e.g. who is directly/indirectly involved in the project? Who
may be affected by the project/ the project’s outcome? Who has the authority to
make the project succeed? Who can make the project fail? (cf. Usmani, n. d.)
In the project stakeholder management literature various ways of identifying

and categorizing stakeholders can be found. On the following pages, the authors
present the most common ones. They also give insight into existing methods
concerning stakeholder involvement that seem to fit best in co-design projects,
especially in the case study presented in this research (chapter 2.5).
This theoretical overview builds the basis for filling in a knowledge gap in the
area of stakeholder involvement in co-design projects and therefore to answer
of the defined research questions (chapter 1.2).
3.5.2 Stakeholder Mapping – An Overview of Existing

A stakeholder map is a useful business tool to visualize the various stakeholders

of a company or organization to locate their position and understand their
relationship with each other in this system. It helps to identify and categorize
different stakeholders based on different attributes such as their (level of)
concern, interest, influence, legitimacy, stake, power etc. in order to understand
how to relate or engage with them in the most effective way possible.
Stakeholder Mapping aims at classifying and ascertaining which stakeholders
may be in support or opposition of the organizational actions. It also helps to
weigh, reconcile and balance the influence, power and interests of the
stakeholders and therefore supports the decision makers in the process of
formalizing and prioritizing strategies. In summary stakeholder mapping is a
quite useful way to explore and analyze the interplay between different
stakeholders (cf. Stickdorn & Schneider, 2010, p. 150).
43
Based on literature there are various types or models of stakeholder mapping.
The following overview does not aim at outlining every existing method, but
rather giving an overview of the most common ones that are believed to be used
in practice.
Internal and External Stakeholders
Figure 6: Generic Stakeholder map

Source: Boundless 2017
In the 1960’s Katz and Kahn (1966) began to develop organizational frameworks
that defined the organization relative to the system that surrounded it and
Thompson (1967) introduced the concept of clientele to take into account
groups outside the traditional boundary of the firm. These approaches
foreshadowed attempts to emphasize the external environment as a significant
explanatory factor of the organization of the firm (cf. Freeman & McVea, 2001,
pp. 7).
Ackoff (1970/1974) was an important contributor to stakeholder theory.

Drawing on systems theory, Ackoff suggested that stakeholders should be seen
as elements of a system. Thus, organizations described as open systems are part
of a much larger network rather than being independent self-standing entities.
He points out that identification of both the internal and external stakeholders
(Figure 6) and the interconnections between them is a critical step.
Internal stakeholders are people or groups of people who come from within an
organization and have interest in the organization’s activities; whereas external
44
stakeholders are people or groups of people with vested interest in the
organization that comes from outside the organization. Based on this insight,
Ackoff (ibid, p. 7) argued that solving system-wide problems require the
participation of all stakeholders for developing collective strategies to optimize
the network.
In 1978 Pfeffer and Salancik also emphasized the external environment as a

significant explanatory factor of the organization of the firm. They focused on
the fact that stakeholders possessed resources and not on the company having
moral obligations towards various stakeholder groups to fulfill. External
resources affect executives’ behavior due to any organization’s need for
procurement of resources. Pfeffer and Salancik were concerned with external
constraints affecting organizations due to dependency (cf. ibid, p. 8).
The discovery of the difficulty describing a firm without full recognition of the
relationships on which it depends, has helped underline the fundamental
importance of the stakeholder concept itself.
Primary and Secondary Stakeholders
In his classical work Freeman29 (1984) uses prioritization and differentiates

between primary and secondary stakeholders in order to allocate limited
management resources properly. The primary stakeholders are the ones who
are essential to the organization’s well-being and survival and the project
success, whereas the others are secondary stakeholders. Freeman (as well as
other authors like Savage et al. (1991/2010), and Eskerod and Jepsen (2013))
highlight the necessity of an issue-driven stakeholder analysis. This approach
helps to reduce the analytical complexity and stay focused, rather than trying to
incorporate all details, issues, and project phases in one picture. Eskerod,
Huemann and Savage (2015) also emphasize in their recent publication that a
common mistake among inexperienced or untrained project managers is to “try
to construct one picture only […], building on the underlying, wrong assumption
that the stakeholders and their interests and attributes (e.g. power and
legitimacy) are stable across a long time span and various issues.” (Eskerod,
Huemann & Savage, 2015, p. 10).
29 Widely acknowledged as the founder of stakeholder management theory.

45
The Power/Dynamism Matrix
The Power/Dynamism Matrix (Figure 7) categorize stakeholders based on their

power and their ability to take actions (dynamism). It shows where managerial
effort should be invested to before taking actions.
Figure 7: Stakeholder map – Power/Dynamism Matrix

Source: Alade, 2013, p. 24
This matrix classifies stakeholders or stakeholder groups into the four

quadrants (1) ‘A – Fewer problems’, (2) ‘B – Unpredictable, but manageable’,
(3) ‘C – Powerful but predictable’, and (4) ‘D – Greatest danger or opportunities’
by weighting the level of power and dynamic abilities of the stakeholders on a
scale of low to high. To conclude, the stakeholders in group A and B are less
difficult to deal with. The stakeholders in group C have the greatest influence
due to their enormous powers and as a result can be referred to as key
stakeholders. Similarly, stakeholders of group D can be seen as very important
and also deserve all the attention they can get due to their combination of a
powerful and unpredictable attributes. These key stakeholders have a high
impact on the activities’ outcome and existence of an organization depending
on how they were given attention and how they were managed (cf. Gardner,
Rachlin & Sweeny, 1986, cited in Alade, 2013, pp. 23).
The Power/Interest Matrix
The Power/Interest Matrix (Figure 8) works similarly to the Power/Dynamism

Matrix and classifies stakeholders or stakeholder groups into the four
46
quadrants (1) ‘A – Minimal effort’, (2) ‘B – Keep informed’, (3) ‘C – Keep
satisfied’, and (4) ‘D – Key players’ by weighting the level of powers and interests
exhibited by the stakeholders in the affairs of the organization on a scale of low
and high.
Figure 8: Stakeholder map – Power/Interest Matrix

Source: Alade, 2013, p. 25
As in the Power/Dynamism Matrix the stakeholders in group A are less difficult

to deal with and therefore require ‘minimum effort’ and management. However,
stakeholders in group B need a good level of attention as they may be able to
impact other more powerful or influential stakeholders. Stakeholders in group
C have high powers but a low level of interest. That’s why they are often seen to
be inactive. In certain situations, nevertheless, they might join the stakeholders
of group D on some compelling and specific matter of interests. The
stakeholders in group D combine a high level of power and interest and keep a
high strategic importance to an organization in its decisions and actions. These
stakeholders can also be seen as key stakeholders (cf. Gardner, Rachlin &
Sweeny, 1986, cited in Alade, 2013, p. 25).
The Power, Legitimacy and Urgency Model
A significant area of interests for theorists is the problem of stakeholder identity

and the ability to distinguish between individuals or groups that are (key)
stakeholders from those that are not. Mitchell, Agle & Wood (1997) addressed
this issue by developing a framework for stakeholder identification by using
47
qualitative criteria of power (e.g. the ability to influence the organization),
legitimacy (e.g. the relationship in terms of legality and appropriateness) and
urgency (e.g. the expectation of the stakeholders with respect to criticality and
time-sensitivity) as principles of who and what really counts (Figure 9). That
means that a powerful and legitimate stakeholder with an urgent interest should
be offered more management attention than one without these three attributes.
This model visualizes various stakeholder groups that share similar
characteristics through different intersections. The names that were given to
every single group are based on their predominant attributes, behaviors or
characteristics. The stakeholders of group 1,2 and 3 can collectively be named
as latent stakeholders. The stakeholders of group 4, 5 and 6 can collectively be
referred to as expectant stakeholders. Lastly, the stakeholders of group 7 can be
called definitive stakeholders that should be given a considerable high level of
attention by the management of any organization (cf. Mitchell, Agle & Wood,
1997, cited in Alade, 2013, pp. 26).
Figure 9: Stakeholder map – Power, Legitimacy and Urgency Model

Source: Adapted from Alade, 2013, p. 26; Mitchell, Agle & Wood, 1997, p. 874
A current model for stakeholder mapping is the Whole System Collaboration

Model of Miller (2013). It builds on the models presented before, as illustrated
in the following chapter.
Whole System Collaboration Model
Miller (2013) criticizes the current practice of defining stakeholder management

as risk management, and calls for a paradigm shift. According to her with this
mindset collaboration cannot be achieved.
48
“[..] we seek to achieve collaboration, to learn not only what people need from
an initiative, but also what they can give. Stakeholder involvement is no longer
the risk; not involving stakeholders is the risk. […] Stakeholders are vital
sources of wisdom, creativity, passion and energy, not simply potential
objectors to be managed. Everyone has something to give, a role to play.”
(Miller, 2013, p. 3)
By reviewing existing stakeholder maps like the Power/Interest Matrix (p. 53)
Miller (2013) states various areas of limitations, e.g. that the whole system may
or may not to be present or that the role and value of each stakeholder is unclear
(for more information, see Miller, 2013, p. 6). As a result, she draws attention
to opportunities for redesigning the stakeholder map so that it includes the
benefits from earlier models as it demonstrates the value(s) and importance of
each (key) stakeholder by applying to a project case. Furthermore, this map
demonstrates the stakeholders’ fluidity as they may shift roles during an
initiative and also aims at showing the whole system (Figure 10 & 11).
Figure 10: Stakeholder map for whole system engagement

Source: Miller, 2013, p. 12
Miller suggests that every perspective in a system is needed for progress in a

collaborative setting, each stakeholder has a responsibility to represent the
unique perspective that they bring. In her stakeholder map, the axes
Possibility/Reality and What/How indicate the individual perspectives
stakeholders share:
49
• Possibility: The Voices of Intent and Design are responsible for
exploring different directions
• Reality: The Voices of the Customer/User and Experience are
immersed in day-to-day reality
• What: The Voices of Intent and the Customer/User contribute to the
objectives of the project
• How: The Voices of Design and Experience work on how to make things
happen (cf. Miller, 2013, pp. 12)
The oppositional axes create a quadrant for each voice. The dotted lines indicate
that boundaries and roles are becoming more fluid and reflects the idea that
stakeholders do not sit precisely in one quadrant, rather they may shift roles
during an initiative. The quadrants designate responsibility for a unique
perspective:
• Voice of Intent: What is possible for the organization?

• Voice of the Customer/User: What is needed in reality?
• Voice of Experience: How does it work in reality?
• Voice of Design: How do we make possibilities happen? (cf. ibid)
As Miller emphasizes “the process of creating a shared purpose and seeking

mutual benefit elevates the level of conversation, enables stakeholders to move
forward as a system and to seek ways to create real value that delivers mutual
benefit.” (Miller, 2013, p. 13). Therefore the “Why” question is situated at the
center of the map to ensure that the collaboration is most powerful as everyone
contributes to the answer.
One of the biggest stakeholder concerns is time commitment. Although

collaboration is acknowledged to be essential, there is fear about its impact on
personal’s schedules. In Miller’s stakeholder map, the closer a stakeholder is
located toward the center, the more intensely he or she is involved. Stakeholders
involved minimally are placed toward the outside. As a result, the time
commitment required can be seen at a glance (cf. ibid, pp. 13).
Figure 11 shows what Miller’s stakeholder map might look like if used in a case
study. The level of influences of each stakeholder is represented by the size of
the circles (cf. ibid, p. 14).
50
Figure 11: Miller’s stakeholder map for whole system engagement used in a case study
Source: Miller, 2013, p. 14
With modifications to the names of some voices (particularly the Voice of the
Customer/User), this model can be used for different scenarios. According to
Miller, this model visually and psychologically helps create a framework for the
factors that make collaboration an imperative by:
• Increasing complexity, challenge and change

• The need to guard against initiative failure and strengthen solutions by
bringing the whole system ‘into the room’
• The ability to enable whole system participation through various forms
of technology
• The opportunity to tap into people’s potential
• The desire to connect to meaning and form a shared purpose (cf. ibid,
pp. 15)
As presented above, several methods for identifying and prioritizing

stakeholders exist in literature. Miller’s Whole System Collaboration Model
(pp. 21) can be seen as one of the more extensive stakeholder maps covering a
wide range of aspects. The opportunity of demonstrating the stakeholders’
fluidity – as they may shift roles during an initiative – can be seen as a key aspect
as a stakeholder’s state is not constant and thus one stakeholder may gain power
and/or legitimacy over time or through interactions and alliances with other
stakeholders. Freemann (1984), and Eskerod, Huemann & Savage (2015)
51
emphasized that stakeholder relationships should not be seen as given and that
the experiences created in a relationship have multiple dimensions that may
constitute influences in many ways (cf. Mitchell, Agle & Wood, 1997, cited in
Han, 2010, p. 29). Furthermore, Mitchell, Agle & Wood (1997) pointed out that
stakeholders are individuals, and their personal experiences influence their
decision-making and their relationships with each other.
To sum up, stakeholder identification and prioritization should be seen as a

continuous and iterative process throughout the whole project life cycle from
the start till the end of a project. As the project moves forward it is common that
new stakeholders will be introduced to the project as well as other or old
stakeholders may no longer have any interest in the project. Their power may
also change over time. Therefore, identifying and monitoring stakeholders (and
recognizing them as individual actors with individual interest, habits and
behaviors) is a crucial step in stakeholder management. If any important
stakeholder is missed the future of the project is uncertain and project failure
might be the result (cf. Usmani, n. d. - b).
3.5.3 Stakeholder Involvement – An Overview of Existing

In the following, various methods for stakeholder involvement will be presented

as found in literature.30 This overview does not aim at demonstrating every
existing method, but rather giving an overview of several different (relatively
new) methods that are believed to be used in practice.
Managing Stakeholders with Buffering and Bridging
According to Harrison and St. John (1996) and Freeman and McVea (2001),
there are two fundamental approaches for managers to handle stakeholder
relationships: buffering and bridging. Buffering aims at containing the effects
of stakeholders (efforts and supports) on the firm. It is a more traditional
approach for most external stakeholder groups and includes activities such as
market research, public relations, and planning. Bridging puts emphasis on
recognizing gaps in stakeholder relationships and requires recognizing common
goals to form strategic partnerships to bridge these gaps. In practice, the two
30Whereby the authors think that a strict separation between stakeholder identification
and stakeholder involvement methods is sometimes not that obvious as the latter often
include some sort of stakeholder identification
52
approaches complement each other, and help to create tactics for managing
stakeholder relationships on an individual basis (cf. Harrison & St. John, 1996,
p. 52; Freeman & McVea, 2001, pp. 23)
However, the buffering and bridging approach has been criticized for losing
sight of the fact that organizations usually respond to stakeholders in a dynamic
manner and that they “must answer the simultaneous demands from multiple
stakeholders” (Rowley, 1997, p. 907).
The Value Design Method – Combining User Needs and Stakeholder

Requirements
Gultekin et al. (2016) developed the Value Design Method to support making
design proposals with the consideration of stakeholder expectations and
relations to create shared values for different stakeholders. The purpose is to
assist designers in enriching design concepts in considering stakeholder
perspectives in the design process through identifying the factors concerning
stakeholder involvement, and those that motivate the stakeholder participation.
It is based on user and business insights, and aims at integrating stakeholder
expectations, roles and relations at the early stages of the design process.
The Value Design Method helps to iteratively develop a design proposal by

conducting pairwise comparisons between (1) the design considerations (e.g.
user and use characteristics), (2) stakeholder considerations (e.g. their
movements and contributions to the design proposal), and (3) business
considerations (e.g. what is needed to realize the proposal) (Figure 12). These
considerations are brought together through use case scenarios that are utilized
as dynamic thinking tools rather than to communicate a finalized design
proposal. Over time, they evolve and become more detailed in the process with
evaluations from different perspectives. The Value Design Method is suitable to
be applied at the early stages of the design process, when there is an initial
design concept and a need to integrate knowledge from experts and related
stakeholders with different backgrounds and interests. It can also be applied as
a part of a series of workshops where the design decisions are developed into a
more concrete business model. The output of the process is a refined concept
consisting of (1) a user experience concept with use scenarios, (2) an
identification of stakeholder perspectives and the conditions for their
involvement in the proposal, and (3) insights on business considerations to
53
realize the design solution, regarding the stakeholder roles (cf. Gultekin et al.,
2016, pp. 100).
Figure 12: The Value Design Method: Combining user needs and stakeholder requirement
Source: Gultekin et al., 2016, p. 101
The Value Design Method consists of the following four stages: (1) Briefing &
Analyzing, (2) Identifying values, (3) Synthesizing, (4) Consolidating &
Evaluating. The synthesizing stage is the core stage of this method, where the
three types of considerations are integrated in the design proposal. The first two
stages, similar to other design processes, prepare the participants for this stage,
whereas the final stage describes and optimizes the output (cf. ibid, pp. 101; for
more details, see ibid, pp. 103).
The Value Design Method was designed partly based on two existing innovation
approaches (aiming to create a process for designing user experience proposals
with many stakeholders): The Value Flow Model (Den Ouden & Brankaert,
2013) (p. 69) and the Business Model Canvas (Osterwalder & Pigneur, 2010).
The Value Flow Model is a method to identify the relevant stakeholders as well
as their values. It helps to create a positive balance between the input and output
of each stakeholder in the collaboration and their commitment for the
project/endeavor. The model is a visualization tool that demonstrates the value
exchanges between different stakeholders. The Value Flow Model and the Value
Design Method can be used combined to visualize the results of the value
54
exchanges among stakeholders along the value design process. Thereby, it paves
a path for designers to jump between designing user experiences and co-
creating shared values with the stakeholders. It is a process approach that is
particularly suitable for wicked problems in which the user insights and
stakeholder insights cannot be known completely upfront. The Business Model
Canvas has been widely recognized as a useful tool to describe and design
business models using nine elements: customer segment, distribution channel,
customer relation, value proposition, key partners, key resources, key activities,
cost and revenue. It describes how a value proposition can be created and
delivered to end users and how financial benefits can be created. Throughout its
process the Value Design Method makes use of some of these components (cf.
Gultekin et al., 2016, p. 102).
The Value Design Method enables the designer to consider design concepts in a
broader context, beyond the typical focus on the user-product interaction. It has
been used in various contexts with different combinations of participants,
including design (research) projects with professional designers (see e.g.
Gultekin-Atasoy et al. 2013/2014) and is regarded to be especially useful for
designers to identify design issues (such as business dimensions or stakeholder
roles) that may otherwise be missed in the ideation. The designer’s awareness
increases when approaching a complex design problem. With its open and
participatory approach in which ideas are proposed and discussed openly and
developed through joint reflection, the process can surface in conflicting views
surfacing due to different perspectives on the solution. If handled in a
constructive way, these conflicting views can provide valuable insights and
finally develop alternative solutions with a deeper knowledge exchange (cf. ibid,
pp. 114).
Orchestrating Design Collaborations: Think Like a Family
“By respecting the fundamentals of shared vision and pathways for

collaboration, as occurs with families, we can draw analogies that can be
leveraged to enhance creativity and innovation and influence behaviors while
co-creating solutions.” (Jani & Sawhney, 2012, p. 57).
As Jani and Sawhney propose managing relationships within the evolving

nature of design collaborations isn’t difficult if stakeholders are considered as
family members. There is an interesting analogy for managing design
collaborations in the co-operation undertaken by couples raising children.
55
Besides there are grandparents, friends, and teachers involved in the
development process, in much the same way that there are governance councils,
vendors, and lateral experts typically engaged in a design initiative (cf. ibid, p.
57).
“It’s less about “me” and “we” and more about “them” – that’s true when we
parent our children, and it’s also true when we manage design collaborations.”
(ibid, p. 46).
Good parenting has much to do with providing and scaffolding the proper tools
for the learning process. It is just as design collaborations are about harnessing
the most appropriate tools for leveraging insights and developing an adaptable
framework “to properly guide the design process with neither too heavy nor too
light a hand.” (ibid, p. 49).
The role of the parents in design collaborations is increasingly more about being
facilitators than producers and thus, it is about (co-) creation not only with
children, but also by children. In this process, it can be observed what they are
interested in, what they might be willing to experiment with, and so that the
necessary tools, resources, and building blocks can be provided to empower
them to personalize their creations and enhance their own experiences (cf. ibid,
p. 49).
Steering committees or governance teams for design collaborations take the role
of the grandparents concerning their relationship defined by shared interest,
without the same degree of responsibility or accountability. Furthermore, Jani
and Sawhney suggest remembering the following in order to avoid an estranged
relationship (or a dead initiative): (1) The usage of good visual documentation
and contextual narratives, e.g. photo albums and scrapbooks, is one of the best
ways to reinforce the stakeholder’s sense of connection and investment in
projects. (2) Their perceptions of the project and the project facilitator’s ability
to manage it might be altered if they are made aware of every difficulty or
setback. (3) Showing them that their wisdom is valued: It can be done by sharing
the stakeholder’s frustration in a context of seeking for stories and advice on
how problems were resolved (cf. ibid, p. 56).
As grandparents need to see their grandchildren regularly to (fully) empathize

with the parents’ ordeals or to intimately understand each child’s individual
needs and potential, the project manager/facilitator should ensure to create
opportunities to interweave direct participation by the governance team with
56
consumers. Their involvement can be infrequent, but by creating a few
opportunities for the senior management stakeholders to engage directly, this
will help build deeper understanding and empathy toward target consumers
throughout the stakeholder chain (cf. ibid, p. 56).
The basis of friendships in life and partnerships in business is shared respect,

interests, and simply being there for each other. The ways in which the
friendships are honored and the reasons they are formed share similarities with
the connection to vendors and other project partners brought into supplement
the typical client/consultant relationship. As Jani and Sawhney point out
friends “often lend a hand when needed and save busy couples from logistical
difficulties, while tenderly offering needed advice and celebrating milestones
along the way.” (ibid, p. 56).
Like teachers, subject-matter and lateral experts provide external viewpoints,

counsel, and allow for the reality-checks which is desperately needed by many
initiatives. With external experts, it should be remembered to establish honest
and effective communication, where the authoritative expertise of advising and
the authoritative responsibility of managing are mutually respected. The
synergy of different viewpoints that both bring to the table are needed for the
best interests of the consumer. It is important to receptively listen to experts’
findings and feedback (especially critiques) when all seems to be working well
to ensure the greatest growth potential is realized (cf. ibid, p. 57).
Jani and Sawhney highly recommend starting projects with an alignment/kick-

off phase as to introduce teams (face-to-face if possible!), clarify objectives,
interview stakeholders, set communication protocols for weekly updates, define
responsibilities, establish criteria for success and finally to build an initial brief
including key hypotheses. They know that pressures of timelines and
stakeholder availability suggest bypassing this essential activity, but they
emphasize that a well-defined brief is key to initiating a good working
relationship, and “the short-term pain is worth the long-term gain.” (Jani &
Sawhney, 2012, p. 55). However, this brief should be kept flexible to have the
possibility to redefine it at every stage of the innovation process. This helps
focusing “on doing the right things for the customers while encouraging their
participation throughout the various phases”(ibid, 2012, p. 55).
57
Systemic Constellation
Systemic Constellation is an instrument to display structures in relationships

within a system, e.g. an organization or a (project) team, in a spatial way. This
method is now increasingly applied in the context of change and conflict
management in organizations (cf. Birkenkrahe, 2009; Stam, 2006, all cited in
Eskerod & Huemann, 2014). Originally it was developed within the field of
family therapy and relates to the concept of Sociogram (cf. Moreno, 1934, cited
in Eskerod & Huemann, 2014), which is the graphic representation of a given
person’s social links. The method can be utilized in the analysis as well as in the
further development of possible changes of these relationship-structures (cf.
Kopp & Martinuzzi, 2013, cited in Eskerod & Huemann, 2014). Specific forms
of system constellations have been developed – for a comprehensive
differentiation of the types, see Koop and Martinuzzi (2013).
Eskerod and Huemann (2014) investigated the usefulness of the project

stakeholder analysis method Systemic Constellation by applying a version of
this method offered by Sachs-Schaffer, Gschwend and Sachs (2007) and Sachs-
Schaffer (2009) to a case study where the project manager was challenged due
to a lack of willingness of some of the stakeholders to engage in the project. In
the following the Systemic Constellation method by Sachs-Schaffer, Gschwend
and Sachs (2007) will be described.
The purpose of the method System Constellation is to leverage the intuitive

knowledge of the client (the person who has an issue) to position the
relationships between parts of the system in a space including emotions,
attitudes, prejudices, and unconscious assumptions. After identifying the most
important stakeholders (named by the client/project manager) and concepts
concerning the project, all of them are represented by the people participating
in a constellation session or by symbols, e.g. a chair. The way they stand in
relation to each other (position and space) symbolize their mutual relationships
as the project manager sees it. In this step, a neutral facilitator is needed who
guides the constellation and helps focusing on the most important system parts.
By appointing the representatives as parts of the system and positioning them
in a space, the client visualizes and externalizes his/her inner picture of the
relational, ordinal, hierarchical, conditional, and communicational structures
within the system (cf. Grochowiak & Castella, 2002, cited in Eskerod &
Huemann, 2014). Because of the process an initial image of the situation is
created, and important information is revealed through the placement of the
58
representatives with respect to their different roles within the system or symbols
(especially distance and viewing direction). Additionally, all representatives
have to express their body sensations and feelings concerning their placement
in the constellation. On this basis, the initial constellation should be adjusted
and finalized by the project manager in several further steps over an
intermediate to a final constellation.
To sum up, Eskerod and Huemann (2014) define a systemic constellation as a

method to abstract and visualize social systems and structures that involve (1)
the inner picture of the project client (e.g. the project manager or owner) of the
current project stakeholder situation related to an issue; (2) a focus on dynamics
within the stakeholder system relevant for the issue; and (3) the opportunity to
stimulate movements of the stakeholders to generate insights about possible
solution strategies regarding the issue.
In the case study of Eskerod and Huemann (2014) several findings were
identified: In the initial constellation many stakeholders didn’t take notice of
each other due to their focus on the project itself; yet some stakeholders had less
focus on the project but strong focus on other stakeholders, like the project
manager on the project owner. Furthermore, some stakeholders were placed far
away from both the project and the other stakeholders and it was later realized
that two important stakeholders were missing. The focus of the representatives
changed as more stakeholders were introduced and the project manager
realized that all stakeholders needed to see the vision and to be involved. A
characteristic of the final constellation was that the representatives formed a
circle and that everybody focused on everything simultaneously. From being
fragmented in the initial constellation, all of them had a common focus. In the
end the project manager acknowledged her surprise how the input and
comments gave her new perspectives on the project. Stakeholders who were not
paying attention to became very important ones as they had relations to some
of the other stakeholders. Because of the systemic constellation session, the
project manager did a number of things differently in her project management
activities. She changed the way they approached some of the stakeholders. For
example, they created a dialogue round, where the project manager and the
external consultant as a team visited the heads of the political groups within the
city council on an individual face-to-face basis. This enabled them to talk
directly with everybody about their requirements, wishes, ideas, and concerns
59
– and in the end made a proposal that all city council members would approve
(cf. Eskerod & Huemann, 2014).
Project stakeholder management literature suggests various methods for

identification of stakeholders. Examples for the classical project stakeholder
analysis are brainstorming, using general checklists, or using stakeholder lists
of similar projects. In the systemic constellation method relevant stakeholders
are identified by ‘the client’ during the systemic interview or the constellation
process so that the system of stakeholders is socially constructed by the client.
The facilitator, however, undertakes a neutral role, not forcing any stakeholders
on the client, even though suggestions can be brought in (cf. ibid).
A strength of the Systemic Constellation is that the client focuses on

stakeholders that are top of mind (instead of being paralyzed by the complexity
of all thinkable stakeholders); but it should be considered that the potential
impact of the constellation relies on the client’s ability to identify all the relevant
stakeholders for the issue at hand. Another positive aspect is that this approach
sees the stakeholder landscape as systemic and not consisting of dyadic
relationships in a project-centric approach. The use of body sensation rather
than only rational thinking is another highlight making it well-suited for
revealing the inner picture. Hereby unspoken assumptions and understandings
of the client are uncovered that would have been difficult to be revealed by
classical reasoning. Limitations of the method are that it is firstly resource
demanding (as a group of people is needed as representatives) and that it
secondly requires a well-trained facilitator (cf. ibid).
As Eskerod and Huemann (2014) mentioned, a similarity between classical

project stakeholder analysis and the systematic constellation method (in this
described version) is that they are both issue-driven, meaning that the focus in
the analysis is on a certain challenge at a specific point in time. This approach
makes it possible to reduce the analytical complexity and stay focused, instead
of trying to incorporate all details, issues, and project phases in one picture. It
also helps to reduce the risk of seeing stakeholders and their interests and
attributes, e.g. power and legitimacy, as stable across a long-time span and
various issues. This issue-specificity makes the systemic constellation method
suitable for project stakeholder analysis. It also relates back to Freeman (1984),
Savage et al. (1991), Mitchell, Agle and Wood (1997), and Eskerod and Jepsen
(2013) who all point to the necessity of an issue-driven analysis.
60
The Five Stage Stakeholder Engagement Framework
Figure 13: Five Stage Stakeholder Engagement Framework

Source: Krick et al., 2005, p. 11
In their Stakeholder Engagement Handbook Krick et al. (2005) propose a Five

Stage Stakeholder Engagement Framework that presents the stakeholder
engagement as a process consisting of discrete stages. Each stage has defined
necessary questions and processes with regard to planning and managing
stakeholder engagement, whereby the authors suggest not always to follow this
process in such a strict sequence. They mention that it may well be necessary to
carry out several activities at the same time, or to return to a previous step in
order to clarify or reconsider.
The Five Stage Stakeholder Engagement Framework draws heavily on the

principle of “Inclusivity”. The term “Inclusivity” implies the effort and
commitment of an organization towards reflecting the views, needs and
concerns of all stakeholder groups at all stages of its process or activity. These
stakeholders’ perspectives and standpoints are gathered through an
engagement process that allows freedom of expression without fear, favour or
constraint. The main purpose of the concept of inclusivity is to consider the
“voiceless” stakeholders, the environment and generations yet unborn (cf. Krick
et al., 2005, p. 14).
61
In order to attain this inclusivity these three principles are vital according to
Krick et al. (2005) (Figure 13): (1) Materiality: it requires knowing what is of
importance and significance to an organization and its stakeholders; (2)
Completeness: it entails understanding and managing of material impacts and
related stakeholder perspectives, needs, preferences, performance perception
and expectation; (3) Responsiveness: it implies the ability to coherently respond
to the stakeholders’ and the organization’s material issues (those issues that are
of significant importance and concern to the organization and its
stakeholders).31
The Stakeholder Engagement Stage shows the relevance of the principles to the
five stages of the framework (Figure 14). The grey cells show the most relevant
principles at different stages of the engagement framework.
Figure 14: Relevance of the principles to the five stages of the framework
Source: Krick et al., 2005, p. 16
Krick et al. suggest that if this Five Stage Stakeholder Engagement Framework
is well adapted, it can strengthen, complement, and provide an alternative way
of approaching the process of designing a service or a product towards an
improved outcome (for more information, see Krick et al., 2005).
The Value Flow Model
Den Ouden’s (2012) Value Flow Model is a useful approach to identify

stakeholder relations in an innovation ecosystem and is used to create new
innovations or to review existing innovations to inspire improvements. It can be
used as a tool to visualize the value of a meaningful innovative proposition that
is defined through a more complex value network, rather than a simple
31According to Krick et al. (2005, p. 15), the terminologies of these principles can be
customized or fine-tuned to any organization’s desirable words of choice.
62
exchange between a customer and a supplier with a rather linear supply chain
(cf. Den Ouden, 2012, pp. 154; Gultekin et al., 2016, pp. 116) In the framework
four levels of value are discussed: (1) Value for the users of project’s outcome,
(2) value for the organization that brings (part of) the value proposition, (3)
value for the ecosystem of the organization and stakeholders that together form
the economic community that sustains the innovation, and (4) value for the
society as a whole by bringing innovations that improve the quality of life of
people. Furthermore, it indicates all relevant stakeholders and the following
various flows between them: (1) Goods and services, (2) money and other
financial means, (3) information, and (4) intangible value (e.g. reputation) (cf.
Den Ouden, 2012, p. pp. 15)
The first element of the model is the actors. They are indicated as roles (not as
specific companies carrying out specific functions), e.g. customers (who are
using or consuming the value proposition), business actors like service
providers, goods providers or suppliers (who are involved in the production and
sales of the value proposition), and other stakeholders like financiers or
regulators (who either influence or are affected by the new value proposition).
These actors can be individuals, small groups or large communities. These roles
cannot always be clearly identified, as users of a system may also be providers
of important data for the functioning of the system or business actors are
sometimes also customers of the system. However, the Value Flow Model can
accommodate these hybrid forms (cf. ibid).
The second element is related to the actors and refers to their motivation like
the interests and intentions of the actors or the goals they aim to achieve. The
main motivations of the different actors are indicated in a very short description
and might lead to a further split of the actors because of differences in their
ambitions or intentions. As Den Ouden (2012) points out the understanding of
these differences is important in the design of the network (cf. ibid).
The third element in the Value Flow Model is the compatibility (positively
compatible (+), neutral (=), not compatible (-)) of the actors’ main motivations
with the value proposition under development, and commonality of behavior
and values with the initiating members of the ecosystem. Furthermore, it is
important to indicate the influence of the actors on the decision-making process
which depends on his power in the ecosystem. As the value proposition develops
during the process, the compatibility with the motivations of the actors can
change (cf. ibid).
63
Information about investments and throughput times are also indicated in the
Value Flow Model. An understanding of where the big investments need to be
made will help to make sure there is a balance between investment and revenue
streams later on. It is also proved to be useful in practice to indicate an estimated
throughput time for the realization of the offering (cf. ibid).
Transactions form the fifth element of the Value Flow Model. Transactions can
be activities that originate from one actor and end with another, or resources,
information or items that are shared or exchanged between two actors.
Transactions are indicated by arrows that also show the direction of the flow,
with labels to show the content of the transaction (cf. ibid).
The usage of the Value Flow Model helps to understand the business model for
more complex innovations. Furthermore, balancing the value in the network
supports the creation of a sustainable business for the relevant stakeholders in
the business ecosystem.
As this model is created using the shared knowledge of the participants, it is

particularly useful as a workshop tool. By creating the value flows together, the
participants are not only involved in an analysis of the situation and the context
of the innovation; at the same time, they are part of the creative process. The
Value Flow Model triggers creative solutions to increase the attractiveness of
innovation for the various stakeholders (cf. ibid).
Figure 15: Value Flow Model with the transactions of value between the actors
Source: Den Ouden, 2012, p. 176
64
3.5.4 Conclusion by Laura Schulz
As presented above, various methods for stakeholder involvement exist in

literature. They all have their raison d’être as it seems that each of them
successfully aims at involving stakeholders when properly applied and
implemented. Table 3 shows a comparison summarizing the advantages and
disadvantages of each method presented in this chapter.
Method Advantages Disadvantages
Buffering & Relatively fast and easy to apply Losing sight of the fact that
Bridging organizations usually respond to
stakeholders in a dynamic
(by Harrison & St. manner
John and Freeman &
McVea)
Value Design Creates a balance between the

Method input and output of each
stakeholder in the collaboration
(by Gultekin et al.) and commitment for their
participation
Good visualization tool
Investigates and demonstrates

the value and motivation of each
stakeholder
Enables the designer to consider

design concepts in a broader
context, beyond the typical focus
on the user-product interaction
Orchestrating Relatively fast and easy to apply

Design
Collaborations: Respecting the fundamentals of
Think Like a shared visions and pathways for
Family collaboration to enhance
creativity and innovation
(by Jani & Sawhney)
65
Systemic Positioning the relationships Stakeholders are mostly
Constellation between parts of the system identified by the client so that
including emotions, attitudes, the system of stakeholders is
(by Sachs-Schaffer, prejudices, and unconscious socially constructed by the
Gschwend & Sachs assumptions client. Therefore, the impact of
and Sachs-Schaffer) the constellation rests on the
Identifying the stakeholders that client’s ability to identify all the
are ‚top of mind’ relevant stakeholders for the
issue at hand.
Use of body sensation rather
than only rational thinking. >> Resource demanding (as a group
revealing the inner picture and is needed as representatives +
hereby unspoken assumptions time)
and understandings of the client
that would have been difficult to Demands a well-trained
reveal by classical reasoning facilitator
Issue-driven, meaning that the

focus in the analysis is on a
certain challenge at a specific
point in time. This makes it
possible to reduce the analytical
complexity and stay focused. It
also helps to reduce the risk of
seeing stakeholders and their
interests and attributes (e.g.
power or legitimacy) as stable
across a long-time span and
various issues
Five Stage Draws on the principle of

Stakeholder inclusivity, implying the effort
Engagement and commitment of an
Framework organization towards reflecting
the views, needs and concerns of
(by Krick et al.) all stakeholders/stakeholder
groups at all stages of its process
or activity. >> gives
consideration to the “voiceless”
stakeholders, the environment
and generations yet unborn.
Value Flow Model Good visualization tool to show

the value of a meaningful
(by Den Ouden) innovation proposition that is
defined through a more complex
value network, rather than
simply exchange between a
customer and a supplier with a
rather linear supply chain.
Helps to understand the business

model for more complex
innovations.
Used as a workshop tool: By

creating the value flows together,
the participants are not only
involved in an analysis of the
situation and the context of the
innovation; they are part of the
creative process at the same time.
Table 3: Advantages and disadvantages of stakeholder involvement methods
Source: Laura Schulz
66
As mentioned before, appreciating stakeholders as individuals should be seen
as a key aspect when thinking of involving stakeholders successfully in a project.
Personal experiences, for example, may influence the stakeholders’ decision-
making and their relationships with each other (cf. Mitchell, Agle & Wood,
1997). Furthermore, stakeholder expectations, perspectives, motivations, and
their abilities and possibilities seem to play a vital role when it comes to the
question of how to manage co-design projects and how to involve stakeholders
successfully. Some of the methods presented in this chapter consider these
aspects by helping to reveal the inner picture of the project’s stakeholders.
Looking back at the pre-study (chapter 1), however, there is still a need of
improving the involvement of stakeholders, especially in co-design projects
when designers and other professionals are meant to collaboratively work
together whilst the designer has the role of the project facilitator.
In the following chapters, the authors present their approaches to reveal the
inner picture of stakeholders and how these approaches were implemented in
their first prototype of their stakeholder involvement tool. By way of
introduction, they start with a brief definition of the role of commitment and
goals in projects in the next chapter.
67
CHAPTER 4
4. The Role of Commitment and Goals in Projects
by Anne Koslowski
In a project, stakeholders can have very different, partly reluctant or even

incompatible goals (cf. Ehrhardt et al., 2014, p. 456; Wastian et al., 2012, p. 101).
They are engaged in several projects at the same time (cf. Wastian et al., 2012,
VII), bound by instructions of their superior at their own organization (ibid., p.
127), and often they suffer from multiple responsibilities (cf. Schröder, 2010, p.
95). This – among many other things (cf. Wastian et al., 2012, pp. 192) – affects
their commitment. A team “members’ commitment to a team project or related
goal may be especially critical in contexts requiring members to engage in multi-
goal prioritization among superordinate team goals and other, potentially
competing, personal or extra-team goals” (Ehrhardt et al., 2014, p. 456). Given
the high level of functional diversity present in co-design contexts (chapter 0),
the members’ project commitment needs even more attention for being effective
(ibid., 2014, p. 444).
Therefore, goals as well as stakeholders’ expectations, values and contributions

need to be made explicitly clear and aligned in the beginning of a project (cf.
Raijmakers, Vervloed & Wierda, 2015, p. 28; Project Management Institute,
2004, p. 24; Jani & Sawhney 2012, p. 55). This enables the facilitator of a project
to manage them in favour of an overall project goal. An orientation towards
greater project goals of all stakeholders rather than individual goals enables a
high level of collaboration (cf. Brause, 2017, p. 51). This holds especially true for
cross-functional teams, whose members’ collective level of project commitment
may be of primary importance (cf. Ehrhardt et al., 2014, p. 449).
Having a shared goal (for example, what is best for the customer), that still
allows room for individual agendas (for example, career success) is one of the
best ways to address differences between organisations and disciplines that
could potentially create barriers to project success” (Best, 2010, pp. 30). It is not
only crucial for the success of a project to establish a shared understanding of
goals (cf. Craven, 2012) but also to have team members set aside competing
home department or other alternative interests, and commit to the project’s
overall goals (Ehrhardt et al., 2014, p. 445).
68
“It is essential that everyone adheres to the same set of goals. As not every
partner has the same goals, creating common goals from different network
perspectives, like users’ motivation or business goals, helps building common
ground. Orchestration needs to ensure that this basis is created, that relevant
goals are created for every partner, and that both are shared in the network
of collaborators in the project” (Raijmakers, Vervloed & Wierda, 2015, p. 28).
It is the designers job to develop a vision that the entire team believes in (cf.
Cooper et al., 2014, p. 40). Consequently, he/she as the project facilitator needs
to learn about everybody’s goals first to ensure commitment.
4.1 The Goal-directed Design Approach to the Persona

Technique by Anne Koslowski
To reveal the goals of the stakeholders of the present case study, the authors
have chosen the goal-directed design approach by Cooper, Reimann and Cronin
(2007) and Cooper et al. (2014). According to Cooper, Reimann and Cronin
(2007, p. 15) “a goal is an expectation of an end condition”. It tells the researcher
why someone is “performing an activity, task, action, or operation in the first
place” (ibid.) other than what they are doing. Hence, by applying the goal-
directed design approach the authors make sure to reveal the motivations and
expectations of the stakeholders which tell why they are in the project and what
behaviour can be expected from them.
By “goal-directed design” Cooper, Reimann and Cronin (2007) and Cooper et

al. (2014) refer to their approach to the persona technique (cf. Nielsen, 2013, p.
14). Personas provide an elaborated tool for communicating about different
types of users and in which context they use the product (cf. Nielsen, 2013, p.
9). As Cooper et al. (2014, p. 96) put it: Personas “represent specific people with
specific purposes or goals”. Hence, by using personas, the authors can develop
an understanding of the project’s stakeholders’ goals in their specific contexts.
“Describing a person’s goals provides context and structure for tasks,
incorporating how culture and workflow influence behaviour” (ibid., 2007, p.
85). Furthermore, they “provide us with a precise way of thinking and
communicating about how groups of users behave, how they think, what they
want to accomplish, and why” (ibid.). This will help the user of the tool
developed within this study to understand and predict the project’s
stakeholders’ behaviour because goals provide an answer to why and how users
want to use a product – in the present case why and how stakeholders want to
69
be involved in the design process. Therefore, the stakeholders will be called
users in the empirical part of this thesis when developing the persona-like
stakeholder profiles (chapter 6)
Given the current state of research – stakeholders should be analysed by a

network approach rather than a dyadic approach (chapter 3.3) – the persona
technique is the method of choice. Its advantage is that it incorporates several
other approaches that try to describe users, including use models and workflow
models. Other than personas, use models focus on tasks almost exclusively and
neglect the use of goals. They reduce the user as far as “they are not imagined as
people and typically do not attempt to convey broader human motivations and
contexts” (Cooper et al., 2014, p. 70). But stakeholders should be analysed by
incorporating the network that influences them as “the project may not be the
center of their attention (…) as they have their own set of stakeholders to relate
to (and some may even be more important) and the project stakeholders may
relate to each other and even be more influenced by some of the other
stakeholders than the project team” (Eskerod, Huemann & Savage, 2015, p. 11).
This possibility is given by using the persona technique (cf. Cooper et al., 2014,
p. 76). As the workflow model captures information flow and decision-making
processes inside organizations but little humanity it is not appropriate for the
present use case either (cf. ibid., p. 98).
Furthermore, stakeholders should be analysed at an individual level instead of

an aggregated level avoiding generalisations such as “the government”, “the
employees” (Eskerod, Huemann & Savage, 2015, p. 11). “Stakeholders have
names and faces and children. They are not mere placeholders for social roles”
(Freeman et al., 2010, p. 29). This perspective is also guaranteed by using the
persona technique because personas represent specific people as mentioned
before.
Considering the design process of the Green Deal project (see chapter 2.5) as
the product that will be used by the stakeholders, the authors can declare the
stakeholder types to be developed as a persona set which “must accommodate
ranges of user behavior, attitudes, and aptitudes” (Cooper et al., 2014, p. 83).
The set of stakeholder types will “represent different correlated behavior
patterns” (ibid.). At these correlations the authors will arrive by analysing
interview data. Additionally, the authors can fill gaps in the data by
supplemental literature on cultural typologies that will provide them with more
patterns (chapter 5).
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However, supporting fictive details such as cars and family members should be
employed sparingly in persona creation. “It is used just enough to make the
persona come to life in the minds of the designers and product team” (Cooper
et al., 2014, p. 71). Yet, bringing the persona to life makes it possible “to
understand the implications of design decisions in human terms. Describing a
persona’s goals provides context and structure for tasks, incorporating how
culture and work flow influence behavior” (ibid.). Focusing on roles only, may
also be misleading insofar as important distinctions and similarities between
users can be overlooked. People in the same role do not necessarily think and
act the same (ibid.).
When constructing the persona-like stakeholder types the author will be able to
compare behaviours identified in the data to the assumptions made in the
persona hypothesis. Like this it can be evaluated whether the possible roles that
were identified are truly distinct. Furthermore, the authors will see if the
behavioural variables identified were valid32, if there were additional,
unanticipated ones, or ones the authors anticipated that weren’t supported by
data. If the data should be at tremendous variance with the assumptions the
authors will have to consider additional interviews to cover any gaps in the new
behavioral ranges discovered (cf. Cooper et al. 2014, p. 83).
A persona hypothesis is the first step towards identifying and synthesizing

personas (cf. Cooper et al., 2014, p. 46). The hypotheses are a starting point for
the interviews, and should be based on likely behaviour patterns. The authors
will find these patterns by studying the stakeholder’s profiles on the social
network for business contacts LinkedIn first, and then deriving conclusions
about their behaviours from literature about cultural and psychological
typologies.
When constructing the persona-like stakeholder types later in the process the
authors would have to group the interview subjects by role. As mentioned
before, in the present case, there are not enough interviewees to group them.
So, it will be one role based on one person. Nevertheless, they should be easy to
delineate, because they map to job roles or job descriptions (cf. ibid., p. 47).
32
“For a pattern to be valid, there must be a logical or causative connection between the
clustered behaviors, not just a spurious correlation. For example, there is clearly a
logical connection if data shows that people who regularly purchase CDs also like to
download MP3 files. But there is probably no logical connection if the data shows that
interviewees who frequently purchase CDs online are also vegetarians.” (Cooper et. al.
2014, no pagination)
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After grouping the interviewees by role, Cooper et al. (ibid.) propose to list the
distinct aspects of observed behaviour for each role as a set of behavioural
variables. Supposedly, it is typical to find 15 to 30 variables per role.
Cooper et al. (2014, p. 83) predict the emergence of the most important
distinction between behaviour patterns by focusing on these types of variables.
They will help us later to synthesize and structure the data in a spreadsheet
(Appendix 17):
• Activities—What the user does; frequency and volume

• Attitudes—How the user thinks about the product domain and
technology
• Aptitudes—What education and training the user has; ability to learn
• Motivations—Why the user is engaged in the product domain
• Skills—User abilities related to the product domain and technology
Once the authors are satisfied with the identified set of significant behavioural
variables, the next step will be to map each interviewee against each variable.
“Some of these variables will represent a continuous range of behavior, such as
confidence in using technology. Others will represent multiple discrete choices,
such as using a digital camera versus using a film camera” (ibid., p. 99). The
authors will use scales between 0 and 10 for mapping the stakeholders. There
will be various dichotomous variables that can be used, such as “service-
oriented” versus “price-oriented”. In doing so they must rely on their gut feeling
because often there is “no good way to measure this precisely” (ibid., p. 99). This
is feasible because it does not matter if an interviewee falls at precisely 7 or 7,5
on the scale. It is more critical to identify the placement of interviewees in
relationship to each other (ibid.).
Figure 16: Interview subjects are mapped across a behavioural axis.

Source: Cooper et al., 2014, p. 84
Concluding it can be said that the goal in constructing a set of persona-like

stakeholder profiles should be “to represent the diversity of observed
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motivations, behaviors, attitudes, aptitudes, constraints, mental models, work
or activity flows, environments, and frustrations with current products or
systems” (Cooper et al., 2014, p. 81).
4.2 Deduction of Interview Questions
Critical in the development of personas is capturing their motivations in the

form of goals because their goals and motivations “drive their behaviours; some
are obvious, but many are subtle” (ibid., p. 68). To understand the behaviour of
the stakeholders in this case study the interviewees’ goals must be followed as
“shorthand for motivations that not only point to specific usage patterns but
also provide a reason why those behaviors exist” (ibid.):
• Experience goals: How the user wants to feel.

• End goals: What the user wants to do.
• Life goals: Who the user wants to be.
To be effective (as design tools), goals must always relate directly, in some way,
to the product being designed (cf. ibid., p. 86) which is in the present case the
design process of the Green Deal project. Typically, most useful goals for a
persona are end goals.
End goals represent the user’s motivation for performing the tasks associated
with using a specific product. When people initiate a specific handgrip, e.g.
picking up a cell phone or open a document with a word processor, they
probably have an outcome in mind. “A product or service can help accomplish
such goals directly or indirectly” (ibid., p. 77). So, it can be asked what the Green
Deal design process/project can provide for the stakeholder as a user interacting
with it. The authors can expect the personas to have three to five end goals
associated with them (cf. ibid.) Cooper et al. (2014) also point out that “end
goals should be among the most significant factors in determining the overall
product experience” and they “must be met for users to think that a product is
worth their time and money” (ibid.). Examples of end goals are:
• Be aware of problems before they become critical

• Stay connected with friends and family
• Clear my to-do list by 5:00 p.m. every day
• Find music that I’ll love
• Get the best deal.
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Questions about end goals:
1. Is the Green Deal project worth your time and money?

a. Why?
2. Under which circumstances a workshop/meeting, or a project is
worthwhile?
3. When does a workshop/meeting get your full attention?
a. How in particular?
4. What outcome do you have in mind when attending a Green Deal
workshop/meeting?
5. How many hours per week do you want to invest in the project?
Experience goals are simple, universal, and personal which makes them difficult
for many people to talk about, especially in the impersonal business
environment (ibid). They express how someone wants to feel while using a
product, or the quality of his or her interaction with the product – in this case
the design process respectively being involved with a collaborative design team.
On the contrary, if a product makes users feel stupid or uncomfortable, “it’s
unpleasant, and their effectiveness and enjoyment plummets, regardless of their
other goals” (ibid, p. 77). This design principle applies to a project/process just
as well. Otherwise, team members might lose interest, resign, or even drop out
of the project team if they feel unappreciated.
Questions about experience goals:
1. How did the last meeting/workshop make you feel? (e.g. creative, smart,
professional, appreciated, uncomfortable, an outsider)
a. Why?
2. How did the whole project make you feel?
a. Why?
3. How would you prefer to feel when attending a meeting/workshop of the
Green Deal project?
4. When you think of your boss/superior/employer: How do you want to
feel in the Green Deal project?
Life goals embody the user’s personal hopes which go beyond the context of the
product being designed. “These goals represent deep drives and motivations
that help explain why the user is trying to accomplish the end goals he seeks to
accomplish.” (ibid, pp. 77). They stand for a persona’s long-term desires,
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motivations, and self-image attributes, which cause the persona to connect with
a product. Life goals are most useful for personas of consumer-oriented
products (ibid.). Therefore, they were not included in this study.
Additionally, non-user goals must be considered, including customer goals,

business and organisational goals as well as technical goals (ibid., p. 79).
Typically, customers are parents, relatives, or friends concerned with the well-
being of the user, so they make the purchase decision. Also, IT managers or
procurement specialists are common customers purchasing a software for their
company. In this case the “customer” could be the stakeholders’ superior or a
stakeholder of hers who want her/him be part of the project. Asking about their
goals enables the authors to explore the network of an interviewee.
Questions about customer goals:
1. Why does your superior want you to be in the project?

2. What are her/his expectations towards you?
3. What is his/her goal?
4. What would be a dream outcome or her/his in this project?
5. What would he/she consider failure?
The business goals of the organization commissioning the design and

developing and selling (or otherwise distributing) the product should also be
identified according to Cooper et al. (2014). “Clearly, these organizations are
hoping to accomplish something with the product (which is why they are willing
to spend money and effort on design and development)” (ibid.). Finding out
about these goals is important as explained before in this chapter. In other
words, craving out the business goals of each interviewee’s organisation is just
as important as finding out about their personal goals.
In this case the organization commissioning the design differs from the one
developing and selling the product. As product, the authors consider the design
process which is being managed by a design agency, whereas the organization
commissioning the design (process) is the client, e.g. a public authority.
Normally, “the goals of businesses, where users and customers work, are
captured in user and customer personas, as well as organizational ‘personas’”
(ibid.). The authors do not have to create customer and organizational personas
separately. Instead their characteristics can be merged in the stakeholder types
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because “users will do their best to achieve their employer’s business goals,
while at the same time looking after their own personal goals” (ibid).
Technical goals such as safeguard data integrity or run a variety of browsers

finally can be ignored in this case.
It is unprobeable that interviewees can articulate their goals accurately and

perfectly honest (cf. ibid.). Therefore, Cooper et al. (2014, p. 73) suggest
researchers to “carefully reconstruct goals from observed behaviors, answers to
other questions, nonverbal cues, and clues from the environment, such as the
titles of books on shelves” as well as considering the following questions to
gather enough details from each interview that reveals significant behaviour
patterns.
Here are some goal-oriented questions they propose:
• Goals—What makes a good day? A bad day?

• Opportunity—What activities currently waste your time?
• Priorities—What is most important to you?
• Information—What helps you make decisions?
Regarding the latter question, the authors additionally lend attribute pairs from
an online questionnaire from Stockleben & Falk-Barzt (n.d) in order to carve
out more profound ways of decision-making. The attribute pairs include: quick
– slow; superficial – thorough; well-founded – uninformed; structured –
unstructured; fair – unfair; emotional – rational; hierarchical – equitable;
complex – simple; open – guided; uneasy – pleasant; surprising – predictable.
Another useful type of question is the system-oriented question:
• Function—What are the most common things you do with the product?
• Frequency—What parts of the product do you use most?
• Preference—What are your favorite aspects of the product? What drives
you crazy?
• Failure—How do you work around problems?
• Expertise—What shortcuts do you employ?
For business products, work flow-oriented questions can be helpful:
• Process—What did you do when you first came in today? What did you
do after that?
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• Occurrence and recurrence—How often do you do this? What things do
you do weekly or monthly, but not every day?
• Exception—What constitutes a typical day? What would be an unusual
event?
To better understand user motivations, you can employ attitude-oriented

questions:
• Aspiration—What do you see yourself doing five years from now?

• Avoidance—What would you prefer not to do? What do you
procrastinate on?
• Motivation—What do you enjoy most about your job (or lifestyle)? What
do you always tackle first?
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CHAPTER 5
5. Supplemental Data from Cultural Typologies
by Anne Koslowski
As explained in chapter 0, co-design projects do not only benefit from the

different mindsets, experiences, ideas, knowledge and skills of their
contributors. Multidisciplinary collaboration also entails culture clash
(Edmondson, 2016), and thus bears conflict (Agger & Sørensen, 2016). In the
pre-study (chapter 0) it became evident how different occupational cultures
both interact and conflict (cf. Koh, Johnson & Killough, 2009, p. 320).
Problems in co-operations can be found in any organisation and project where

different professionals must work together. A “driving misalignment” can often
be witnessed in companies between the functional areas of IT and business (cf.
Jacks, 2012, p. 32). “The IT occupational group, with its own values, history and
language, forms a subculture within the organization that impacts the degree of
alignment. Lack of alignment may be directly related to core values of different
groups being too divergent” (ibid.).
Correspondingly, cultural pluralism complicates the collaboration and

communication due to multiple types of special languages33 in use (Sanders,
2011), differences in sense making, and how each stakeholders’ area of
specialization might have predisposed them to certain approaches (Joy & Kolb,
2008, p. 84). As one of the consequences, different people attribute different
meanings to the same message, for example. Depending on people’s career
paths or professional disciplines, they interpret and emphasize what seems like
similar contents in uniquely different ways (cf. Streich & Brennholt, 2012. p.
58). Accordingly, they hear, see and read only messages that correspond with
their own needs, motives or expectations (cf. ibid.).
Therefore, the authors chose to enrich the data base by extending the interview
questions borrowing variables from cultural typologies. These typologies are
dichotomous in nature (cf. ibid., p. 70) and allow her “to place observations of
individual or group behaviors into the norms or patterns that constitute the
whole culture model” (Schein, 2016, p. 272). Like this the authors can make use
33
“More specifically, differences in linguistic filters can lead to different worldviews so
that the meanings embodied in equivalent words can have quite different meanings in
different groups” (Koh, Johnson & Killough, 2009, p. 318).
78
of existing patterns that they cannot identify themselves due to the limited
number of stakeholder interviews.
5.1 Definition of Culture by Anne Koslowski
Culture does not only refer to the national level of one’s country. It can also be
manifested in a system of orientation typical to a society, organization or group
(cf. Hoessler, Sponfeldner & Morse, 2015, p. 290). This system of orientation
can be conceptualized as “shared motives, values, beliefs, identities, and
interpretations or meanings of significant events that result from common
experiences of members of collectives that are transmitted across generations”
(House et al., 2004, p. 15 as cited in Joy & Kolb, 2008, p. 70). These “experiences
are used as a basis for determining action and these interactions become shared
knowledge. This shared knowledge is then “used by (..) members to interpret
past experiences and current situations and to guide present and future actions”
(Koh, Johnson & Killough, 2009, pp. 318). This process is called socialisation
(cf. Barmeyer, 2012, p. 148) leading to a “shared mental software” (Hofstede,
Hofstede & Minkov, 2010, p. 47) enabling an individual to navigate within a
social unit and to interact without larger conflict (cf. Barmeyer, 2012, p. 148).
For this research purpose, the authors must look at the different layers of
culture34, namely organizational and occupational culture because they are an
important source of background differences that can lead to differences in
vocabularies, understanding of basic concepts, attitude towards a project, and
the consequent failure in communication (Koh, Johnson & Killough, 2009, p.
318).
5.1.1 Organizational Culture by Anne Koslowski
The organizational, or corporate, culture involves “those who are employed”,

hence have been socialized by their work organisation (Hofstede, Hofstede &
Minkov, 2010, p. 18). Moreover, organizational culture can be defined in terms
of values shared by members of an organization (or its subunit) that become
apparent in the practices of that organization or sub-unit (Koh, Johnson &
Killough, 2009, p. 319). It can furthermore be defined “as the way in which
members of an organisation relate to each other, their work and the outside
34
In addition to the organizational and occupational level of culture people can also
belong to a regional and/or ethnic and/or religious and/or linguistic affiliation, a gender
level, a generational level and of course to a national level (cf. Hofstede, Hofstede &
Minkov, 2010, p. 18).
79
world in comparison to other organisations” (Hofstede Insights, n.d.). Some
suggested that organisational culture is affected by the nature of the industry an
organization operates in (ibid.). Other factors that influence organizational
culture include national culture, societal culture, and organizational
environments and goals (ibid.). How it can be measured will be shown later in
this chapter.
5.1.2 Occupational Culture by Anne Koslowski
The occupational culture in turn is “associated with educational opportunities

and with a person’s occupation or profession” (Hofstede, Hofstede & Minkov,
2010, p. 18). The occupational or professional culture of an individual develops
through education and professional training, for example at university, and
leads to a specialisation as well as a sense of identity (“us engineers”, “us
computer scientists”, or “us journalists”) (cf. Barmeyer, 2012, p. 28). In fact,
“academic disciplines, professions, and occupations are homogeneous cultures
that differ on nearly every dimension associated with the term” (Kolb, 2015, p.
175). When students leave their institution of professional training they have
been socialised in four different aspects: by their culture of heritage, their
anticipated occupational culture, the academical faculty culture, and the general
study culture.
During this process, they form a habitus as the central result of socialisation in
a profession. This habitus fundamentally affects the way of a person’s
constructions of reality (cf. Kuhl, 2008, p. 23). Hence, the habitus does not only
encompass explicit knowledge but also involves unconscious ideas, orientation,
and dispositions that are being gained within a shared culture and life
experience of a group (cf. ibid., p. 24). Outsiders perceive this habitus, for
example trough the group’s lifestyle, their clothing, or through the handling of
time (cf. ibid., Kolb, 215, p. 175). For example, “for engineers time is an inelastic
entity” (Ibn-e-Hassan et al., 2014, p. 99).
Consequently, different professions display (cf. Kolb, 2015, p. 175):
• Different languages (or at least dialects)

• Strong boundaries defining membership and corresponding
initiation rites
• Different norms and values, particularly about the nature of
truth and how it is to be sought
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• Different patterns of power and authority and differing criteria
of attaining status
• Different standards of intimacy and modes of its expression
• Expression in style of dress (lab coats and uniforms, business
suits, beards and blue jeans)
• Expression in furnishings (wooden or steel desks, interior
decoration, functional rigor, or “creative disorder”)
• Expression in architecture
• Use of space and time
Those patterns of variation are not random. Instead they have a meaning and
integrity for the members, and come from a historical continuity (cf. ibid).
Given this shared base of relative stable features such as self-conception,

perceived role, professional knowledge, skills, experience and practices
emanating from a certain working context, members of a certain occupational
culture can communicate implicitly and co-operate efficiently (cf. Barmeyer,
2012, p. 28). However, even though occupational culture represents a linking
element of successful intercultural co-operation this does not imply that
occupational cultures are homogenous across countries. Institutions for
professional training may still convey values and practices of the national
culture (ibid.). Hence, national culture has an influence on occupational culture.
Yet, there may be shared identities due to people’s profession across nations,
including engineers: “Integrated faculty in engineering schools is observed as
there are similarities in engineering education all over the world” (Ibn-e-Hassan
et al., 2014, p. 99).
Since this case study involves Dutch-only teams, the authors will assume the
Dutch culture implicit and not compare national culture because there are no
cultural differences expected on a national level.
The previous definition merged occupational and professional culture.

However, other definitions distinguish them and see occupational culture as a
broader concept than professional culture. Occupational culture “is believed to
be the result of similar occupational backgrounds and experiences of different
groups of organizational members” (Koh, Johnson & Killough, 2009, p. 320).
According to Koh, Johnson & Killough (2009, p. 320) psychologist Edward H.

Schein (1996) identified three broad occupational cultures in organizations that
81
have been empirically proven by other researchers: (1) the “operators”
occupational culture that applies to line managers and workers who make and
deliver the products and services that fulfil the organization’s basic mission, (2)
the “engineers” occupational culture that applies to technocrats and core
designers in any functional group (e.g., accountants, software programmers,
market researchers, etc.), and (3) the “executives” culture that applies to top
managers and executives. However, this classification seems too broad for this
purpose.
Professional culture on the other hand refers to the likeliness of members of the
same profession to have similar interests, values and attitudes, which can also
mould perceptions (Koh, Johnson & Killough, 2009, p. 320). “More
importantly, professional affiliations can create different linguistic repertoires
or codes for intra-group communications and/or inter-group communications”
(ibid.).
In this thesis, the authors will adhere to this narrower concept of professional
culture, yet using the term occupational culture since it is much more common.
According to literature, occupational culture may have greater influence over

work styles and perspectives than an organization’s procedures and policies.
What is more, occupational culture crosses organizational boundaries and is
often imported (cf. Koh, Johnson & Killough, 2009, p. 321). Both cultures can
influence each other through the process of recruiting. For example, if a job
candidate feels attracted to a certain organisational culture and self-selects
himself/herself into that company (cf. ibid). Occupational/professional culture
will continue to exist in organizations because of occupational/professional
affiliations (ibid.).
Hence, organisational and occupational culture condition each other to a certain

extent and need to be considered together in this thesis as both will affect
collaboration.
5.2 The Correlation between Profession and Design Process

by Anne Koslowski
Since there is no elaborated instrument to measure or classify occupational

culture (cf. Jacks, 2012, no pagination; cf. Ibn-e-Hassan et al., 2014, p. 103) a
detour must be made. This detour guides us to ELT) (Kolb 1981b, 1984): it
correlates professions with Kolb’s learning styles (2015, p. 123). “The concept of
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habitus, though more encompassing in a scope that includes lifestyle, values,
and dispositions, is similar to the experiential learning theory concept of
learning style” (ibid., p. 192). Consequently, knowing a person’s professional
and educational background (the discipline he/she majored in) allows the
authors to deduce his/her learning preference because “one’s undergraduate
education is a major factor in the development of his or her learning style”
(Kolb, 2015, p. 126). A person’s learning style again allows the authors to predict
to some extent her/his behaviour in a design project as well as presume her
approach to problems because the way knowledge is being built during an
innovation process “maps closely to the way we learn” (Beckman, 2014, p. 66).
Figure 17: The four key activities of the design process linked to the learning styles
Source: Adapted from Beckman (2014, p. 68)
To enhance the innovativeness of a team and navigate the innovation process of

problem framing and problem solving well, Beckman (2014, p. 65) suggests
considering the different learning styles of the individual team members.
Accordingly, divergent skills, abilities, and styles are needed at the different
stages of the design process. For example, the diverging learner as an idea-
generator and good at seeing things from different perspectives is a great asset
83
in the observation phase at the beginning of the design process, whereas the
framework phase requires taking all the messy data from the observation phase,
find patterns in it, organize it and clearly communicate the findings to others
which is best accomplished by an assimilating learner (cf. Beckman, 2014, pp.
68).
Accordingly, divergent skills, abilities, and styles are needed at the different
stages of the design process. For example, the diverging learner as an idea-
generator and good at seeing things from different perspectives is a great asset
in the observation phase at the beginning of the design process, whereas the
framework phase requires taking all the messy data from the observation phase,
find patterns in it, organize it and clearly communicate the findings to others
which is best accomplished by an assimilating learner (cf. Beckman, 2014, pp.
68).
From there the team moves to the from framing the problem to solving it. In the
imperatives phase choices have to be made based on the insights generated in
the frameworks phase which is a strength of the converging learner. Finally, in
the solutions phase the abstract concepts need to be made concrete, prototypes
need to be build and taken back to the customer. This is where the
accommodator fits best (ibid., p. 70.)
defines learning as “the process whereby knowledge is created through the

transformation of experience. Knowledge results from the combination of
grasping and transforming experience” (Kolb, 1984, p. 41 as cited in Joy & Kolb,
2008, p. 70). It describes “two dialectically modes of grasping experience –
concrete experience and abstract conceptualization – and two dialectically
related modes of transforming experience – reflective observation and active
experimentation” (Beckman, 2014, pp. 70). With other words, building
knowledge happens along two main axes: how humans perceive things and how
they process them (cf. ibid, p. 66). With the help of Learning Style Inventory
(LSI), learners can be localized somewhere between these two axes, depending
on their prevailing learning preference.
Even though everyone cycles through this learning process throughout the day
taking in information (diverging), trying to fit the new information with existing
mental models (assimilating), adjusting those mental models (converging), and
then change behaviours accordingly (accommodating), people develop a
preference in learning style (ibid., p. 67). This preference derives from “our
84
hereditary equipment, our particular life experiences, and the demands of our
present environment” (Joy & Kolb, 2008, p. 71). Hence, a learning style is not a
fix psychological trait but changes depending on demands from the
environment (ibid.).
Diverging learners often major in the arts, language, history, and psychology
and then go into the social services sector or into the arts. Accommodating
learners often specialize in education, communication, and nursing, and then
seek jobs in training departments, have a human resource management
function, or can be found in the public relations group (cf. Beckman, 2014, p.
74). A study of the general population found that 33 percent of adults are
converging learners (cf. ibid., p. 71). People with this learning preference are
eager to find a solution, are likely to be impatient with the diverging learners
who keep asking questions trying to explore the problem further. Diverging
learners are a rare species, though. They make up less than 10 percent of the
overall (US-American) population. Amongst MBA (Master of Business
Administration) and Product Management students Beckman (2014, p. 71) only
found 3 percent of diverging learners and zero percent amongst engineering
students. In average, the converging learner made up 47 percent in these three
areas of study. The assimilating learner made up 24 percent, the
accommodating learner 11 percent and the balanced learner 15 percent. In the
overall population, the assimilating learner made up 33 percent, and the
accommodating learner 20 percent. The accommodating learner with his/her
preference to just make and see what happens frustrates the assimilating
learner who wants to “think about it” a little longer (cf. ibid., p. 70).
For the persona hypotheses this means that it is unlikely to find a diverging
learner in this case study. If there is, it can be expected to be someone with a
design background, maybe the project facilitator. People with an engineering,
business administration of product management background will be very likely
to display a converging learning style. Team members with an interdisciplinary
study background might rather be a balanced learner who can adopt to any of
the four key stages of the innovation process that corresponds with the four
stages of the learning process (cf. Beckman, 2014, p. 66). Secondly, the teams
are “likely to be dealing with a sizable ratio of converging learners” (Beckman,
2014, p. 71). This entails conflict because “converging learners prefer problem
solving to problem framing, and are thus likely to drive quickly to a solution,
perhaps before the situation has been well understood” (ibid.). Beckman’s
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research also showed that having more than one converging learner on a team
“statistically significantly reduces satisfaction on the team” (ibid.). An
explanation for that could be that learners of that style argue for a different
solution, sometimes to a different problem. Hence, teams are likely to be
dominated by problem-solving orientation and often fighting over alternative
solutions as well (cf. ibid. p. 72).
Furthermore, the authors can make assumptions about personality traits of a

stakeholder since there is a correspondence between the Jungian theory of
psychological types and Kolb’s learning styles (cf. Kolb, 2015, p. 116).
5.2.1 Critique of David Kolb’s ELT and LSI by Anne Koslowski
Even though David Kolb’s ELT and LSI are omnipresent in research and have
been broadly embraced by experiential educators, business managers, and
computer programmers, it has failed to adopt to current neuroscientific
research (Schenck & Cruickshank, 2015, pp. 73). This results in an
oversimplification of the brain’s learning, for example (ibid., p. 77). However,
critique on learning style theories and instruments goes far beyond Kolb.
Technically, “no single commonly accepted method currently exists, but
alternatively several potential scales and classifications are in use” (Romanelli,
Bird & Ryan, 2009, p. 1). These scales and classifications are very similar and
focus on environmental preferences, sensory modalities, personality types,
and/or cognitive styles. Nevertheless, learning preferences exist, possibly
contributing to motivation (cf. Schenck & Cruickshank, 2015, pp.78). Kolb
himself does not claim that his instrument can measure an “individual’s scores
with complete accuracy” but that the concept of learning style is rather “used to
describe individual differences in the way people learn” (Experience Based
Learning Systems, Inc., n.d.). Consequently, it is legitimate to make use of LSI
related data. Not only has it been used widely in many occupational and
professional settings (cf. ibid.). It is also more critical to put the interviewees in
relationship to each other in this thesis (cf. Cooper et al., 2014, p. 99).
5.2.2 Testing the Learning Style: A Self-made Tool

by Anne Koslowski
Neither easily applicable dimensions could be found nor do the authors want
the interviewees to take the LSI test because it’s not free of charge (35US$,
http://www.haygroup.com). Moreover, it would take up 15-20 minutes of the
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interview time. Since the authors plan to spend only one to one and a half hour
per interview and have no budget available, they will collect the data themselves
instead. It will be done by framing “I”-sentences from the main features named
in the four following descriptions of the learning styles (underlined, cf.
Experiential Education Office of University of Toronto Mississauga, n.d.). For
example, instead of “these people are able to look at things from different
perspectives” the authors will reframe the sentence into “I am able to look at
things from different perspectives.” The authors will print the list of sentences
and cut them out, so they can present them in a random order to the
interviewees. If an interview does not take place face to face but online, then the
interviewees will be asked to highlight those phrases. They will be asked to select
any phrase that they resonate with, meaning what they identify with and feel
being good at. The tool has been tested on three people of the authors’ friends.
Results were discussed and compared with one of the test takers who is a
researcher herself.
• Diverging (feeling and watching - CE/RO) – These people are able

to look at things from different perspectives. They are sensitive. They
prefer to watch rather than do, tending to gather information and use
imagination to solve problems. They are best at viewing concrete
situations several different viewpoints. Kolb called this style 'Diverging'
because these people perform better in situations that require ideas-
generation, for example, brainstorming. People with a Diverging
learning style have broad cultural interests and like to gather
information. They are interested in people, tend to be imaginative and
emotional, and tend to be strong in the arts. People with the Diverging
style prefer to work in groups, to listen with an open mind and to receive
personal feedback.
• Assimilating (watching and thinking - AC/RO) – The

Assimilating learning preference is for a concise, logical approach. Ideas
and concepts are more important than people. These people require
good clear explanation rather than practical opportunity. They excel at
understanding wide-ranging information and organising it a clear
logical format. People with an Assimilating learning style are less
focused on people and more interested in ideas and abstract concepts.
People with this style are more attracted to logically sound theories than
approaches based on practical value. This learning style is important for
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effectiveness in information and science careers. In formal learning
situations, people with this style prefer readings, lectures, exploring
analytical models, and having time to think things through.
• Converging (doing and thinking - AC/AE) – People with a

Converging learning style can solve problems and will use their learning
to find solutions to practical issues. They prefer technical tasks, and are
less concerned with people and interpersonal aspects. People with a
Converging learning style are best at finding practical uses for ideas and
theories. They can solve problems and make decisions by finding
solutions to questions and problems. People with a Converging learning
style are more attracted to technical tasks and problems than social or
interpersonal issues. A Converging learning style enables specialist and
technology abilities. People with a Converging style like to experiment
with new ideas, to simulate, and to work with practical applications.
• Accommodating (doing and feeling - CE/AE) – The

Accommodating learning style is 'hands-on', and relies on intuition
rather than logic. These people use other people's analysis, and prefer to
take a practical, experiential approach. They are attracted to new
challenges and experiences, and to carrying out plans. They commonly
act on 'gut' instinct rather than logical analysis. People with an
Accommodating learning style will tend to rely on others for information
than carry out their own analysis. This learning style is prevalent and
useful in roles requiring action and initiative. People with an
Accommodating learning style prefer to work in teams to complete
tasks. They set targets and actively work in the field trying different ways
to achieve an objective.
It is possible that people display a learning style that is balanced across all four
learning modes. “People with balanced profiles tend to demonstrate more
flexibility in adapting toward different learning styles. However, in occupations
that call for a specialized expertise, a balanced learning style may not be always
the best” (Experience Based Learning Systems, Inc., n.d.). Among MBA,
engineering and product management students the balanced learning style was
found only at 15 percent of the people in average (cf. Beckman, 2014, p. 71).
Freshman entering the design, engineering, and commerce integrated design
class at Philadelphia University on the contrary had 46 percent of balanced
learners (cf. ibid.). The study program promotes “transdisciplinary, project-
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based learning and collaborative problem solving” (Thomas Jefferson
University, n.d.). Also, young children show an even balance of all learning
styles before they move toward more abstract thinking as they grow older (cf.
Beckman, 2014, p. 71). The tool can be seen in appendix 13 and 14.
5.3 Measuring Organisational Culture: Hofstede’s Cultural

Dimensions by Anne Koslowski
There are several ways to measure organizational culture enabling comparison

between them. For example, Kilman and Saxton (1983) classified organizational
culture along the dimensions of technical/human concern and short-/long-term
orientation while Cooke and Rousseau (1988) classified it along the dimensions
of task/security, satisfaction culture and people/security. Hofstede et al. (1990)
reported the following six dimensions of organizational culture: process-
/results-oriented, employee-/job-oriented, parochial/professional,
open/closed system, loose/tight control and normative/pragmatic (Koh,
Johnson & Killough, 2009, p. 319). The Organizational Culture Inventory by
Cooke and Lafferty (https://www.humansynergistics.com) and Hofstede’s
Multi-Focus Model (https://geert-hofstede.com) are certainly the most
popular. Since the latter gave us easier access to its tool the authors will make
use of it. Hofstede, Hofstede & Minkov (2010, pp. 364) mention that within the
same organization subcultures can exist. This will not consider this in the
interview questions. Neither does it seem feasible to explain Hofstede’s model
and its dimensions to the interviewees in detail nor do the authors can afford to
let them take the official online-test. Instead the dimensions will be
operationalized by reframing them as questions.
1. Means-oriented vs. Goal-oriented (process-oriented vs.

result-oriented)
The means-oriented versus goal-oriented dimension is, among the six

dimensions, most closely connected with the effectiveness of the organisation.
In a means oriented culture the key feature is the way in which work must be
carried out; people identify with the “how” (cf. Hofstede Insights, n.d.). In a
goal-oriented culture, employees are primarily out to achieve specific internal
goals or results, even if these involve substantial risks; people identify with the
“what”. In a very means-oriented culture people perceive themselves as
avoiding risks and making only a limited effort in their jobs, while each workday
89
is pretty much the same. In a very goal-oriented culture, the employees are
primarily out to achieve specific internal goals or results, even if these involve
substantial risks (ibid).
This dimension can also be called process-oriented versus results-oriented

(cf. Hofstede, Hofstede & Minkov, 2010, p. 354). In process-oriented
cultures, people perceive themselves as avoiding risks and spending only a
limited effort in their jobs, while each day resembles the other. People in a
result-oriented culture on the contrary, perceive themselves as comfortable
with unfamiliar situations and as putting in a maximal effort, each day
bringing new challenges (ibid.).
Question: In your unit do you focus more on the how or on the what
when you carry out work? Like is it more important to achieve a result
even if that means taking some risks? Or is it more important how you
do things focussing on the process, and rather avoiding risks?
Question 2: Do your working days feel very much the same to you or
do they bring new challenges? And how do you feel about it? Do you feel
comfortable in unfamiliar situations or do you feel better in a routine-
based environment?
2. Internally driven vs. Externally driven (pragmatic vs.

normative)
This dimension concerns the popular notion of customer orientation (cf.

Hofstede, Hofstede & Minkov, 2010, p. 358). In a very internally driven culture,
employees perceive their task towards the outside world as totally given, based
on the idea that business ethics and honesty matter most and that they know
best what is good for the customer and the world at large (cf. Hofstede Insights,
n.d.). In these normative units/companies the emphasis is on correctly
following organizational procedures, which are more important than results (cf.
Hofstede, Hofstede & Minkov, 2010, p. 358). In a very externally driven culture
on the contrary, the only emphasis is on meeting the customer’s requirements;
results are most important, and a pragmatic rather than an ethical or dogmatic
attitude prevails.
This dimension is distinguishable from means-versus goal-orientation because,

in this case, it is not impersonal results that are at stake, but the satisfaction of
the customer, client or commissioning party.
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Question: What is more respected in your department: ethics, honesty,
and correctly following procedures or results and customer’s
requirements?
3. Easy-going work discipline vs. Strict work discipline
This dimension refers to the amount of internal structuring, control and

discipline (cf. Hofstede Insights, n.d.). A very easy-going culture reveals loose
internal structure, a lack of predictability, and little control and discipline; there
is a lot of improvisation and surprises. A very strict work discipline reveals the
reverse. People in tight control describe their work environment as cost-
conscious, serious, and punctual. Jokes about the company are rare. There also
seem to prevail unwritten codes regarding clothing and dignified behaviour (cf.
Hofstede, Hofstede & Minkov, 2010, p. 357).
Question: Would you say your work environment is rather serious and
disciplined or little controlled and easy-going? Can you illustrate this
with the help of some examples, please?
4. Local vs. Professional
In a local company, employees identify with the boss and/or the unit in which
one works. In a professional organisation, the identity of an employee is
determined by his profession and/or the content of the job. In a very local or
parochial culture, employees are very short-term directed, they are internally
focused and there is strong social control to be like everybody else. In a very
professional culture it is the reverse (cf. Hofstede Insights, n.d.). Members of
parochial cultures feel that the organisation’s norms cover their behaviour at
home as well as on the job (cf. Hofstede, Hofstede & Minkov, 2010, pp. 356).
They feel that feel that in hiring employees, the company takes their social and
family background into account as much as their professional abilities. They do
not look far into the future, probably assuming their organization is doing this
for them. Parochial units tend to have employees with less formal education.
Members of professional cultures consider their private lives their own, and
they think far ahead (cf. ibid., p. 357).
Question: When recruited did your personal life play a role in the
interview or only your job competences? Do you rather identify with
your boss or would you say you are more determined by your profession
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or content of your job? Do you feel a strong or some social control to be
like everybody else around you?
5. Open system vs. Closed system
This dimension relates to the accessibility of an organisation and describes the

communication climate. It’s the only of the six “practices” dimensions related to
national culture, including Denmark showing a more open organizational
communication climate than the Netherlands (cf. Hofstede, Hofstede & Minkov,
2010, p. 357). In a very open culture newcomer are made immediately welcome,
one is open both to insiders and outsiders, and it is believed that almost anyone
would fit in the organisation (cf. Hofstede Insights, n.d.). In a very closed
organisation on the contrary, people are perceived as closed and secretive, even
among insiders (cf. ibid.). Only very special people fit into the organisation, and
new employees need more than a year to feel at home.
Question: How much time did you need to feel at home in your
company? A few days or did it take a long time, maybe a year or more?
How would you describe the communication climate in your company?
As rather secretive or rather open?
6. Employee-oriented vs. Work-oriented (or Job-oriented)
This aspect of the culture is most related to the management philosophy per se.
In very employee-oriented organisations, members of staff feel that personal
problems are considered, and that the organisation takes responsibility for the
welfare of its employees and their families, even if this is at the expense of the
work (cf. Hofstede Insights, n.d.). Important decisions are made by groups or
committees (cf. Hofstede et al. 2014, p 356). In very job-oriented organisations
in contrast, there is heavy pressure to perform the task even if this is at the
expense of employees. Important decisions are made by individuals (ibid.).
Question: How do you perceive your unit/company: Does it take

responsibility for your and your family’s welfare or is it only interested
in the work you do? Are important decisions made by individuals or
collectively?
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7. Degree of acceptance of leadership style
This dimension tells us to which degree the leadership style of respondents’

direct boss is being in line with respondents’ preferences. The fact that people,
depending on the project they are working for, may have different bosses does
not play a role at the level of culture. Culture measures central tendencies (cf.
Hofstede Insights, n.d.).
Question: To which degree are you in line with you direct boss’s
preferences? Is there some conflict between her/his expectations
towards you and the way you act in the project?
8. Degree of identification with your organisation
This dimension shows to which degree respondents identify with the

organisation in its totality. People can simultaneously identify with different
aspects of a company. Thus, it is possible that employees identify at the same
time strongly with the internal goals of the company, with the client, with one’s
own group and/or with one’s direct boss and with the whole organisation. It is
also possible that employees do not feel strongly connected with any of these
aspects (cf. Hofstede Insights, n.d.).
Question: To which degree do you identify with your organisation? Do

you identify with different aspects more than with others, including
internal goals, the client, your own group, your boss, the whole
organisation?
5.3.1 Other Models to Differentiate Organisational Culture

by Anne Koslowski
More roughly organisational cultures can also be differentiated in respect to

their management logics. As seen in the pre-study and found in literature “there
are huge differences between the institutional logics of public bureaucracy and
the dynamics driving collaborative innovation processes” (Agger & Sørensen,
2016, p. 6). Therefore, “frontline planners are likely to encounter tensions that
origin from conflicting institutional logics” (ibid., p. 7). As Agger and Sørensen
(2016, pp. 7) point out, these tensions may result from the strict focus on
procedure in public bureaucracies (means orientation at Hofstede) and the
situated processing and strong attention to what is achieved in terms of new
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things that work in collaborative innovation. Another conflict may occur
between the bureaucratic prioritization of order, control and stability over the
pursuit of creativity, experimentation and change in innovation processes. Also,
collaborative innovation arenas distribute authority horizontally which differs
from the hierarchical structures in public institutions, and are
interorganizational in perspective other than public administrations which are
intra-organizational (ibid., p. 7).
Competing
management logics Public bureaucracies Collaborative innovation
Authority Hierarchical Horizontal
Focus Procedure Output and outcome
Creativity, change,
Priority Order, control, stability
experimentation
Perspective Intra-organizational Inter-organizational
Table 4: Tensions between the logic of public bureaucracies and collaborative innovation
Source: Adapted by Agger and Sørensen (2016, p. 8)
5.4 Measuring occupational culture by Anne Koslowski
Unlike the organizational culture dimension there is no elaborate instrument to

measure occupational culture (cf. Hofstede, Hofstede & Minkov, 2010, p. 369).
“From the five cross-national dimensions, only power distance and masculinity-
femininity were applicable to occupational differences (…)” (ibid.).
• Power distance – the extent to which the less powerful members of

institutions and organisations with a country expect and accept that
power is distributed unequally (cf. ibid, p. 521)
• Masculinity-Femininity – Masculinity stands for a society in which
emotional gender roles are clearly distinct: men are supposed to be
assertive, tough, and focused on material success; women are supposed
to be more modest, tender, and concerned with the quality of life (cf.,
ibid., p. 519)
Yet, Hofstede, Hofstede and Minkov (2010, p. 369) propose six dimensions
based on “a review of literature and some guesswork:
94
• Handling people versus handling things (for example, nurse versus
engineer)
• Specialist versus amateur (for example, psychologist versus politician)
• Disciplined versus independent (for example, police officer versus
shopkeeper)
• Structured versus unstructured (for example, professor versus sales
manager)
• Normative versus pragmatic (for example, judge versus advertising
agent)
Unfortunately, these dimensions do not get explained any further. However, the
authors can build on the research of Jacks (2012). He developed a survey to
measure the occupational culture of IT professionals, and looked for differences
in responses between IT professionals and non-IT business managers (cf. Jacks,
2012, p. 37). The survey instrument was informed by 25 semi-structured
qualitative interviews with IT professionals (cf. ibid. 72). They examined the
areas of shared values, shared language, shared history, and shared context (cf.
ibid., p. 65) which resulted in a set of value dimensions for IT professionals.
These dimensions include (Jacks, 2012, pp. 102):
• Autonomy – the level to which members of an occupation believe that

they should be empowered with access to tools, access to data, and
decision-making for the organization.
• Structure – the level to which members of an occupation believe that
orderliness and definition are needed in the work
• Precision in communication – the level to which members of an
occupation believe that communication about work tasks must be
detailed, accurate, and exact.
• Innovation – the level to which members of an occupation believe that
technological improvement, novelty, and creativity are valued
• Reverence for knowledge – the level to which members of an
occupation believe that intelligence and increasing technical knowledge
(learning?) determine respect and admiration
• Enjoyment – the level to which members of an occupation believe that
their job should include play, fun, and socializing.
Since these dimensions stem exclusively from IT professionals they are very IT
specific. Instead of operationalizing the above-mentioned dimensions into
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interview questions, the authors will borrow from Jacks’ (2012, p. 269) revised
list of questions and reframe his questions for the purposes of this thesis:
1. Tell me about your background in XX. How did you start and where are
you now?
2. Tell me about your job responsibilities today. What is a typical day
like?
3. What do you like about working in XX? What do you not like about
working in XX?
4. What were relationships like with other groups outside XX? What
groups do you like?
5. Name five adjectives that describe XX people.
6. What do you think is important to XX people? What do they like and
dislike at work?
7. Do you have a strong sense of who is and who is not an XX person?
How can you tell?
Some of these questions resembled the proposed questions from Cooper et al.
(2014) so the authors merged them. For example, Cooper et al. suggested the
attitude-oriented question “What do you enjoy most about your job? What do
you always tackle first?” which was similar to the question: “What do you like
about working in XX?”. Finally, the authors decided to ask the first question.
Additionally, a question about how many hours per week the stakeholder wants
to invest in the project as time commitment is one of the biggest concerns of
stakeholders (cf. Miller, 2013, p. 13). The final guideline for the interview(s) can
be seen in Appendix 8+9.
5.5 Interview Technique, Data Management and Analysis

by Anne Koslowski
As a first step of our contextual inquiry (or Skype phone calls) the authors will
test the hypotheses about of the learning style with the help of their self-
developed learning style test (Appendix 13 and 14). It will be given (or sent) to
the interviewee in advance. Then the questions derived from theory will be
asked with the help of a guided interview. A guideline reflects the theoretical
groundwork and is necessary to insure comparability between the stakeholders.
Also, it enables the authors to conduct the interviews independently if
necessary. Even though the important questions deduced from theory will
96
frame the guideline of the interviews, it will be ensured that the guideline
provides “enough openness for participant comfort and enough focus for the
structure to work” (Granot & Greene, 2014, p. 78). Therefore, the authors rely
on semi-structured guided interviews (cf. Brandes, Erlhoff & Schemmann,
2009, p. 132).
Data management and analysis: The authors will record the interviews with the
help of a voice recorder, both in a face-to-face situation and on Skype. In case
of a contextual inquiry, they also take photos if the interviewee agrees. The voice
records will then be transcribed literally word-for-by word, non-selectively, so
they stay comparable no matter which authors transcribes them. Nonverbal
elements such as laughing will only be included in brackets if they add meaning
to the content, and spoken language will be aligned with written language where
appropriate. Furthermore, participants are made anonymous. For transcription
the browser based application Transcribe (https://transcribe.wreally.com) is
used.
When it comes to the evaluation analysis of the interviews there will be no

systematic, rule guided qualitative text analysis based on an elaborated system
of categories as proposed by Philipp Mayring (2015). Instead the authors use
thematic analysis based on prior knowledge which was built through her
theoretical groundwork for the interview guideline. This is feasible since the
interview answers already contain rough categories, and are pre-structured
based on the interview guideline (cf. Seeger, 2014, p.121).
97
CHAPTER 6
6. Persona Hypothesis and Persona-like
Stakeholder profiles by Anne Koslowski
In this chapter, the authors will develop the persona hypotheses according to
Cooper et al. (2014). They are based on the person’s LinkedIn profile and
supported by literature about learning styles. Then the persona-like stakeholder
profiles will be developed based on the data from the interviews and verified
data from the hypotheses. Finally, the paper prototypes of the profiles will be
presented.
User 135
Persona hypothesis: User 1 has an educational specialization in political

sciences according to his LinkedIn profile. Undergraduate students of political
sciences correspond with the diverging learning style (cf. Kolb, 2015, p. 123). As
he is currently working as a service designer this assumption can be supported
because divergent learners tend to be strong in the arts. Additionally, user 1
could prefer the accommodative learning style because he’s also worked as a
marketing professional. Because of their practical sales orientation in meeting
customer demand, they should have accommodative learning styles (Kolb,
2015, p. 128). According to one of his references on LinkedIn he is goal-oriented
which supports the hypothesis that he has a bias towards the accommodative
learning style (cf. Beckman, 2014, p. 75). Furthermore, he finds solutions “no
matter how complex the problem”. Consequently, he is also good in applying
ideas practically, decision-making, and problem solving. Those are features of
the convergent learner (ibid.). Summarizing, user 1 can adapt to the
requirements of many different situations and probably has a balanced learning
style.
As a divergent learner his strength is the observation phase of the design process
where he likes learning in detail about the lives of the customer and about the
industry ecosystem in which the company competes (cf. Beckman, 2014, p. 68).
This phase requires empathy and curiosity, both traits of a service designer. He
35
The authors call the stakeholders user 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 according to the sequence of the
interviews and/or development of the hypotheses. For instance, user 1 was the first
interviewee in this research. He is the facilitator of the Green Deal project and therefore
had to be interviewed at first in order to inform the authors about the design process
and the other stakeholders.
98
performs better in situations where alternative ideas and implications are
needed, such as a brainstorming session (ibid.). Furthermore, user 1 is
interested in people (both traits of the divergent and accommodative learner)
and tends to be imaginative and feeling-oriented (cf. Kolb, 2015, p. 115).
Concerning his personality, user 1 is oriented towards the inner world of ideas
and feelings (introvert), emphasizing on human values, and establishing
personal friendships (ibid., p. 121). Also, he is open-minded, understanding,
flexible and adaptive, unless one of his inner loyalties is threatened, he will not
give an inch. “The contacts he prizes are with people who understand his values
and the goals he is working toward. (…) He wants to have purpose beyond his
paycheck, no matter how big the check. He is a perfectionist wherever his feeling
is engaged, and is usually happiest at some individual work involving personal
values. (…)” (Meyers, 1962, p. A4 as cited in Kolb, 2015, pp. 121).
Since user 1 also prefers the accommodative learning style he feels comfortable
in the solutions phase (cf. Beckman, 2014, p. 68). There he can make abstract
ideas concrete, he is willing to take unfinished ideas out and share them, and
has the capacity to gather feedback (cf. ibid., p. 70). His strength lies in doing
things, in carrying out plans and tasks and getting involved in new experiences
(cf. Kolb, 2015, p. 115). He emphasises on opportunity seeking, risk taking, and
action. He is best suited for those situations where one must adapt oneself to
changing immediate circumstances. Moreover, user 1 tends to solve problems
in an intuitive trial-and-error manner. He is at ease with people but is
sometimes seen as impatient and pushy (cf. ibid.). Other than an assimilative
learner, who disregards or re-examines the facts if they do not fit a plan or
theory user 1 is more likely to discard this plan or theory. This is where conflict
might happen (cf. Beckman, 2014, p. 70). As an accommodative learner, he is
an adaptable realist, who good-naturedly accepts and uses the fact around him
instead of fighting them. He knows what they are, since he notices and
remembers more than any other type. He knows what goes on, who wants what,
who doesn’t, and usually why (cf. Kolb, 2015, p. 121). Often, he can get other
people to adapt, too. Moreover, he looks for a satisfying solution, instead of
forcing others into them, and people generally like him well enough to consider
any compromise that he thinks ‘might work’. He is unprejudiced, open-minded,
and usually patient, easy-going and tolerant of everyone (including himself). He
enjoys life. As he doesn’t get wrought up, he may be very good at easing a tense
situation and pulling factions together (cf. Myers, 1962, p. A5 as cited in ibid.).
99
Hypothesis testing: For the interview, the authors went to meet user 1 in his
working context at his company the Netherlands. The authors had three hours
to conduct both the interview about him as a stakeholder and the process and
the other stakeholders. They start with the goal-directed questions and
questions regarding occupational and organizational culture. It was the more
important one aiming at typifying him as one of the stakeholders. At first, he
was asked to verify (or falsify) his persona hypothesis by taking the learning
style test. He chose 25 and dismissed 18 that he didn’t identify with. Two of the
dismissed ones he sorted out because the wording was not clear to him36,
including “effectiveness in information is important to me” and “I prefer
personal feedback”. Yet, his choice confirmed the hypothesis that he has not one
prevailing learning style but at least two: the diverging learning style (nine
chosen phrases) and the accommodative (seven chosen phrases). He also chose
six paper shavings from the converging and three from the assimilating learning
style descriptions. From the interview the following demographic data about
user 1 was learned:
Figure 18: Contextual inquiry with the project facilitator (right) at his office in the Netherlands.
36
For the next interviews, the authors tried to improve the framing of the two unclear
phrases, and reframed them into “I like receiving personal feedback” and “I am good at
making information effective”.
100
• 66 years old, enjoys sailing in his leisure time
• professional specialisation: service design for the last 6-7 years, before
many years in marketing running his own business, but "I am not in
marketing anymore”
• educational specialisation: university degree (Diplom) in political
sciences
• current job title: Partner at a consultancy firm for service innovation at
A., Netherlands
• company size: 8 people, no departments
• industry/sector: creative industry
Profile: User 1 displays a strong preference of the accommodative style. That

showed for instance when he mentioned the word progress so often that it struck
him: “That's funny: I used the word progress a lot of times during the interview.”
This indicates his goal-orientation, the accommodators tendency towards
accomplishment (“bring something to a good end”). Results are extremely
important for him (“Getting somewhere is important”) even if this involves
taking risks (“risk is part of the deal”). This proves on one hand his preference
for the accommodative learning style (cf. Kolb, 2015, p. 105). On the other hand,
this trait seems to reflect in the goal-/result-oriented organisational culture of
his company which involves risk-taking. Of course, as a business owner who has
always been working self-employed he must be risk-taking and opportunity
seeking, a clear characteristic of the accommodative learning style.
What frustrates him is writing reports, and documentation. That’s why he likes
to work with researchers and business consultants because they complement his
work: “They are very good at structuring information, I am not very structured.”
In contrast he dislikes working with controllers who are often convergent
learners and highly abstract, accordingly (cf. ibid, p. 272). He admits that their
quantitative approach to things makes him feel uncomfortable: “I don't like that
way of thinking in figures, putting everything into figures, in numbers. I am not
very good at it, so it makes me insecure. Am I missing something?” This shows
that he has an intuitive, nonquantitative approach. Sceptical people irritate him.
He likes to be optimistic, not afraid of the new, unexpected. He is good at
handling unstructured situations.
His aversion against abstraction and his concern with the uniqueness and
complexity of present reality (cf. ibid., p. 105) that is typical for the divergent
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learning style becomes evident when he says: “I like sitting at home and talking
to people. And then you come back and then you have to abstract the results
into a model and it gets to a scientific circle. And you always get this horrible
feeling that's not reality. I mean a map is not the territory.” So, he is well suited
in the observation phase where he can immerse in the world of the user.
User 2
Persona hypothesis: According to his LinkedIn profile User 2 did a

foundation course (“propedeuse”) in Chemistry (1975 – 1977) and then
continued studying architecture and urban planning (1976 – 1983). Hence, the
authors assume that his professional socialisation has mainly taken place in the
academic fields of architecture and urban planning. According to David A. Kolb
architecture is “multidisciplinary, encompassing specialties that emphasize
different learning styles” (2015, p. 177), including requirements for artistic and
engineering excellence. As mentioned before, diverging learners often major in
the arts, converging learners often major in engineering. The greatest strength
of the convergent learner lies in problem solving, decision-making, and the
practical application of ideas (cf. Kolb 2015, p. 114). Yet, there “are significant
pedagogical differences between the ways that architects and engineers (…) are
educated – with one focusing on open-ended problem finding and the other
emphasizing single-solution problem solving. This has significant repercussions
for collaborative work” (Brause, 2017, p. 195) as mentioned before. The
divergent learner has the opposite strength which lies in an “imaginative ability
and awareness of meaning and values” (Kolb 2015, p. 115).
Additionally, user 2 has been the owner of a software developer and a

multidisciplinary design agency for the built environment since 1991. As a
business owner, his current job role also shapes his adaptive orientation (cf.
Kolb, 2015, p. 127). “Executive jobs, such as general management, that require
a strong orientation to task accomplishment and decision-making in uncertain
emergent circumstances require an accommodative learning style” (Kolb, 2015,
pp. 127). Hence, the authors expect user 2 to have a balanced learning style with
a strong bias towards the accommodative learning style similar to user 1.
Hypothesis testing: User 2 had to do the learning style test himself by

highlighting the main features of the four learning styles in the list (Appendix
13). Since the authors were not able to travel to the Netherlands this time the
test was sent to him before the Skype interview took place. He sent it back
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having highlighted 19 out of 44 features. User 2 chose the most features (seven)
from the divergent learning style description, including “I tend to be strong in
the arts”. The second most features he chose were features of the
accommodative learning style description (five). Furthermore, he chose four
from the assimilating and three from the converging learning style description.
If the test is valid, user 2 has a rather balanced learning style with an emphasis
on the divergent and accommodative learning style like user 1.
From the interview the following demographic data was drawn:
• 60 years old
• area of specialisation: IT development: “I was trained and worked for
five years as an architect, but now I’m specialized in IT development (by
self-studying/learning-on-the-job/learning-by-doing)” I’m trained as
an architect, but I didn’t design a building in the last 30 years. So, I’m
really a developer.”
• educational specialisation: university degree (Diplom) in architecture
and urban planning
• current job title: owner + financial director + CFO + in charge of special
development projects of his architectural office at E., Netherlands
• company size: architectural office with 25 people + IT office (developing
their own software tool for building industry with > 100 people
• sector: IT
Profile: User 2 has a very balanced learning style. On one hand the learning
style test resulted in a preference for the divergent and accommodative learning
styles. On the other hand, he sees himself as an IT developer and a software
architect and has never worked as an architect after his graduation. Computer
Scientists are mostly convergent and assimilating learners (Galpin et al., 2007).
Yet, the authors could not find evidence for the convergent and assimilative
learning styles.
However, for his bias towards the divergent and the accommodative learning
style evidence was found in the interview data. For instance, when he talks about
what he does most at work he mentions helping others think out of their box,
and finding new perspectives on a problem by brainstorming with his
employees. He acts like a coach to them. This behaviour is that of divergent
learners: They are good at relating to others, looking at things from different
perspectives and appreciate different points of view.
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Another argument for his preference for the divergent learning style is that he
mentioned that he likes brainstorming. It frustrates him when brainstorming
groups are too big. Also, sceptical people irritate him. Another thing that he
dislikes are management tasks such as financial, organisational and human
resources related errands. Even though professionals with these responsibilities
such as bankers, accountants and bookkeepers are accommodative learners (cf.
Kolb, 2015, p. 184) too for user 2 organisation seems to be a part of the
accommodative learning style that he truly dislikes.
Instead, he wants to deal with people. When it comes to selling and promoting
his product to (potential) business partners he is very engaged. Other than
organisational tasks that are often impersonal he appreciates personal contacts.
It fulfils his need to be involved in experiences and dealing with an immediate
human situation in a personal way (characteristic of the divergent learning
style). He likes that so much that most of the week he is out of office trying to
sell and demonstrate his software. Going out and selling also matches with the
accommodator’s orientation towards opportunity seeking, risk taking, and
action. Accommodators are good with dealing with people (cf. Beckman, 2014,
p. 75). The rest of his week “is not really organized” which shows that he doesn’t
put much value on management tasks and that he functions well in unstructured
situations. He has an artistic, intuitive approach to things. This might bear
conflict when cooperating with stakeholders that need much structure, such as
user 3.
Yet, as an accommodative and divergent learner he is good at accomplishing

things (such as an own business) and has great faithfulness to duty and
obligations. That makes him become personally involved in a project such as the
Green Deal. Here, it is very clear to see that his main goal is to improve his
software and increase the number of users as well as clients. As a divergent
learner he prizes contacts with people who understand his values and goals he
is working toward which he found in user 1. They are working together again in
a follow up project. Other stakeholders especially from the municipality didn’t
“want to do anything for you” and that made it hard for him to cooperate and
make progress.
User 3
Persona hypothesis: The area of educational specialization of user 3 is not as

clear as in the other cases because there is no academic field such as
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environmental sciences mentioned in the available literature. Therefore, the
authors looked at the study programme as described on the website of
Wageningen University where user 3 studied and graduated.37 With his choice
of studies user 3 comes closest to the academic field of ecology (cf, Wageningen
University & Research, n.d.) which is mentioned at Kolb (2015). There, ecology
academics predominantly display the convergent learning style with proximity
to the assimilative learning style. Since he has been a policy consultant for 27
years the authors assume that he also has a bias towards the divergent learning
style. Policy advisory demands a divergent learning style because it is a personal
job. “Personal jobs, such as counselling or personnel administrator, that require
the establishment of personal and effective communication with other people
demand a divergent learning style” (Kolb, 2015, p. 128). Summarizing, the
authors act on the assumption of a balanced learning style with a bias towards
the convergent and divergent learning style.
Hypothesis testing: With the help of the test the authors found out that user
3 has a balanced learning style. He highlighted 28 statements out of 45, picking
the most from the diverging learning style description (10), second-most from
the convergent category (7), six from the accommodating and five from the
assimilating learning style. Apparently, he balances the diverging and the
converging learning style like people with an architecture background who must
meet requirements for artistic and engineering excellence at the same time
(Kolb, 2015, p. 181). Hence, the hypothesis was largely confirmed. Regarding his
preference for the divergent learning style the authors refer to the description
of user 1 and 2.
37
Since the Bachelor of Environmental Sciences will only be offered from the end of
2018 on the author relied on the information about the Master programme. Apparently,
the Master of Environmental Sciences is a multidisciplinary programme which would
argue for a balanced learning style: “The Master Environmental Sciences invites you to
develop innovative, sustainable solutions to environmental threats. The programme
allows you to specialise through a choice of ten different majors in order to work on a
better environment from a natural sciences’, technological or social sciences’
perspective. Many combinations belong to the possibilities within this study
programme. For instance, offer solutions to pollution through the use of smart
technologies, or apply economic instruments to influence the behaviour of people”
(Wageningen University & Research, n.d.). Students of the Environmental Sciences will
specialize in either the natural or social sciences, at the latest when they chose one of
the following thesis tracks, including environmental quality (aquatic ecology and water
quality management, soil biology and biological soil quality, soil chemistry and chemical
soil quality, air quality and atmospheric chemistry, environmental toxicology),
environmental systems analysis, environmental policy and economics (environmental
policy, environmental economics, water systems and global change), and environmental
technology (cf. ibid.).
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The convergent learner relies primarily on the dominant learning abilities of
abstract conceptualization and active experimentation. His greatest strength
lies in problem solving, decision-making, and the practical application of ideas
(cf. Kolb, 2015, p. 114, Beckman, 2014, p. 179). They organize knowledge
through hypothetical-deductive reasoning, so they can be focused on specific
problems (ibid., p. 115). People with this learning preference are controlled in
their expression of emotion. Furthermore, they prefer dealing with technical
tasks and problems rather than social and interpersonal issues. This doesn’t
seem to hold true for user 3 who did not choose any statement with this
reference. Instead, he chose statements such as “I am interested in people”
which belongs to the divergent category. The convergent learning style is
associated by the extraverted thinking type who has great respect for impersonal
truth, thought-out plans, and orderly efficiency (cf. Myers, 1962, p. A1 as cited
in Kolb, 2015, p. 122).
Moreover, user 3 said in the interview that he worked for 20 years in solar
research and re-education. Teachers and researcher mostly have an assimilative
learning style (cf. Kolb, 2015, p. 184, p. 128). In assimilation, the dominant
learning abilities are abstract conceptualization and reflective observation
(ibid., p. 115). Assimilators greatest strength lies in inductive reasoning and the
skill to create theoretical models, in assimilating different observations into an
integrated explanation (ibid.). Like the convergent learners, assimilators focus
less on people and more on ideas and abstract concepts. Ideas, however, are
judged less in this orientation by their practical value. Here, it is more important
that the theory be logically sound and precise (ibid.). According to Kolb (2015,
p. 122) the assimilative learning style is characterized by the introverted
intuitive type of Myer. The latter suggests a slightly more practical orientation
than Kolb, though (ibid.).
His demographics as learned from the interview are as followed:
• 55 years old
• Educational specialisation: master’s degree in environmental sciences
• current job title: policy adviser/consultant for sustainable energy at the
city of E. in the field of environment
• company size: about 2000 people, size of his department: about 35
people,
• industry/sector: local government
106
Profile: User 3 is a very balanced learner. Of all four learning styles indications
could be found in the interview. Yet, prevailing is his preference for the
converging learning style. He emphasized many times his focus on analysis in
his work and that he wants to tackle the climate change problem in an analytical
way. So, one of his end goals is analysis which points to the hypothetical-
deductive reasoning and logical thinking of a convergent learner: He is analytic,
impersonal, objectively critical, and not likely to be convinced by anything but
reasoning (Myers, 1962, p. A1 as cited in Kolb, 2015, p. 122).
He also stressed that structure is important for him, and that he wants to know
about the goal and the process of the meeting/workshop in advance. This
behaviour resembles to what Myers (ibid.) states about the extraverted thinking
type: He organizes facts, situations, and operations well in advance, and makes
systematic effort to reach his carefully planned objectives on schedule. This
shows his need for a systematic procedure and could cause conflict with
divergent team members who exhibit an artistic, intuitive approach to problems
or with accommodative learners who display an intuitive nonquantitative trial
and error approach, especially user 1 and 2. He might consider them as
“unpredictable” which frustrates him because he believes everybody’s conduct
should be governed by logic, and governs his own that way so far as he can (cf.
ibid.).
Yet, he also displays traits of a divergent learner when he says that as a “policy
advisor what I’m doing all day is talking”. Hence, he needs to build personal
relationships with people and be able to be sensitive to their feelings and values
(cf. Kolb, 2015, p. 128). Furthermore, he said that he needs to be intrinsically
motived and that he likes the socio-political relevance of the subject he works
with (climate change, sustainable energy). This indicates that he looks for a
purpose in work which attributes divergent learners. Also, the fact that he
acknowledges that progress in team building should be considered an important
goal in projects apart from working on the content, specifies his orientation
towards the divergent learning style. On the other hand, he put this into
perspective when he said that “social things” including talking are not always
goal-oriented (which he prefers to be).
Furthermore, he showed traits of an accommodative learner amongst others at

the point where he comments on the outcome of the project: “We could have
made more progress than we actually reached. But what we were able to reach
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was also good.” This statement could be interpreted as an accommodative
learner who is an adaptable realist who doesn’t fight the facts.
Assimilative traits could be found where he said that he seldom thinks of his
boss which can be interpreted as trusting in his own intuitive insight regardless
of an established authority (cf. Myers, 1962, p. A8 as cited in Kolb, 2015, p. 122).
Another indicator for the assimilative learning style could be the fact that he
writes a lot which means he is good at organizing information.
He sees his role in the design process is analysing (convergent), defining

problems (assimilating) and finding solutions (converging). Even though he
says that he doesn’t necessarily want to be involved in creative sessions/idea
generation and characterizes himself as “not the most creative person” it doesn’t
mean he should be excluded from those sessions.
Summarising, the authors defines user 3 as a balanced learner with an

orientation towards the convergent and the assimilative learning style as
predicted based on his educational specialization.
User 4
User 4 states on LinkedIn that he has been working as a project manager for
almost ten years at the regional non-governmental development agency B. D. in
E. as well as having studied at the Hogeschool van Amsterdam. The area of
educational specialization he doesn’t mention but he names knowledge in
change management, project management, management consulting and
information and communications technology (ICT). Looking at the course offer
of the Hogeschool van Amsterdam the authors can find the bachelors program
Business IT & Management which seems suitable for the persona hypothesis.
The bachelor program Business IT & Management is about making “innovative,

customer-friendly applications for business” (Hogeschool van Amsterdam,
2017) based on ICT. The course is part of the ICT program, hence apart from
their business and management courses, students study IT-related topics in the
first three semesters together with students of Game Development, Software
Engineering, System and Network Engineering, and “Technische Informatica”
to develop in the broad ICT domain (cf. Hogeschool van Amsterdam, 2017).
Graduates of Business IT & Management shall acquire the knowledge and

experience needed to bridge the business strategy and ICT. They shall become
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networkers who speak both, the language of the management, the user and the
programmer (cf. ibid.). Due to his interdisciplinary study background, the
authors presume that user 4 has a balanced learning style. However, he is likely
to have a bias towards the converging (engineering) and accommodating
(management) learning style too. This means that he can adopt to any of the
four key stages of the innovation process but might be better off at the
imperatives phase where choices are made (converger’s strength) and at the
solutions phase where concepts are being concretized, prototypes are built and
taken back to customers and users for testing (cf. Beckman, 2014, pp. 69).
The converger’s greatest strength lies in problem solving, decision-making, and

the practical application of ideas (cf. Kolb, 2015, p. 114). “We called this learning
style the converger because a person with this style seems to do best in
situations like conventional intelligence tests, where there is a single correct
answer or solution to a question or problem” (ibid., pp. 114). They are controlled
by their expression of emotion, and they prefer dealing with technical tasks and
problems rather than social and interpersonal issues (ibid., p. 115). Accordingly,
his psychological type is extravert thinker (converger) (cf. Kolb, 2015, p. 136)
who has great respect for impersonal truth, thought-out plans, and orderly
efficiency. He is analytic, impersonal, objectively critical, and only convinced by
reasoning (cf. ibid., p. 122). He enjoys being an executive, and puts a great deal
of himself into his job. He likes to decide what ought to be done and to give the
necessary orders. What he dislikes is confusion, inefficiency, halfway measures,
and anything aimless. He can be a crisp disciplinarian, and fire a person who
ought to be fired. (ibid.) As an accommodator User 4 is also an extravert sensing
type (cf. Kolb, 2015, p. 136). Those are adaptable realists, who accepts and uses
the facts around him (ibid., p. 121). He notices and remembers more than any
other type. He knows what’s going on, who wants what, and usually why. (See
also profiles of User 1, 2, and 5 for more information).
His persona hypothesis could not be verified because he did not want to be
interviewed. Having a closer look at the company he works for the authors could
find a unique organisational culture that might distinguish him well from the
other stakeholders: that of a non-profit organisation. That’s how B.D. is
announced on its Facebook profile. Non-profit organisations include museums,
colleges, hospitals, community centres and after-school programs (cf.
Teegarden, Hinden & Sturm, 2011, p. 7). They provide public goods or services
that are not being provided by the government or private business (ibid., p. 13).
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Non-profits probably “have deep beliefs about equity, fairness, and access to
service” (ibid, p. 14). Furthermore, due to their non-profit orientation they enjoy
a high level of trust on the part of the consumer. This encompasses that non-
profits show a discomfort with business language (ibid., p. 19).
Values like openness, transparency, and accountability seem to be strongly

embedded in non-profits (cf. ibid., p.14.) Moreover, they often distrust the
market and competition, allow for a more diverse participation in public life,
they accommodate conflicts of values, interests and views, they have strong
beliefs around diversity, tolerance, and the role of these in the public debate
(ibid., pp. 14). Non-profits as independent organizations act as mediators
between the private and public life (ibid., p. 15). “In this role, non-profits are
thought to be the best vehicles for empowering people to advocate for policy
change and for providing social and civic interaction outside the realm of
government” (ibid.). They will have rules around participation and assume that
there is a need for mechanisms to ensure adequate involvement in decision-
making. Those rules “are likely to require community or membership
participation in the governance and decision-making of the organization” (ibid.,
p. 19). Non-profits furthermore arise from the public’s need for new services
and products which the government is (still) unable to meet. Hence, non-profits
are more flexible and less bureaucratic than governments since government’s
bureaucratic nature restricts the provision of services (ibid.). Their definition of
success is often closely related to clients – people, animals, or causes. Altruism
is part of the staff’s motivation, and they lack a concern or interest in
administration and infrastructure (ibid.).
Based on this organisational culture the authors assume that user 4 highly
identifies with his company. Therefore, he was mapped on 9 out of 10 on the
scale for “degree of identification with your organisation”. As a non-profit his
organisation should be very employee-oriented taking care of their employees
and their family’s welfare, maybe not to the same extent as in public
bureaucracies but more than in the private sector. So, the authors mapped user
4 on the scale of employee and work orientation between user 3 and user 5 who
work for a municipality and user 1 and 2 who work in the private sector. As their
definition of success is often closely related to clients his company’s
organisational culture should be strongly externally driven (8 out of 10). Maybe
it should be even more than what user 1 and 2 were mapped to (9) but the
authors assume that they are not as free from an ethical attitude such as the
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cultures of user 1 and 2. The same goes for goal orientation. Non-profits are
allegedly less risk taking and therefore less goal oriented (7) than private
businesses.
As for his way of making decisions user 4 was closely mapped to user 3 since
they are both convergent learners. However, user 4 is also accommodative in his
approach so the authors drew him slightly away from user 3 into the direction
the other three users.
User 5
According to his LinkedIn profile User 5 studied “Heao-EJ” at the Fontys

Hogescholen in Eindhoven from 1989 until 1992. HEAO is the abbreviation for
Higher Economic and Administrative Education, and is a former educational
term in the Netherlands. It included higher education in the sectors of trade and
economics, such as bookkeeping, insurance, corporate management, and
(executive) secretarial services. Under the old Dutch education system,
graduates from the HEAO received a bachelor's degree certificate. The
abbreviation EJ stands for “de studierichting EJ (economisch-juridisch)”
meaning an economic and legal field of study. The field of study EJ
(economically-legal) disappeared and became M.Sc. (Management, Economics
and Law)” (Ties Van den Berge, 2017). On his Facebook profile, user 5 says that
he studied “Bank en Verzekeringswezen” (banking and actuarial science) at
Fontys Hogeschoolen. Furthermore, he names “Nederlands Recht” (Dutch law)
at the Open University on his LinkedIn profile. However, he doesn’t tell the
period he spent for that long-distance study program nor does he tell whether
he earned a degree or not. Hence, it is assumed that user 5 majored in
economics, and administration, and is also familiar with banking, management
and law. Furthermore, urban planning plays a role which some of his LinkedIn
contacts endorsed as one of his skills.
About economics there can be found different data in Kolb’s (2015) book. In one
LSI test, economics students scored highly for the assimilative learning style (cf.
Kolb, 2015, p. 123, 178). Some pages further Kolb explains that “some economics
departments may be very convergent, emphasizing the use of econometric
models in public policy, and others are divergent, emphasizing economic history
and philosophy” (Kolb, 2015, p. 181). About administration students no data
could be found. Instead data about business (assumed equivalent to accounting
and finance) students were found who tend to be accommodators (cf. Kolb,
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2015, p. 179). Looking at other literature researchers found that students of
Business Administration (as well as Product Managers) are mostly represented
among the converging learners (cf. Beckman, 2014, p. 71). Law students again
tend to be accommodative like other social professions, including education,
and social work scholars (cf. Kolb, 2015, p. 179). If the authors consider urban
planning as a discipline similar to civil engineering than User 5 may also be
biased towards the convergent learning style (cf. Kolb 2015, p. 180).
Since the year 2000 user 5 has been working for the municipality of E. For the
first eight years he was a policy advisor for housing (Beleidsadviseur
onderwijshuisvesting). Policy advisory demands a divergent learning style
because it is a personal job. “Personal jobs, such as counselling or personnel
administrator, that require the establishment of personal and effective
communication with other people demand a divergent learning style” (Kolb,
2015, p. 128). Then he advanced to the position of a senior project manager for
area development and district renewal (senior projectmanager
gebiedsontwikkeling/wijkvernieuwing). After four years and four months he
became Area coordinator for Woensel Noord (Gebiedscoördniator Woensel
Noord). For the past three years he has been Area Manager (Gebiedsmanager)
at the municipality of E.
Given that user 5’s current job role also influences his learning style the authors
assume that as a project manager he may prefer the accommodative learning
style, like professionals including bankers, accountants, supervisors,
secretaries, and bookkeepers (cf. Kolb, 2015, p. 184). As a matter of fact, it is the
accommodative learning style that is needed for the “substantially different mix
of competencies” that a managerial position requires (Kolb, 2015, p. 264).
Given that management is a multidisciplinary profession that “involves

integration of both quantitative and qualitative analysis in active decision-
making” the authors conclude that user 5 has a balanced learning style with
some preference for the accommodative and the divergent learning style (Kolb
2015, p. 181). His self-description on LinkedIn as a broker supports this
hypothesis of a person with a balanced learning style: “My passion is at the point
where citizen, entrepreneur and government meet. I feel at home at the
intersection of the domains, spatially, socially and economically, and switching
between the various abstraction levels. I am the architect of processes without
losing sight of the intended outcome and I realize that where people meet, there
are often several justified truths.”
112
So, at first sight he doesn’t seem to differ much from users 1 and 2, at least
regarding the learning styles. Since he did not reply to the authors’ interview
request the hypothesis could not be test nor could the authors gather
information about the organizational culture of the user’s company. However, a
distinction of management logics proposed by Agger and Sørensen (2016, p. 8)
can be done. Accordingly, user 5 navigates in the management logic of public
bureaucracies. Those “are hierarchical authorization systems that valorize
order, control and stability, define good governance with reference to procedure
and process criteria and are intra-organizational in perspective. In contrast,
collaborative innovation arenas distribute authority horizontally, valorize
creativity, experimentation and change, define good governance considering
outcome and problem-solving capacity and are interorganizational in
perspective” (ibid., p. 7). Furthermore, huge companies such as the municipality
of E. with 1800 employees often have multiple layers of bureaucracy, and their
workers tend to be highly specialized (cf. Cooper et al., 2014, p. 48).
Consequently, there might be a clash between the organizational cultures of the
user 1 and 2 who are genuine entrepreneurs and own rather small enterprises
(8-100 people) and users 5 and 3 who work for huge state-owned institutions.
For instance, user 1 and 2 may be used to feeling overall responsible since they
are business owners and less specialized whereas user 5 and 3 like to focus only
on their specific working area.
Based on his similarity of his approach to user 1 and 2 whose mapping is based
on actual interview data, and that fact that he works in a public bureaucracy like
user 3 who the authors also interviewed guesses about his way of decision-
making and the organizational culture that influences him were made. For
example, as a divergent and accommodative learner he is a good intuitive
decision maker and approaches problems with a trial and error attitude.
Therefore, the authors mapped him on the scale for intuitive and systematic
decision-making on 1 for very intuitive. Like user 1 and 2 said in their interviews,
he likes quick decisions supposedly. Even though he functions well in
unstructured situations the authors did give him a 9 out of 10 for structure (close
to user 3 who works for a municipality) because he works in an environment
that is highly hierarchical and valorizes order, control and stability. However,
decisions don’t have to be as predictable as for user 3 who likes to know
consequences of a decision. There the authors put user 5 closer to user 1 and 2
who like decision-making somewhere between surprising and predictable.
Regarding the organizational culture the authors looked about the mapping of
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user 3. Guessing his degree of acceptance of leadership style and identification
with his organization the authors mapped him on 7 out of 10 because he has
always been working for the same municipality ever since never changing the
employer. So, there should be a rather high degree of acceptance and
identification.
6.1 Mapping the Users by Anne Koslowski
The interviews and the supplemental literature produced a lot of data which
needed to be synthesised. The authors did that by extracting the most distinct
features and goals of each user into a spreadsheet (Appendix 17). Another
outcome of the analysis was a graph in which all users were mapped against
Figure 19: Interview subjects are mapped across several behavioural axis.
Source: Anne Koslowski
114
certain variables as proposed by Cooper et al. (2014, p. 99). The mapping was
done by transferring the answers of the users regarding those variables that
were dichotomous to a scale from 1 to 10. When it came to the stakeholder
profiles purely based on hypotheses the authors made a guess based on
similarities to users who had been interviewed and informed by literature as
explicated in the stakeholder profiles above.
Figure 20: Interview subjects and persona hypotheses mapped across several behavioural axis.
115
6.2 Conclusion by Anne Koslowski
This chapter described how the authors applied the persona technique as
explained in chapter 4 to the five stakeholders of this case study. They
formulated persona hypotheses based on information found on LinkedIn. These
hypotheses could be tested with the help of the self-developed learning style
testing tool. The authors applied this tool in a face-to-face situation with user 1.
User 2 and 3 did the test by themselves and sent it back via e-mail. As the test
was part of the interview user 4 and 5 could not be tested because they didn’t
agree to be interviewed. Then the authors merged their assumptions with the
interview data into a consistent persona-like stakeholder profile. The authors
mapped the stakeholders against the behavioural variables and saw similarities
and differences in their behaviours, goals and approaches. The authors once
again synthesized their data in a spreadsheet (Appendix 17) to facilitate
extracting relevant behaviours for the stakeholder profile paper prototypes.
6.3 Discussion by Anne Koslowski
User 1 was the only stakeholder the authors met in person. All together the
authors visited him three times in his service design agency in the Netherlands:
The first time the authors conducted their two-parted interview which included
the interview about his occupational and organisational culture in order to
characterize him as a stakeholder. The second interview aimed at learning about
the project’s process and the involvement of the other stakeholders. After three
exhausting hours the authors had not reached a satisfying point which he
noticed. So, after inviting the authors for lunch in his company he offered a new
appointment for the same week. Again, the authors spent three hours with him.
The third time was when the authors tested the paper prototype with him
(chapter 8) for a total of two hours. Thus, the authors had a more complex
experience getting to know user 1 conducting a contextual inquiry. For instance,
the authors made a guess about his hobby and was right: He sails in his spare
time as he told us later in the interview. Only in this contextual inquiry this
personality trait of the accommodative learning style could be verified: that he
enjoys life (cf. Kolb, 2015, p. 121). Furthermore, the authors learned other
demographic data about user 1, including his religion and family background.
Those features were mentioned casually as it can only happen in a face-to-face
situation when you have created a personal trustful connection. Yet, the authors
found that the Skype interviews were valuable too and maybe even more
efficient since the authors did not need much demographic information for the
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persona like stakeholder profiles after all because only their educational and
professional specializations and other business-related data played a role.
Therefore, the authors decided to leave the age out, finally.
Other than suggested by Cooper et al. (2014) the authors did not derive their
interview questions from the persona hypothesis. Instead the authors deduced
the interview questions from the theoretical framework. Due to timely
interferences, only in the case of user 1 the persona hypothesis was framed
before the interview. Nevertheless, the authors framed the hypotheses of user 2
and 3 before evaluating the interviews. Framing the persona hypotheses based
on the information from LinkedIn and the Learning Style Theory of David A.
Kolb enabled the authors to compare behaviours identified in the data. This
comparison helped finding out if the behavioural variables identified are valid.
“For a pattern to be valid, there must be a logical or causative connection
between the clustered behaviors, not just a spurious correlation” (Cooper et. al.
2014, p. 84). For example, there was a logical connection between the need of
user 3 for structure, analysis and discipline – he gets up at 5.30 a.m., tackles the
most unpopular tasks first, has the need to participate in a meeting where the
person responsible for the meeting explains in advance what are the goals of the
meeting and how he proposes to achieve them – and the convergent learning
style which is most suitable for the imperatives phase of the design process. The
hypotheses turned out to be precise and were verified in all three cases. There
was no significant variance between the interview data and the authors’
assumptions.
Acknowledging that no supplemental data can take the place of direct user
interviews and observation, and that almost every aspect of a well-developed
persona should be traced back to sets of user statements or behaviors (cf. Cooper
et al., 2014, p. 67) it can be stated that David A. Kolb’s Learning Style Theory
provided a very good base for making guesses about people’s behaviour and
adds great value to user research if interviews with real users are not possible.
However, the literature was contradictory in few cases. For instance, while
Myers says that intuition is the least developed process of the accommodative
learner and that they are usually patient (cf. Myers, 1962, P. A5 as cited in Kolb,
2015, p. 121) Beckman (2014, p. 75) says that people with this learning style
preference are intuitive. Kolb (2015, p. 115) writes that they tend to solve
problems in an intuitive trail-and-error manner and are sometimes seen as
impatient and “pushy”.
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Kolb (2015, p. 118) himself warns that “some caution in using such data is
appropriate”. Since the authors is no expert around experiential learning or
related areas such as psychology it is difficult for them to assess what that means
for their research in detail. Yet, the fact that she had trouble matching the
interview data into the framework of the learning styles and related personality
types sometimes shows that pure types and styles that cultural and other
typologies might suggest do not exist empirically (cf. ibid., Schein, 2016, p. 272).
It also shows that this thesis makes an effort to not trivialize human
complexity38 “and thus end up denying human individuality rather than
characterizing it” (Kolb, 2015, p. 99).
This complexity might be one reason why the authors presumed balanced
learning styles in all five team members even though it is hard to find them in
the employee populations in many companies (Beckman, 2014, p. 71). Apart
from the complexity of human nature and the difficulty of classifying it with the
help of typologies may lie in the nature of the Green Deal project. It deals with
a wicked problem which needs multiple perspectives to be looked at (chapter
2.5). Hence, these five stakeholders with their multidisciplinary backgrounds
were possibly picked due to their flexibility in approaching problems.
Furthermore, it is possible that the authors presumed balanced learning styles
in all five team members because the self-made test did not lead to valid results.
The three users who evaluated their learning style with the help of the test
strongly preferred statements from the diverging learning style which is highly
unlikely to be found (Beckman, 2014, p. 72). Instead “you are likely to be dealing
with a sizable ratio of converging learners as you assemble your innovation
team” (ibid., p. 71). May it be that the statements from the divergent learning
style sounded more attractive? Who would not prefer to say about himself that
he “listens with an open mind”, is “interested in people” and has “broad cultural
interests” instead of saying that “ideas and concepts are more important than
people” or that he “uses other people’s analysis”? Presumably, most people
would want to appear as an open-minded, creative, social and active person
instead of an anti-social technician, and so did the interviewees. Maybe the
choice of statements evoked judgements and hence did not lead to an honest
38
Having stereotyped the stakeholders though would be a good result of this work since
stereotypes describe the expected behaviour of a group of people (Barmeyer, 2012, p.
150). They arise from categories which organise experience and steer behaviour. They
include simplifying and schematic statements and therefore serve to classify and
distinguish, but also to judge (ibid.).
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selection of preferences. The official learning style test online would possibly
have led to other results and should be preferred over a makeshift.
The same can be said about the provisional measurement of the organisational
culture by operationalizing Hofstede’s culture dimensions. As looking into the
Hofstede’s Multi-Focus Model on organisational culture in more detail would
have exceeded the timeframe of this thesis the authors cannot be sure to which
extent the interview questions measured the organisational culture of the
interviewees. For example, all interviewees answered the question “What is
more respected in your department: ethics, honesty, and correctly following
procedures or results and customer’s requirements?” by saying that it is the
latter. Maybe this was correct. But maybe the question left too much room for
interpretation – not only for the interviewee but also during the evaluation by
the authors. When mapping the interviewees against the variables such as
means orientation versus goal orientation the authors merged their previous
knowledge with the empirical data toning down the interviewees answer
because it seemed more plausible to them since the interviewee works in the
management logic of a public bureaucracy which has a focus on procedure and
process. But this may have strained reality.
Also misleading might have been the question “would you say your work
environment is rather serious and disciplined or little controlled and easy-
going?” All interviewees answered that their environment is little controlled and
easy-going. Looking at a report demo of the Multi-Focus Model (www.hofstede-
insights.com) showed that a little-controlled and easy-going work environment
had test takers answer that “involvement in the decision-making process is not
well organized”, “work discipline is not important”, “humour has its place, even
about our own organization” and “we do not get any guidance whatsoever”. In
contrast, exemplifying the “little-controlled” and “easy-going” work
environment of his organisation user 3 answered: “Well, in the sense that we all
have floating working hours, everyone works at the time and place which suits
him or her best. So, that’s very loose. Choose your own time and place to work.
It is not very controlled in the sense ‘you have to be here at this place at 8.30
until 5 pm in the afternoon’. So, that’s quite loose.” Thus, the interview
questions measured the organizational culture of the stakeholders only roughly
if at all. For this thesis this was enough because the goal was to put the
stakeholders into relation with each other and this was achieved. Overall, the
interviews helped to add, subtract, and modify the roles and behaviours the
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authors had anticipated and gave a more complete impression of the
stakeholder’s preferences, goals and approaches.
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CHAPTER 7
7. The Paper Prototypes by Anne Koslowski
In a next step the authors built a low-fidelity paper prototype of the stakeholder
profiles merging central features from the persona-like stakeholder profiles
onto postcard sized paper sheets that seemed most relevant concerning the
involvement of stakeholders in the design process. This information included
their position, the management logic of their company, in which phase of the
design process they are best at based on their learning style preferences, striking
features such as optimistic, focussed on people or at ease with people,
structured, disciplined, their approach, when and to which extent (hours per
week) they would want to be involved in the project, and a representative quote.
Figure 21: The first version of a prototype of the stakeholder profiles

For the usability test with user 1 the authors wanted to create a more
sophisticated paper prototype which should contain more information on the
front, additional information on the flipside, the picture of the stakeholder, a
slimmer format and printed for better readability (Appendix 15).
7.1 The Design Process of the Green Deal Project

by Laura Schulz
In chapter 2.5 the Green Deal “Smart Energy Cities” project as the case study of
this master thesis was presented initially. In the following, the authors describe
the project’s design process in further detail.
During the second meeting with the project facilitator at his service design
agency in the Netherlands, the authors interviewed him about the on-going
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Green Deal project. Together they went through each single project step
retrospectively defining what was done (e.g. a meeting or a workshop session),
what kind of design methods were used, who was involved and time intensity.
The authors collected the output and wrote it down digitally on a Padlet board39.
While writing down the steps on the digital pin board, the authors mapped the
steps (as far as possible) to the four project process phases according to the
Innovation Process of Beckman (cf. 2014, pp. 65) which was chosen as the
framework for the documentation of this design process acknowledging the
different learning styles of stakeholders (chapter 5.2): Observation/Exploration
phase, Framework phase, Imperative phase and Solutions phase (Figure 22)40.
As the Pre-project phase contained sessions where different stakeholders were
involved and can be generally seen as the phase where stakeholder identification
and prioritization take place, the authors included it to their documentation on
Padlet.
In the pre-project phase the project stakeholders got to know each other,
identified the problem and finally agreed on the developed project proposal.
Throughout the Observation/Exploration phase the project team learned in
great detail about the lives of the customers, about the industry ecosystem in
order to better understand the culture and goals of the project’s clients. In the
Framework phase the data captured in the previous phase was observed in more
detail, key insights were extracted and within the Imperative phase first ideas
were generated responding to these insights.
Throughout the whole project process many workshop and meeting sessions
were held and each of them required the attendance of different project
stakeholders in changing composition. The project facilitator/service designer
was the only one who was always present. Various (design) methods were used
39 Padlet (https://padlet.com) is an online collaboration platform that functions like a

pin board.
40 https://padlet.com/koslowskianne/vqevbzk3q61h
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Figure 22: The case study mapped to the Design process according to Beckman (2014) (Appendix 2)
Source: Padlet
during the project such as visual creation, customer journey and context
mapping (Appendix 2).
7.2 Putting Together the Prototypes by Laura Schulz
As a next step, the authors matched the stakeholder profile cards (chapter 7)
with the project process phases (Figure 23). Therefore, the whole project (based
on the information collected on the padlet board (Figure 22) was drawn on two
paper prototypes. The first prototype shows the Green Deal “Smart Energy
Cities” project exactly as it was presented on the digital pin board (only in a
condensed format concerning the information of each project step, Appendix
3). Furthermore, on the second prototype the project phases were linked to
Kolb’s four learning styles (chapter 5.2, Appendix 4). The authors used the
second prototype for their first test of matching the profile cards with the project
phases and its project steps.
In order to make the matching easier, the authors also thought about marking
each stakeholder profile card in another color based on his/her character41 (see
Figure 23) and then also add a color to each stage depending on the required
tasks, e.g. creativity, hands-on prototyping workshop, analysis etc. However,
the authors found it difficult to color the stages because they feel they don’t have
enough information about what was going on in each meeting/workshop.
41 see http://www.searchandtrain.de/insights/insights-grundfarben.html
123
Figure 23: Matching the stakeholder profile cards with the project process phases
7.3 Finding and Conclusion by Laura Schulz
Before and during the matching process (Figure 23), the authors realized that
matching the four learning styles of Kolb with the rough project phases is easy
and works out well (e.g. a divergent learner like the project facilitator matches
best in the Observation phase which also matches concerning what he likes most
based on his interview). Otherwise, they recognized that matching the persona-
like stakeholder profiles with the project stages (retrospectively) doesn’t really
help to properly decide how each stakeholder should be involved. In this
context, the authors assumed (as intermediate results) that on one hand, there’s
no need to visualize the project process like this prototype matched with the
learning styles as it seemed that it adds no value to the matching process. And
on the other hand, the stakeholder cards maybe don’t contain the most relevant
information or a different presentation of it is needed aiming to support
stakeholder involvement.
As the authors could not find a satisfying result concerning their prototype, they
realized that a real usability test is needed. Consequently, they decided to ask
the project facilitator to test the stakeholder cards for planning the upcoming
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project steps in real life. The aim would be to learn which information about the
stakeholders is really needed (also in which order and in which visualization).
In preparation of the usability testing with the project facilitator for testing out
the matching process with the stakeholder profile cards, the authors decided to
make some additional method cards that showcase several design methods that
might be used during the project.
7.4 Method Cards by Laura Schulz
The authors built a first paper prototype of method cards that showcase several
design methods (described as human-centered methods by IDEO42). Each card
represents one method and includes a brief story about how to use it and an
estimated time showing how time-intensive this method is. As a first basis the
authors used the Ideate Unified Design Thinking Model43 to decide which
design methods should be visualized through method cards. Furthermore, the
necessary information about each method for the prototype cards was adapted
from the design kit website by IDEO44.
Figure 24 shows the document with the methods cards’ templates. After
printing, both frontside and backside were cut out and then glued together. Few
of the methods are only presented by their frontside (Appendix 5) as they were
mentioned on the Ideate Unified Design Thinking Model but not presented on
the IDEO website. As it can be assumed that the project facilitator (user 1) is
familiar with these methods, the authors decided that for the usability testing
more information isn’t needed.
Figure 24: Examples of the method cards

42
http://www.designkit.org/methods
43 https://www.pinterest.nz/pin/156781630750642190/
44 http://www.designkit.org/methods
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CHAPTER 8
8. Usability Testing by Anne Koslowski
In this chapter the authors describe the testing of the first version of their paper
prototype, which has been developed to be a stakeholder involvement tool for
co-design project facilitators. The prototype contained stakeholder cards that
represent the nature of the different stakeholders of the Green Deal project as
well as method cards that represent human-centred design methods. The goal
was to find out if the project facilitator from this case study can plan the next
steps in his current projects with the help of the prototype.
Figure 25: Method cards and stakeholder profile prototypes for usability test .
8.1 Test Design45 by Anne Koslowski
Method: A formative usability test (in person qualitative in field, think out
loud) will be conducted. It intends to derive suggestions for the improvement of
the tool at an early stage of the development.
Description of the product being tested: The paper prototype is a first

version of a stakeholder involvement tool that shall enable the user to gain an
45
The test plan was based on a checklist for usability tests by Loranger (2016).
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understanding of who should be involved, at what stages of the process (when),
and to which extent (how). It consists of two main parts: the stakeholder profile
cards that include the nature of the stakeholders of this case study, which were
examined in user research, and method cards displaying typical user-centred
design methods (Appendix 5). Missing methods were added by handwritten
post-its.
Study goals:
• Find out about the basic impression, acceptance and the usability of the
product;
• find out if the user can plan future project steps with the help of the
method cards and match appropriate stakeholders based on the
information of the card;
• find out if the content on the stakeholder cards is presented in a way that
is easy to understand and if it relevant;
• finally find out if the test person is able to complete the tasks
successfully.
Logistics: Wednesday the 11th of October 2017, 9.30 – 11.30 a.m. (max. 2 hours
including warm-up, small talk, etc.) at the test person’s company in the
Netherlands
Participant’s profile: partner at a service design innovation agency in the

Netherlands, facilitator of several projects within the Green Deal project
Test leader and transcript writer: Anne Koslowski
Pre-session Interview questions:
1. In which phase of the Green Deal project are you right now?
2. Which stakeholders are still on board? Are there new stakeholders?
Task 1) Please, think of the next step in the Green Deal project and write it at
the top of one empty paper (landscape format). Then plan the next meeting or
workshop using the method cards. If methods are missing, please use a blank
post-it to create your own method card. Please, think out loud during the
whole process!
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Task 2) Now take those stakeholders profiles and take some time to inspect
them. Once you are ready, please, use them in order to decide which stakeholder
has to be invited for the project step you just set up. Please, think out loud!
Post-session Interview questions:
1. Your conclusion: What did you like most? What didn’t you like at all?
2. Would you recommend this tool to colleagues/business
partners/friends? What would you tell them about the tool?
3. Did you have a bad moment in which you literally wanted to abandon
the use of the tool? If yes, when and why?
4. If you have planned stakeholder involvement otherwise: What did you
like better in comparison to our tool? Why? How did you like the idea of
putting together future project steps with the help of the method cards?
5. What else would you like us to know? Do you have questions?
Don’t forget to: mention that the tool not the person is being tested because
it is important for the participant to know that there will not be any failure; that
the collected data (photos, video, audio and/or written protocol) will only be
used within the master thesis and remind the test person to think out loud as
the test progresses to tell what he is looking for, what he notices, what he is
thinking.
8.2 Findings by Anne Koslowski
The usability test was a useful and effective method to evaluate the prototype in
a real-life situation. The plan was a suitable guideline to follow. Yet, three of five
post session interview questions were not asked due to a lack of time (number
4) or because they had already been answered in advance (number 2 and 3).
Task 1 appeared easy and pleasant to the test person. He would look at his digital
schedule on his laptop and transfer each meeting/workshop onto a white paper.
Then he would choose from the provided method cards and put them on top of
the white paper. If a method was missing, he would ask the test leader to write
it down on a post-it and stick it on the container paper. The test leader and the
test person continued like this (even though for the next exercise it was not
necessary to set up all project steps). Concerning task 1 he pointed out: “For me
this didn’t add anything, because I know this. This is just explaining to you.”
This statement shows that the task correlated with the test person’s (as a domain
expert) mental model of project planning.
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Task 2 on the other hand revealed strong usability problems, including layout
problems, e.g. too much text. The layout overstrained the test person and did
not feel intuitive to him. When the test leader presented an earlier handwritten
version of the stakeholder cards with very limited content, the test person
responded more positively. Apart from the layout issue a more complex
usability problem showed: Even though the test leader encouraged the test
person to use the stakeholder cards several times, he did not use them. He listed
several reasons why he cannot use the cards for his work including: they are too
complicated (complexity), the stakeholder profiles represent his project team
and not what he considers to be “stakeholders” (definition issue), that the
personal characteristics of the stakeholders are not relevant for his work
(relevance), that other features such as level of hierarchy, power, responsiveness
and feeling of ownership are missing (feature suggestion, relevance), that he as
the facilitator doesn’t have the “luxury” (time) to consider personal
characteristics, and that it is his colleague who plans and prepares the
workshops.
Furthermore, the test person stated that he thinks he cannot create the feeling
of ownership in other stakeholders. This is a valuable insight because the feeling
of ownership for a project as an expression of stakeholder commitment is
something that this tool aims at influencing.
Therefore, the test reveals two questions: 1) Is the test person aware of the
problem (yet)? There were two indicators that might confirm this assumption:
He never asks the stakeholders on his projects about their time availability and
he thinks that dealing with people’s characteristics is not relevant enough. 2)
Did the authors recruit the right participant for the usability test? The fact that
the test person mentioned his colleague as the responsible for the planning and
preparation of the workshops and meetings could be an indication.
After this test, it is also questionable whether the problem definition derived
from the pre-study does apply to the working reality of the test person at all, and
consequently, if the choice of this case study (the Green Deal project) was
suitable for the problem definition of this master thesis. Such a mismatch
cannot be excluded since the pre-study was based on interviews with scholars
from the University of Applied Sciences Utrecht (HU). Hence, it is possible that
the same usability test with scholars from the HU, presumed they also facilitate
co-design projects, would show different results.
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Given these insights, it is difficult to make final decisions about how to proceed
with the prototypes. Yet, the authors draw the following conclusions, assuming
the test person was recruited well and is just not sensitive (yet) to what was
defined as a problem in the pre-study:
8.3 Conclusion by Anne Koslowski
• Test person quickly became familiar with the method cards during the
test because they were easy to use for him as domain expert, so they
should be considered to stay like this
• The layout of the stakeholder cards needs to be simplified: less but
relevant information
• The stakeholder profiles need to tie in with existing stakeholder analysis
tools in order to correlate with the test person’s mental model of
stakeholder analysis
• Therefore, an investigation about how the test person (and others)
conducts stakeholder analysis could be necessary
• A way of tying in would include information that the test person called
“relevant”: (decision-making + budget) power of the stakeholder, the
forces that influence him (his network, important stakeholders), role
and responsibilities in the project, responsiveness (the way he/she
wants to be contacted and will reply, frequency), project relevant quote,
goals in the project, frustrations in projects (in general).
• Since the tool wants to help achieve collaboration instead of plain
management of stakeholders’ power, interest, expectations, influence
and impact the authors should keep the idea of including the learning
style of a person so that the project facilitator understands not only what
his team members want from an initiative, but also what they can give.
• Furthermore, the authors should keep the idea of including the
organisational culture of a stakeholder because former research shows
that it has a persuasive impact on behaviour.
8.4 Revision of the Stakeholder Profiles by Anne Koslowski
Given the findings from the usability test the authors revised the stakeholder
profile cards. Setting up this third version of a persona-like stakeholder profile,
a persona template adapted from Marketer Gizmo (2015) was used. As user 1
wished for less text and less complexity in the prototype, the data was kept
shorter than in the tested paper prototype (second version), yet more detailed
130
than in the sketched prototype (first version). In order to tie in with the needs
of the test person (user 1), the following information was included additionally:
(decision-making and budget) power of the stakeholder, the forces that
influence him (his network), role and responsibilities in the project,
responsiveness (the way and how often project participants want to be
contacted and will reply).
First, the users received names based on their (preferred and actual) role in the
project:
• User 1: The Facilitator

• User 2: The Developer
• User 3: The Analyst
• User 4: The Innovation Coach
• User 5: The Mandarin
During the usability test with user 1 the authors learned that user 5 as an area
manager had a high position in the municipality. By calling him a “Mandarin”
as a figurative term for a bureaucrat high in hierarchy (www.leo.org), the name
implies this hierarchical level. It also implies that he navigates in the
management logic of a bureaucracy. User 4 received the same name as he was
given by the initiators of the Green Deal project. “The Innovation Coach”. This
name reflects his role in the project as well as his affiliation to a non-profit
organisation that describes itself as a “technology breeding ground for
innovation and home to world-class businesses, knowledge institutes and
research institutions” that “encourages and develops regional and
(inter)national projects and programmes, and facilitates regional industry
through business advice and funding” and so forth. The other three stakeholders
received their names based on their preferred role in the Green Deal project.
Information from the first sketched profile card was kept, including a quote, and
demographics associated with the behaviour of the stakeholder such as
occupation, company (cf. Cooper et al., 2014, p. 85). Since the use environment
(cf. ibid) and the cultural context should be considered, the authors suggest
adding distinct information about the size of the company as well as the industry
and the management logic they navigate in if striking (e.g. non-profit, huge
bureaucratic organisation with 2000 people) because it influences the
behaviour of the stakeholders as mentioned before. Furthermore, the
identification with the organisation was included as it does not make sense to
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measure the organisational culture of a participant but not know to which
degree the stakeholder identifies with his or her organisation. If someone owns
his or her organisation such as user 1 and 2, the identification can tremendously
differ with other stakeholders.
A sketch was kept (other than in the second prototype which showed a picture)
because it’s rather a provisional than a real persona and therefore should only
contain a sketch (cf. Cooper et al., 2014, p. 97). Skills, experience, and abilities
as proposed by Cooper et al. (2014, p. 85) stayed on the new prototype
represented in the field ‘learning style’. The learning style does not only display
the stakeholder’s skills but also his approach to problem solving. Furthermore,
the learning style is a quick and easy way of telling the facilitator who fits best
in which design phase based on his skills.
Their goals are important to be displayed too as they show what motivates a
stakeholder to be involved in the project. Not only end-goals but also experience
goals are included in the third version of a prototype as attitudes and emotions
associated with the behaviour are relevant for a persona (cf. ibid.). Finally, their
decision-making preferences were transferred to the new prototype because
they predict behaviour as well as potential (culture) clashes and conflicts,
including structured versus unstructured decision-making or intuitive/trial-
and-error versus systematic/analytic approaches. This is important because
“even the best structures and processes (..) cannot hope to be effective if the
behavior of the people involved in projects and their stakeholders undermine
them” (Streich & Brennholt, 2015, p. 68).
Availability also stayed on the new prototype as time commitment is one of the
biggest concerns of stakeholders (cf. Miller, 2013, p. 13). Responsiveness was
additionally considered important as it was stressed several times by the test
person during the usability test (appendix 16). As project managers typically
need substantial amounts of information (Streich & Brennholt, 2012, p. 58)
from other stakeholders it is not only important to know for user 1 when, by
which means and to which extent he can reach out but also if and in what way
the counter-part is willing to respond. If important stakeholders do not supply
the facilitator with the information he or she considers important and/or stays
silent for example conflicts will arise (cf. ibid., p. 59). This happened between
user 1 and user 5 (see appendix 16). User 5 would not respond to several
attempts of user 1 to reach out. How responsive a stakeholder is willing to be
could be evaluated by the project facilitator when setting up the communication
132
strategy for the project (cf. ibid., pp. 62). For example, what’s the best time of
the day to call a stakeholder, does he or she even want to be called at all or does
he or she prefer to write e-mails or use other communication technologies?
Those preferences as well as rules on how to behave in communication should
be agreed on during the kick-off meeting (cf. ibid., 2015, p. 68).
As argued in chapter 1.1 it is paramount to understand stakeholder powers (cf.

Han, 2009, pp. 3). Furthermore, user 1 missed a statement about the power of
the stakeholders on the paper prototype. Stakeholders hold different powers
that effect the results of a project (chapter 3.5.1). For example, top managers
have an influence on the composition of the project team, on its participation in
decision-making, and on the formal power given to the project leader (cf.
Wastian, et al., 2012, p. 86). They also decide on allocating the necessary
resources (people, money, time, power) and by doing so determine the essential
parameters for the initiation, the course, and the eventual feasibility of projects
(ibid.). In contrast, the project manager such as user 1 seldom has disciplinary
influence over the project staff (ibid., p. 87). Presumably, user 5 can be
considered as a representative of the top management rather than anybody else
in the Green Deal project according to user 1. Therefore, the authors will include
‘power’ and ‘impact’ on the new prototype in terms of ‘high’, ‘medium’ and ‘low’
as suggested by Streich & Brennholt (2015, p. 65).
Power as a concept has various dimensions. It does not only refer to material
resources but also to immaterial resources such as knowledge, expertise and
capabilities (cf. Zimmermann & Maennling, 2007, p. 12). This should be
considered by the project facilitator when evaluating the stakeholders46.
Knowledge, expertise and capabilities were captured with the help of the goal-
directed design approach as mentioned above. But power also implies the
connections a stakeholder has influence on (ibid.). They relate to the “number
and quality of relationships to other actors who are under obligation to or
dependent on the key stakeholder” (ibid.). As Cooper et al. (2014) suggest a
46
Power can be evaluated by the project facilitator by using stakeholder identification
methods as presented in chapter 3.5 (best applied in the pre-project phase), e.g. by
interviewing the stakeholders, brainstorming sessions and other forms of research.
Consulting the project charter and contract documents usually reveals the names of
influential stakeholders, e.g. the project sponsor. The (influential and dynamic)
relationships between stakeholders can be revealed, e.g. through applying a method like
the Whole System Collaboration Model by Miller (2013) (p. 56) or the Value Flow
Model by den Ouden (2012) (p. 70).
133
network perspective on the users and user 1 called for information about which
influences a stakeholder is exposed to, this definition is too unilateral.
Therefore, the authors included ‘network/influences’ in the new prototype
rather than ‘connections’ to imply an interdependent network of influences of
stakeholders among each other and with external forces.
Furthermore, the authors included interest in the project respectively priority

of the project. It can differ significantly between stakeholders, e.g. when
resources and rewards are not distributed equally or when project members
believe they are bound to ‘hidden assignments’ from their line superiors (cf.
Streich & Brennholt, 2015, p. 60). Therefore, the field ‘interest in the
project/priority’ is important to consider when trying to understand and
influence the commitment and feeling of ownership of a stakeholder. It will be
represented in the revised prototype as ‘high’, ‘medium’ and ‘low’ as suggested
by Streich & Brennholt (2015, p. 65) who visualize stakeholder analysis in a
stakeholder register.
Finally, frustrations and pain points will be included as suggested by Cooper et

al. (2014, p. 85) as they help the facilitator what tasks or behaviours a project
participant dislikes. The revision of the prototypes has been done in Adobe
InDesign for the three interviewed stakeholders (Appendix 18).
Figure 26: Pictures of the revised prototypes of the stakeholder profiles

134
CHAPTER 9
9. Discussion and Prospects by Anne Koslowski/Laura Schulz
In the pre-project of this thesis the authors found out that it is crucial in any
project but especially in the multi-stakeholder environment of a co-design
project to succeed in understanding who should be involved, why, how, and
when. The pre-study revealed a knowledge gap in the area of stakeholder
involvement in co-design projects as well as a lack of design methods and
strategy frameworks that assist the designers as project facilitators to consider
the expectations of professionals while dealing with design problems.
Therefore, the authors tried to answer the following research questions (RQ):
RQ 1: How can facilitators of a co-design project identify their key stakeholders

(WHO/WHY)?
RQ 2: At what point (stages and activities) and to which extent should and could
these stakeholders be involved during the process design (WHEN/HOW)?
RQ1 was answered by an extensive literature research on stakeholder

management theory. It showed that various methods can be found for
identifying and categorizing stakeholders in a project: Looking through contract
documents and the project charter in detail and conducting interviews and
brainstorming sessions with project team members and experts helps to identify
a comprehensive list of stakeholders, and furthermore, relevant information
about them (Usmani, n. d.). Using these simple methods, questions like “who is
directly/indirectly involved in the project?”, “who may be affected by the
project/the project’s outcome?”, “who has the authority to make the project
succeed?” or “who can make the project fail?” (cf. Usmani, n. d.). Moreover,
stakeholder mapping methods are useful tools to visualize the various
stakeholders of a company or organization to locate their position and
understand their relationship with each other in this system. Stakeholder
mapping helps to identify and categorize different stakeholders based on
different attributes such as their (level of) concern, interest, influence,
legitimacy, stake, power etc. in order to understand how to relate or engage with
them in the most effective way possible. Examples of stakeholder mapping
methods are the Power/Dynamim Matrix (p. 54) or the Power, Legitimacy and
Urgency Model (p. 55). One of the most comprehensive methods is the Whole
System Collaboration Model by Miller (2013) (p. 56) that demonstrates the
135
value(s), importance and fluidities (as attributes like power or interest may
change during the project) of each (key) stakeholder by applying to a project
case.
RQ2 was approached by exploring a sub-project of the governmental Green Deal

project which is comparable to the energy transition (“Energiewende”) in
Germany. One must not know in detail about this endeavour to have a notion of
the complexity and the long-term orientation of this project. The case study was
suitable for studying the professionals involved in depth. A semi-structured
interview guideline derived from the widely used and elaborated design
research method, the persona technique according to Cooper et al. (2014) was
used. Approaching the professionals with the goal-directed persona technique
of Cooper et al. (2014) they were made the experts of their own experience, as
common in user-centred design. This approach led to valuable insights about
their experience with the design process in the Green Deal case. This tool for
exploring user needs was enriched with cultural typologies and theory about
occupational culture which helped discovering distinguishable patterns in the
behaviour of the stakeholders. It showed why they are on the project, which
expectations they have towards the process and the outcome, how they
approach problems and what they can contribute in the form of skills. The latter
was mainly achieved by classifying the stakeholder based on their learning style.
Classifying the stakeholders based on their learning styles allows project
managers to match project participants roughly to the four phases of the design
process. The stakeholders that could not be interviewed were described as
persona hypotheses. They were largely based on the framework of Kolb’s (2015)
Experiential Learning Style Theory as well as literature about organisational
culture. This procedure provided the authors again with behavioural patterns.
Those patterns were then synthesized into persona-like stakeholder profiles
representing a first paper prototype. Moreover, the authors created a process
model of the Green Deal design process showing its distinguishable steps. The
steps were depicted in the form of method cards that represented common
methods that service designers such as the project facilitator of this case use
when co-creating with other stakeholders.
The authors then tested their paper prototype with the project facilitator. It
showed that he did not find it practical to match the stakeholders to his project
steps based on their learning styles. It also showed that he was missing
information on the prototypes concerning stakeholder management. The
136
missing information included power of the stakeholder and his impact on the
project among other things. They were not revealed with the help of the persona
technique. Neither, the influences that he is exposed to were captured. Even
though Cooper et al. (2014) describe their method as a network approach to the
user it is not clear how to apply it to capture the influences that a stakeholder is
exposed to or exerts on others. Here, the authors see limitations of the goal-
directed design approach of Cooper et al. (2007, 2014).
Therefore, RQ2 cannot entirely be answered. Only the framework of Beckman

(2014) gave a first hint towards answering at what point a stakeholder should
be involved. It is also an answer to Millers (2013, p. 3) call for a paradigm shift
from seeing stakeholders simply as potential objectors to be managed to
consider them “vital sources of wisdom, creativity, passion and energy”.
However, Beckman’s approach does not clarify to which extent a stakeholder
should be involved. This can only be evaluated on an individual basis as done in
this thesis.
Future research would have to explore if extending the persona technique

through stakeholder analysis methods known from (project) management
studies is a valuable idea. The authors made a first step in this direction by
integrating stakeholder analysis and management approaches into their revised
prototype. However, it will have to be tested again to find out if the contained
information on the prototype is deployable.
Moreover, further research should dedicate itself to auditing stakeholder

analysis and management methods that are being used by project facilitators of
co-design projects. For example, after the usability test the authors learned from
the project facilitator of their case study that he uses methods that were
mentioned in the benchmarking chapter: “We usually use a two-step process:
we start in a workshop format with identifying key stakeholders (persons or
organizations) that impact our target group. We use a simple bullseye, with 3
concentric circles. The level of impact determines in which circle stakeholders
are mapped. Then we research these stakeholders (by either telephone
interviews or through desk research). A next step is to make the mapping more
dynamic (see Elke den Ouden) to add patterns of influence (money, authority,
information, knowledge). We have to validate the mapping then, mostly by
conducting interviews with the identified stakeholders.”(user 1, 2017)47
47 E-Mail of user 1 from November 1st 2017, Amersfoort

137
Moreover, in further research the special role of the project facilitator must be
looked at with more care. The designers who mostly act as the project managers
are confronted with a highly complex endeavour trying to manage a cross-
functional team of many different stakeholders, and the goal to tackle a wicked
problem as explained in chapter 2.3. On the outset of a participatory design
challenge they are no longer the creators of ideas, but they are the facilitator and
translator of ideas of others (cf. Sanders & Stappers, 2014, p. 13). As Sanders
and Stappers (ibid.) explain at design school they were not prepared for project
management or structured, linear thinking. In fact, the complexity of steering a
project can be so challenging that researchers of project management propose
to apply project coaching “as a method that helps the participants manage their
projects more smoothly, become aware of the critical success factors in the
project, cope with individual challenges, and make better use of opportunities,
both for the project and for themselves” (Wastian, Dost-Tauschl & Braumandl,
2015, pp. 85).
138
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Appendix
1. Appendix: The Green Deal “Smart Energy Cities”
Program48
48
http://www.smartenergycities.nl
152
2. Appendix: Design Process of the “Green Deal” Project49
153
3. Appendix: Design Process – Prototype 1
49
https://padlet.com/koslowskianne/vqevbzk3q61h
154
155
4. Appendix: Design Process (with Kolb’s learning styles) –
Prototype 2
156
5. Appendix: Method Cards
157
158
159
6. Appendix: Exploratory Interview Questions for Pre-
Study
Biography
- full name
- professional background:
- years of experience in co-design
- number of accomplished co-design projects
Think of a co-design project that was successful/unsuccessful in respect to

the outcome: xxx
1. What was your part in the project?
a. researcher/monitoring
2. Why did it go well/not so well from your point of view?
3. Where the stakeholders well known at the start of the project? (did they
change?)
4. How would you rate the commitment of the team in general?
5. What was the reason for the high/low commitment in your opinion?
6. How would you rate the stakeholder’s commitment in particular?
7. Pls give examples that illustrate the high/or low commitment
8. Reasons for that high/low commitment from your point of view?
9. Estimate the influence of the stakeholder’s commitment on the
project’s outcome.
10. Did you use special methods to increase the stakeholder commitment?
a. If yes/not: Why did you chose to use these methods?
11. Were the stakeholders able to frame their needs?
12. Did they frame their needs clearly to you?
13. Did they have a clear vision of what they expect from you?
a. Was that good/helpful or bad/hindering?
14. Did you have enough sovereignty within the creative process?
15. How would you rate your own commitment?
16. Did others play an important role in the process?
17. Did the stakeholder know how the co-design/service design process
works?
a. If not: Did you explain it?
i. If not: Why did you chose not to explain it? (time
pressure?)
b. if yes: How did you explain it?
18. Did you feel like all team members were are talking the same language
and are on the same page at all times?
a. If not: How did you facilitate to understand each other better?
(visualizing your findings/workshops etc.?)
19. Did you consciously emphasize on communication in the process?
20. Did project goals change in the course of the process?
21. Did you make it clear to everyone when goals were changing?
a. If yes: How did you do it and why did you think it was
necessary?
b. If not: Why not?
160
22. Did you perceive any conflicting goals (within the project or within
stakeholders)?
23. Do you think these conflicting goals had an influence on the outcome of
the project?
a. If so: How and why?
24. Did you have or did you come to a shared understanding of goals
during the process?
25. Do you remember key moments or surprising moments that
changed/accelerated/improved the course of the project?
26. Where there (smoldering) conflicts?
a. If there were: How did you solve them?
b. If there weren’t: What led to the absence of conflicts? (open
trustful communication?)
27. Was there a strong sense of Hierarchy?
a. If so/not: Why?
b. Was that helpful or hindering for the project?
28. How did you feel personally during the project?
(comfortable/uncomfortable/included/excluded/taken seriously/not
taken seriously/others)
a. What made you feel like this?
29. How would you describe the vibes/atmosphere in the team over the
course of time?
30. What’s your lesson learned from this project?
31. What makes a good project for you personally?
32. How do you feel about co-designing and cooperating with many
multidisciplinary stakeholders in general?
33. Anything else you think we should know?
161
7. Appendix: Transcript of Exploratory Interviews from
Pre-Study
Remko van der Lugt
Master in Ship Design/Naval Architecture ("hardcore Engineering"), courses

in product design during the Master, studied creativity in the USA afterwards,
switched to creative facilitation ("that is more my home grounds")
Rosa de Vries
leading designer in workshops, degree in mechanical engineering/"I am a

designer and facilitator of the Co-Design sessions. And I created co-Design
sessions together with Remko and Tom (for the Engage project). In the project
‘Powertools’ when I was a student I created some co-Design sessions on my
own and did them with the users (autists), the client (health care institution),
with healthcare professionals, and also with design agencies."
Fenne Verhoeven
Researcher working in the research group of Hogeschool Utrecht; lecturer
Berit Godfroij
Researcher working in the research group of Hogeschool Utrecht. Educated in

industrial design, but feels more as an observer than a real (co-) designer
(concerning the projects she was following).
different cultures and values (Remko)
"I have a tendency towards very open processes. And we involved a lot of
people from a tax agency. You can imagine they are not so comfortable with an
open process design. That created a lot of friction as well. They really wanted
to have plan what's going to happen over time. I must say: I would never do it
again that open. Next time I would definitely provide a very clear plan what
we're going to do. You do need a sense of confidence that you know what
you're doing along the way." (Remko)
lack of trust/psychological safety/not used to working creatively/ openness

regarding innovation (Rosa)
"In ‘Powertools’ for example people sit down with their arms crossed like:
Okay, you tell me. If you give them tools they are more scared to start. It's very
personal. Some people are more used to doing creative things than others."
(Rosa)
sometimes it's hard to understand each other (Rosa)
"It's really helpful to get in their minds more since I am going to work with
healthcare professionals in the future. The way of making choices is a big
difference because healthcare professionals are following a lot of protocols.
When I was going to use a Co-Design method they wanted to know how I make
the results measurable and what analysis I am going to use. They are used to
filling in forms and not to qualitative interviews." (Rosa)
162
different approaches
"A lot of designers want to discover a complex problem from different angles
and just try something and see what the result is and then design further. I
came up with some ideas and they wanted to know how I got it. And I said well
it's just my creative mind. Explain yourself why you are doing this, that's what
they are used to not just trying things." (Rosa) "I explained it a bit and I think
they went with it. But I am not sure if they fully understood it. Some of the
people were really curious about Co-Design because they see the outcome."
(Rosa) "Because leadership failed to explicitly surface industry values,
participants from different industry groups found themselves blaming one
another for the project’s slow progress. Software engineers bemoaned the risk-
averse behavior of those in government and construction, while those in real
estate and construction focused on the engineers’ unrealistic time frames, and
so on." (Edmondson, 2014, p. 58)
stakeholders showing off their expertise (Rosa)
"We know better" (Remko)
lack of openness (Rosa)
"If all the stakeholders were open to doing creative things that would help me.
Sometimes they are scared. But not all always. Sometimes they stick to their
own thoughts. They think their dreams and what we want to hear in Co-Design
are not relevant. Maybe they think it's too personal and they see things rather
from a work perspective instead of a personal perspective." (Rosa) (maybe it's
the first time in the institution?)
stakeholders have an intellectual impairment (Rosa)
"With the clients (autism patients) it's even harder. Because we want to design
with them together, but they have a cognitive impairment (low IQ or autism).
So, it's not easy for them thinking of new things. In sessions like that it's
important to have more tools, and photos. Because sometimes they cannot
read." (Rosa)
Designers usually focus more on the design process; managers e.g. tend to
focus more on a "tangible" (end)product and not the process itself (Fenne)
Partners want to build something, want to be dynamic (right from the start).
Co-Designers try to do the design process more systematically, involving steps
like talking and lots of research. (Fenne)
commitment, engagement and expectations
"One that I find very clear and apparent is more in line with commitment and
engagement. To what extent are ppl from the inside and outside engaged in the
process? To what extent can you keep that engagement and not lose it over
time? And there is also sth with expectations: how much can you expect from
them and how much do they expect?" "Keeping commitment within the
company is really important and difficult because people have other projects
going one. Usually those are not strategic ones but more urgent. So, getting
people on board and keeping them on board is important. And also, clarity
what's expected and what they can expect." (Remko)
163
too much ownership/commitment (Remko)
"If you invite people again and again and they are very happy to be invited but
then they start to feel like owning the project. Then it gets very difficult to give
a project another direction. They are bound to be disappointed if the company
says we have to go into another direction. So balancing ..." (Remko)
different kinds of commitment over time (Remko)
"I use that in planning sometimes. What I like to do in the beginning of a

project to get common ground is to ask the dream question ("If you step in a
time machine and wake up two years later what would be a tremendous
success of this project?") Fraukje from Uni Delft did her PhD about that
Remko told
lack of tools (Remko)
meta involvement tool/get insight in the level of commitment over time and
also to optimize the amount of work that people have to do/how to and when
to involve them over time - "how to stage/conduct the planning of
commitment, something to compose/orchestrate a process and how can you
make that an open point of discussion over time"/"I don't have a lot of explicit
tools or methods to do that but I am very interested in" (Remko)
lack of interest/hard to reach, convince (Rosa)
"There are some who are really interested in the co-Design project, but some
aren't. Those are the most difficult to get along but also the most interesting to
design for. Because they are most stuck in their behavior and that's the
behavior you want to change sometimes with Co-Design."/"The ones who are
the hardest to reach are the one you want to convince." (Rosa)
stakeholders don't want to engage with ideas (Rosa)
"In ‘Powertools’ one of the most difficult things is that if they've seen an idea
on paper a lot of people think it already exists. And if you want to brainstorm
on it they say: But it's already there. They want to do new things." (Rosa)
lack of time (don't have or don't want to make time) (Berit)
Sometimes something bad happens at the very beginning of the project and
after that the willingness of attending anymore was gone.
Maybe some people who are involved and attending aren't actually the most
important stakeholders. (Berit)
This is a problem that can slow down the whole process.
the selection/decision-making process is difficult (Remko)
by sorting projects you are always disappointing people - unclarity of who is

going to decide unclarity about who has which decision power - in the
choosing and selecting process you also learn a lot - there is never full
objectivity (referring to the ‘Powertool’ meeting that Fenne told about) - "I
would try to be more clear about how we are going to synthetize the ideas and
how to listen to the different stakeholders, how to understand each other's
164
contributions rather than assuming that we all can participate on an equal
basis. Much more really utilize the different perspectives." (Remko)
if problems (or other 'hard" decisions are discussed in the same meeting as
creative sessions (this slows down the "creative flow") (Fenne)
How can it be managed that managers can explicit their feelings and thoughts
better? (Fenne)
struggle with special target groups (Rosa)
"It's not that they didn't want to participate. But they couldn't understand
what a dream was for example." (Rosa)
little focus on the stakeholders' involvement (Remko)
"We were looking full force at the outside world or the users but kind of
ignoring a little bit the people that are going to build the intervention.
Nowadays I think much more in terms of having these flows of reaching out to
the outside world or users but then also reaching out to the people who are
going to need to work with our material."/"Back then we felt like we need to do
this evangelizing. User-centered design is almost like a belief. We need to
convince them. But we stepped away from this. It's not so necessary anymore.
A lot of people are aware that we need to include the users in the process."
(Remko)
uncertain roles (Remko)
"ICT agency had its own way of working. We didn't prepare them well enough
to be part"/"We didn't talk about how our relationship was"/"They had a
bigger project and we did just a little bit"/"They kind of ignored what we had
done (which we found was cool)"/"There was enough clarity with the tax
agency. But then there was this ICT agency with their own way of working. It
was almost a political thing." (Remko)
too many stakeholders = too many different point of views (Fenne)
If there are too many of different stakeholders the project feels quite complex.
You should always think about (even at the beginning of the project) which
partners do you really need for the project! (Fenne)
frustration (Fenne)
Frustration (e.g. because of a lack of communication) can destroy the whole

project. (Fenne)
Even there is an artefact at the end of the project, the project can be seen as
unsuccessful when the stakeholders are unhappy/ feel frustrated (Berit)
Frustration because of low commitment, bad communication, not knowing

how to apply the learnings from the project in the everyday work/life.
No clear definition of what co-Design is
"It's about bringing those people to the design process whose expertise you
need in order to design a functioning service/product, someone who has
165
influence on the experience. This an be the user of course. But it can also be
other people."/"Enable them to function as experts of their experience in this
design process."/"Just asking people what do you think of this is not Co-
Design. It's more about giving directions or being able of directing the process.
To contribute whilst shaping the idea or the concept rather by only selecting or
being able to evaluate". (Remko)
good functionality/sustainability of the outcome (Remko)
"But if I look at the value of co-design I think I am looking much more at the
balance between the quality of the artefacts/service/intervention and the way
it has the potential of being adopted by the users" "Will it has the potential to
function over time rather than a democratic perspective where everybody
should be involved in the process." (Remko)
"At the end of my graduation project the healthcare professional who gave me
the assignment made the biggest compliment ever. He said the idea I
developed felt like it was his idea. I thought that's really awesome. You created
it together and he felt it was his project and he wants to continue with it. That's
the ultimate goal for a Co-Design project. He understands and feels like it's his
idea and because of this wants to be enthusiastic about it towards his
colleagues and everybody around him and I think that's the best way to adopt
a concept and that it will be a success in the end." (Rosa)
If you (as a designer) can leave the stakeholders alone with the outcome.
(Berit)
Sometimes there is a good process and a good outcome, but the stakeholders
(after the project) didn't know exactly how to use and how to teach their
colleagues. (Berit)
If everyone thinks there is a (good) outcome. The definition of a satisfying

outcome depends on the personality. (Berit)
It doesn't need to be an usable artifact. It can also be a document where

information about the project process, commitment/ shared understanding is
fixed (= the process itself is seen as successful). But: some people need a
tangible end product/ outcome, so that the project feels successful for them.
But: if there wasn't commitment during the project, the project can be seen as
unsuccessful even if there is a tangible outcome, because everyone has a bad
feeling about it.
There is no need to have all steps fixed in the project. It's better to decide what
comes next depending on the outcome/ insights of the last session. (Berit)
Maybe some different kind of session is more needed rather than another
workshop. The end result isn't that important during the project than the input
of every single session.
getting new input from the stakeholders in every session (Berit)
"That's really important for a successful project that there is a meeting (where)
you share things, create things ... you make actions (tasks), than you go all
your own way ... you do all your own things ... and thinking about it,
documenting it in his/her own way and in the new session they all bring the
documents that they created... there could be discussions in smaller groups...
166
and in the new sessions they all come together and they shared what was
happening inbetween. That's more co-creation." (Berit)
enthusiasm (Rosa) / being inspired (Berit)
"I have experienced projects really differently. Part of what makes it great is
your own enthusiasm. In the Engage project the Co-Designing is really good
because everybody is really enthusiastic. The speech therapists are used to
doing creative stuff with their hands and post-its, and if we give them some
stuff they immediately start working and making things." (Rosa)
enthusiasm creates a shared identity / bridges differences (Rosa) / can create

commitment (Berit)
"Their enthusiasm for the project’s unique combination of technical

innovation and bold demonstration of new possibilities brought people
together and gave them, for all their differences, a shared identity."
(Edmondson 2014: 55)
one stakeholder in the group who is really enthusiastic (Rosa)
"Everybody together of course but in particular a stakeholder in the team who

is really enthusiastic and gets everybody. That can be the designer but it's a
bigger success factor if it's somebody from the company. Because in a Co-
Design project the designer goes away at the end and the company has to
continue with it. And if there is somebody in the company who already
adapted the way of thinking and the concept it will be the most
successful."/"It's a bit luck." (Rosa)
a creative/innovation culture/mindset of Co-Design in a company helps but is

not necessary (Rosa)
"You can teach them. It just needs more time. Depends on the duration of the
project. Briefing takes place in every project. Short projects could end up
failing because people didn't get what you were trying to tell them. But it also
depends on how good you are as a teacher I guess." (Rosa)
If all necessary stakeholders are involved; and if only those take part who are
really necessary (keep the number of stakeholders as low as possible!) (Fenne)
If the important partners are missing what can we do to catch them during the
project, e.g. to join every necessary meeting? What should we do when
important partner joins when the project already has started (and missed the
kick-off)? (Fenne)
orchestrate people well (Remko)
"I am very interested in this idea of orchestrating. If you are in a design or

innovation process which takes a year or so you can't ask people to be fully
involved this whole year, to attend everything together. The facilitator has to
be very sensitive and respectful to the time of people and the potential
influence they can have. In that sense the facilitators is really important in
steering when to involve the people from the outside world like the users and
when to involve the people from the inside world like the engineers, and make
that into an optimal experience. This mostly happens in small bursts. What
happens in between the bursts is also important in order to keep people
167
informed or in line. Otherwise they have to start all over again. So a proper
orchestration of the process is very important and difficult."/"It's not taught
very much for designers." (Remko)
Should different stakeholders be treated differently (at the beginning of the

project)? (Fenne)
Depending on how well they know each other, on their understanding of the
design process, ...
depends on the background of the designer/ facilitator/ project leader (Berit)
The background of the designer makes a difference in how they approach a

project. Example: The designer with a background in arts really wanted to
make/ deliver/ create/ design things (focus on the outcome, like "there will be
an artifact"). The designer with a background in management was more
focused on the project process itself and involving people/ all kind of
stakeholders. (Berit)
Highness of shared understanding/commitment depends on how well the

stakeholders know each other/ if they already have worked together/ how well
integrated they are/ if they know how designers work (Fenne)
Should different stakeholders be treated differently in the beginning of the

project? How (extra workshop(s))? (Fenne)
"The commitment can be changing over time" (Berit)
Sometimes there is high commitment during the workshop(s), but afterwards

in the everyday life it gets low. People can get frustrated if they don't know
how to apply what they've learned during the project in their own work
environment.
steady communication/building trust trough a lot of personal meetings (Rosa)
"I went to the healthcare institution ten times during my graduation. That's a
lot. Because I wanted to my target group and stakeholders. Once there were
one and a half months since the last meeting and I wasn't sure if I was going in
the right direction. I thought in a Co-Design project I cannot decide on my
own, I want to decide together. I think if you're not able to do a lot of
workshops due to other duties it's important to stay in contact with
everybody."/"In ‘Powertools’ we have three ways to communicate because
there are so many students and stakeholders. There is a Facebook page where
the students talk, a newsletter that is also sent to all the healthcare institutions
about where the projects are at the moment and we have some pitches of the
students every six weeks. Everybody is invited."/"But not everybody is there. It
would be interesting to know if everybody reads the newsletter and if they like
it." (Rosa)
A good communication process during the project is important. That makes

people really willing to work together. (Berit)
cooperative/ shared understanding: documented way of working with people;

agreement of how to work together; shared tools and documents throughout
the project members
168
create/define a common goal/shared understanding/joint vision and make it
clear to all project members (Fenne)
Especially at the beginning of a project it's important to create shared

understanding and to frame a common goal that everyone involved agrees. "A
project is successful if there is real shared understanding". (Fenne)
changing goals should be made explicit (Fenne)
Thoughts and needs should be recorded at the beginning and during the
project. They should be realized by everyone. And don't forget to look back at
and rethink them! (Iterative process! Not only in the design process, also in
the decision-making process). (Fenne)
169
8. Appendix: Interview Guideline Part I – Goals and
Culture
Ask about anonymity preference. Explain recording and transcription process.

Explain purpose of the study. Ask about demographic information.
Age
Level of education
Area of specialization
Years of experience
Current job title
Company location
Company size
Size of department
Industry/sector
Tell me about your background in XX. How did you start and where are you
now?
What do you see yourself doing five years from now?
What do you enjoy most about your job? What do you always tackle first?
What do you not like about working in XX? What do you procrastinate on?
What do you think is important to XX people? What do they like and dislike at
work?
What is a typical day like? // (What did you do when you first came in today?
What did you do after that?)
What would be an unusual event?
What makes a good day? A bad day?
What activities currently waste your time?
Name five adjectives that describe XX people.

170
Do you have a strong sense of who is and who is not a XX person? How can
you tell?
What were relationships like with other groups outside XX? What groups do
you like?
to work with or not work with and why?
What helps you make decisions?
How do you like taking decisions? quick – slow; superficial – thorough; Well-
founded – uninformed; structured – unstructured; fair – unfair; emotional –
rational; hierarchical – equitable; complex – simple; open – guided; uneasy –
pleasant; surprising – predictable
In the design process what are the most common things you do?
What parts of the design process do you use most? (what is your role in the
project?)
What are your favorite aspects of the design process? Where do you want to get
involved much?
What drives you crazy?
How much do you want to get involved at all? And how much do you want to get
involved in creative session?
Does the Green Deal project is worth your time and money? Why?
Under which circumstances a workshop/meeting is worthwhile for you and your

job?
How much time are you able to invest in percent comparing to other projects?
How much is that in hours per week?
When does a workshop/meeting get your full attention? Why?
What outcome do you have in mind when attending a Green Deal

workshop/meeting?
How did the last Green Deal meeting/workshop make you feel? (e.g. creative,
smart, professional, appreciated, uncomfortable, an outsider). Why? How did
the whole project make you feel? Why?
How would you prefer to feel when attending a meeting/workshop of the

Creative Producers project?
171
When you think of your boss/superior/employer: How do you want to feel in
the Creative Producers project?
Why does your superior/company want you to be in the project?
What are her/his expectations towards you?
What is his/her goal?
What would be a dream outcome or her/his in this project?
What would he/she consider failure?
Questions about organizational culture:
In your unit, do you focus more on the how or on the what when you carry out
work? Is it more important to achieve a result even if that means taking some
risks? Or is it more important how you do things focusing on the process, and
rather avoiding risks?
Do your working days feel very much the same to you or do they bring new
challenges? And how do you feel about it? Do you feel comfortable in unfamiliar
situations or do you feel better in a routine-based environment?
What is more respected in your department: ethics, honesty, and correctly

following procedures or results and customer’s requirements? Please name an
example.
Would you say your work environment is rather serious and disciplined or little
controlled and easy-going? Can you illustrate this with the help of some
examples, please?
When you were recruited did your personal life play a role in the interview or
only your job competences? Do you rather identify with your boss or would
you say you are more determined by your profession or content of your job?
Do you feel a strong or some social control to be like everybody else around
you?
How much time did you need to feel at home in your company? A few days or
did it take a long time, maybe a year or more? How would you describe the
communication climate in your company? As rather secretive or rather open?
How do you perceive your unit/company: Does it take responsibility for you and
your family’s welfare or is it only interested in the work you do? Are important
decisions made by individuals or collectively?
172
To which degree are you in line with you direct boss’s preferences? Is there some
conflict between her/his expectations towards you and the way you act in the
project?
To which degree do you identify with your organisation? Do you identify with
different aspects more than with others, including internal goals, the client, your
own group, your boss, the whole organisation?
173
9. Appendix: Interview Guideline Part II – Process and
Stakeholders
1. Please describe the Smart Energy Cities Program briefly. (not

more than 30 min)
a. What is the goal/vision?
b. In which case will this program be considered successful and by
whom?
c. Who is ultimately responsible for this program and in control?
d. What is the time frame of the program?
e. Is the program dealing with a wicked problem? If yes,
why/how?
2. Who are the key stakeholders?50 (Not more than one hour)
a. How did you identify them?
b. Please describe their role by power and importance.
3. Please describe each role of the management group, including

profession, organization, personal goal, business goals, responsibilities,
behavior, preferences, etc.
i. a creative producer (for residents)
ii. an innovation coach (energy expert)
iii. a representative of the network administrator
4. How is the program being scheduled? (sub-division into projects?)

(One hour time)
a. At what stage of the program are you now? / What’s the state of
affairs?
50If you like, categorize them by internal and external stakeholders or any other
category.
174
b. Please describe the design process of the first phase/stage of the
program. If possible, draw it.51
c. Please describe the methods used in the different stages of the
project, including expenditure of time, complexity, creativity,
decision-making, etc.
9.1. How and when was each key stakeholder involved in the design
process?
51
What kind of process did the stakeholders go through? A formal project
management process? A specific (?) co-design project process? An iteratively design
process?
175
(Additional questions if there is time left:)
a. How were the people in the management group selected?

b. Describe the collaboration of the management group.
c. Please describe advantages of the collaboration of the
management group.
d. Please describe disadvantages/obstacles of the collaboration of
the management group.
e. Who took the lead? Why and how did that happen?
f. Did the role of a participant/stakeholder change during the
project (e.g. more/less responsibility)?
g. How did you manage this change concerning the involvement?
h. Were there stakeholders that have multiple roles in the project?
i. Did you face (serious) problems with one of/ some stakeholders
(trying to involve them)? Why?
j. What do you find the most challenging concerning stakeholder
involvement in your project?
176
10. Appendix: Interview Transcript User 1
• User 1, 66 years old

• professional specialisation: service design for the last 6-7 years, before
many years in marketing running his own business, but "I am not in
marketing anymore”.
• educational specialisation: university degree (Diplom) in political
sciences
• current job title: Partner at a consultancy firm for service innovation at
A., Netherlands
• company size: 8 people, no departments
• industry/sector: creative industry
Question Answer Codes/Memo/
Paraphrase
Tell me about your How do I make a long story short? We Opportunity-seeking

background in had a national program 8-10 years ago
service design. which was to stimulate the creative
How did you start industry. We also had this program here
and where are you in Amersfoort and other cities. One of the
now? challenges was how do we connect the
creative sector with the rest of the
economy. There was a think tank and I
volunteered to be part of that think tank.
That got me thinking how do we make
that connection? What they did before
was having a website, have all the
creatives there, they organized BBQs and
speed dates, it was all not really
structured. So, the question for me was
not so much how do we match the
creative industry say the supplier with the
demand for ??? services but what is at
stake? How do we use creativity in a more
business-like sense? And that was
innovation. That’s a logical step. And
then considering what we have here in A.
I think 90 % what’s happening here are
service oriented companies. Then came:
well we have creativity, we have services,
and I had never heard of service design. I
Adaptable realist
just read a little book about the role of
design and that was the frontline of
design thinking. That got me thinking:
How do I make the connection on a more
structured level? I came to service design.
It’s the right approach to have creative
methods and also, to be of use to create
177
new services and create new propositions
and value for potential customers. That
was a proposition emerging. And
secondly, I got involved with the area of
business model innovation. This was also
mainstreamed to use creative methods to
innovate unique business models. So,
there was a nice complementary
interaction between service design,
between business model innovation and
the context that we have here. So, I made
a plan with a partner that also involved
the municipality here and set up a
program which consisted of having accommodative
workshops, and that stuff and they really learning style;
loved it…like “this was just what we solution phase
needed, this was just great”. So, we got a
budget and started organizing workshops
inviting people from the businesses. We
went to business clubs, held pitches and
whatever. That was the start of it.
risk taking, actively

influences people and
changes situations,
good at getting things
accomplished, values
having an influence
on the environment
and like to see results
(Kolb, 2015, p. 105)
Back then you I had a sofa company and I sold it. Then I Owner/risk-taking
were still in ran my own marketing company for eight
marketing? years as single. This was a completely wants his work to
different challenge. It was a new contribute to
intellectual challenge but also very something that
relevant. You know that twist to the matters to him
program instead of speed dates and
BBQs. That's not structural. There is not a
good model and thinking behind it. This
was much more robust, and the
municipality loved it so we got a starting
budget and from then on it really started
rolling. At first, we thought we'd have
some local customers but within a year
we had customers all over the
Netherlands, also big companies which
we never expected. So, in a couple of
years we had another partner who
decided to join the company instead of
having three lose partners and created a
company with a name and a brand and a
value proposition. From then on it started
rolling and we got into more and more
projects.
178
And these complex Yeah, that's all we wanted. So, were we
things are started and were we are now if that's what
something that you're asking: it is behavioural and
challenges you and organisational design. You can frame it
that you wanted this way. Which are new areas and they
to...? are all related.
Within these last Yes

seven years you
have been through
a transition from a
marketing expert
to a service
designer.
What do you see Nothing (laughs). Setting on a Greek Enjoys life

yourself doing five island and sailing.
years from now?
So, you will retire. Well, yes as long as I like it I will keep
going. But then I will be in Greece or Italy
or wherever. Somewhere nice.
What do you enjoy First, understanding what question really Exploring the user,
most about your is. What's the question we're getting? and the problem,
job? What do you What is the project about? What do they curiosity, concrete-
always tackle want to achieve and why? Explore the experience orientation
first? problem and part of that is also who is
involved in a problem. Usually there is a
question behind the question. What are
people really asking? What are they really
looking for? When are they happy? With
what kind of answers would they be
happy?
What do you not I hate making reports, and PowerPoint Dislikes reports,
like about working slides. I hate documenting. I really don't documentation
in service design? like documenting. And also, I really don't
What do you like negativity. In some projects, you have Dislikes negativity,
procrastinate on? positive people who are not afraid, and dislikes fear of the
are comfortable. So, you can really new and scepticism
progress. And sometimes people are
tight, you really have to lose them up
every time. Usually they are afraid. So
how to get people in the comfort mode
and open them up a little bit. Negativity
and negative persons that's horrible.
Someone who always see objections
instead of opportunities.
What do you think Curiosity is one of the main capabilities. Understanding the
is important to What's happening here and who is here? user, likes talking to
service design In service design are always end users people, extraversion,
people at work? involved. So, who are they? What's really concerned with the
What do they like happening there? I like sitting at home uniqueness and
179
and dislike in and talking to people. And then you come complexity of present
general? back and then you have to abstract the reality (Kolb, 2015, p.
results into a model and it gets to a 105), listen with an
scientific circle. And you always get this open mind, empathy
horrible feeling that's not reality. I mean
a map is not the territory. So, you always
have to be very curious. Also, you have to
be empathetic. We can have endless
discussions about what's empathy, but I
think it's an ability to listen and to ask the Likes challenges,
right questions. I think that's really
important. And then the next thing is Miraculous process,
when you have this data: How do you loves the service
make sense of that? You have loads of design process and
qualitative data. You have quotes, you the surprising results,
have all these different people. So, what “I really like the pre-
are the patterns? What do I see? That's phase, personally the
also a thing a good service designer likes. qualitative research.”
That's a nice challenge having all this.
And there always emerges something.
That's a miraculous process. You see
patterns maybe not as clear. But then
something emerges and then you say:
Yes! (snips) Now I have this, this, this.
That's great. Service designers love that.
And then you have to translate these
insights into whatever, a concept, or new
services. That's a different challenge and
then you have to test that. Some people
really like this idea generation, that
concepting phase. Some really like the
implantation phase. I like really the pre-
phase, personally the qualitative
research. Tonight, we have a workshop in
Eindhoven with tenants. We create our
own information material. How would
they like to be informed? If you have a
drawing: Do they understand it? Is this
the right kind of drawing or do we make
another drawing? I really look forward to
this. But we tend to be here a little bit
more analytical then purely creative. The
right mix between analytical skills and
creative skills. If you find the right
balance I think you are good service
designer.
And again, in The biggest hurdle we usually have is that “The biggest hurdle
general what do people don't understand what we're we usually have is that
you think service doing. And qualitative research is people don't
designers dislike? complicated and takes a lot of time. You understand what
never know before where you end up we're doing.”
with. You don't know. Because it's
research. So, feeling uncomfortable is “Feeling
part of the process. When people are uncomfortable is part
trying to get control, and trying to fix the of the process.”
180
project then it's different. You are in a
different mindset. They really want to
make a project plan with the phases. You
can do that, but you will never know what
you come up with. In the end, we have
more experience making calculations,
getting a feeling of how many hours we're
gonna spend. But we never know the
outcome. It's a problem for them. We
work a lot in the public sphere with Comfortable with
municipalities or national government. unfamiliar situations
So, these people have a different culture.
They want results, reports. Everyone has
a stake in the process. But if you're on
this route not knowing exactly what's Sometimes impatient
happening is part of the deal. So, it takes and pushy
a lot of time to tune these people, our
customers to this way of working. And if
they tune that's great. But if they don't
that's...*exhales*. It's very tiring and
problematic. Then you get budget issues
and you come to all this kind of shit you
don't want to get into.
What is a typical There is never a typical day. We work in a “There is never a

day like? What do process. So, in all of our projects we go typical day.”
you do when you through the phases of the service design
first come in? process. So usually you're in one of these
phases and you have to do whatever is
necessary there. When you're in the
discovery phase you do a lot of research.
That could be desk research, but also
qualitative research like context mapping.
And if you have to make reports you have
to analyse. We have a lot of sessions and
all these sticky notes trying to make sense
of this. So, you spend the day doing that.
So, it really depends on the phase and the
project you're in. There is not a daily
routine. In general, we don't care so
much about the content or the sector
we're working in. For us the process is
our holy grail, and the skills and the
capabilities to manage that process. So, at
first, I check my mails. I know the task for
tomorrow and for the rest of the week. “There is not a daily
The things I have to prepare, when I have routine.”
to go and make a presentation, or we
have a meeting. Usually, I have one or
two meetings a day. So, you have to
prepare for that and when you come out
of a meeting whatever learned. That's
“The process is our
funny, when I walk into the office here
holy grail.”
and I see all these people here sitting.
We're always sitting here. So, what’s the
difference between an insurance
181
company and this? At an insurance
company, you also see people sitting in
front of their computers. So, we spend a
lot of time making reports and thinking
about and also, I can't work with
InDesign but most of the people here are
making visuals.
Not into visual Design
What would be an I don't know. Opening of a new building

unusual event in and you have to make a program and
your working invite people. I wouldn't know.
routine?
What makes a Of course, a good day is when you get a Business goal: get a
good day? new project. You make an offer, and new project;
someone signed it. That's always great.
What's also nice is when people prizes contact with
appreciate what you're doing. So, when I people who
talk to people in their homes and we have understand his values
these context mapping sessions or and the goals he is
workshops and people are enthusiastic. working toward; at
We always also take the clients on board. ease with people and
So, when they join a workshop they really interested in them;
like it because it's so different from the people generally like
way they are used to work. Now this kind him well enough to
of sessions are more common than they consider any
were a couple of years ago. Many offices compromise that he
in the municipalities when I walk in I see thinks ‘might work’
all these sticky notes and the same things
we're working with. So, it's getting more
common. And when they say afterwards:
That's nice. Because most people in those
organisations never talk to their clients.
They never go into their homes or out
into the streets and watch them. They
never do that. So that's great.
182
What makes a bad When you don't get it or I hate having Cares more about
day? arguments about bills. Luckily it doesn't purpose than money;
very often. But that's bad. A bad day establishes personal
is when a nice colleague says she or he is friendships
leaving the company. That's bad. That's divergent learner
really bad. Usually young people stay for
a couple of years and then they move on.
They grow, they stay for three, four,
maybe five years and then they move on. Business goal: keep
It's always like a soccer team...You create good staff
a talent and then they get bought by clubs
with a lot of money. It's good for them but
it's always a sad moment. You lose a lot of
expertise and skills you've been building
together. We have bit of our own way of
working, our own routines. I don't like it.
Can you name Curious, open-minded, thorough, Curious, open-

adjectives that empathetic, realistic, grounded. minded, thorough,
describe service empathetic, realistic,
designers? grounded
Do you have a No. Because if you still visualize the

strong sense of whole process some people are very good
who is a service at this and some are very good that.
designer and who That's still a service designer. But
is not a service generally service design thinking is
designer? Can you having the focus on people. That's how
tell if someone is a you can tell. That's one of the things. And focus on people, think
service designer? also, be able to visualize, to think in in pictures,
pictures. It's not just being able to draw. conceptualize a
But can you conceptualize a complex complex problem in a
problem in a drawing. To make the right drawing
choices.
What were We work a lot together with the

relationships like Hogeschool U. with the Co-design
with other groups research group of R. But also with people
outside the service in cross-media communication in the
design profession? public area and with them we developed Like to work with
What groups do this behavioural design tool kit. We do a researchers
you like work with lot of projects with them. They are
and what people lecturers, mostly. So, we have very strong
do you prefer not ties with the Hogeschool Utrecht which is
to work with? a nice balance between a more scientific
approach to practical problems. Most
things we're doing is not scientific but
inspirational. If you have a scientific way
of looking at it you can shoot holes in it
but it is inspirational. So, we like working
with these institutions, also with the
183
Technical University in Delft. There are
some consultancy firms we work with
because we are complementary. It works
well because say they are bluer and we
are the yellow. And that interacts very
nicely. They can't make personas, they
can't do qualitative research, they can't
analyse it. But they are very good at Like working with
structuring information. They are on a business consultants
different level. They are mostly business that complement
consultants.
Are there groups I don't like controllers. I don't like that Dislikes controllers
that you would way of thinking in figures, putting (highly abstract,
like to stay away everything into figures, in numbers. I am convergent learning
from, that you not very good at it so it makes me style); Experience
maybe had insecure. Am I missing something? That's goal: Wants to feel
difficult a fact. I find that difficult. But if it was a secure, wants to be in
experiences with client of ours well we tried to set up a control
due to their cooperation with a large accountancy
backgrounds? firm to help their customers. They do the
finance stuff, we do the innovation stuff
and in the end, it never worked. It wasn't
that I didn't like them. They dropped out.
What makes you I am dialogue person. So, I have a clue “I am dialogue

help decisions? and sometimes an intuition and then I person.”
have to talk about that. Maybe I am
completely wrong, so I make sure if it
makes any sense. That's usually the way it
starts. From this it refines. You have a Likes to get feedback
broad idea and then you learn you need
that to do that. It gets much more
detailed. That's a nice process. You take
projects that are similar or try to find
literature on the subject which might
help. I try to read a lot about innovation,
service design, and methodology.
Sometimes you pick up just a phrase or
drawing. And you think: That's a way how
to tackle a problem. It's a bit intuitive. I
am not very structured. I not
unstructured, I know what I am doing.
Things fall into part and then you review
it again: Does it still make sense. And
when you've done that it's much easier to
make a calculation of the time you spend “I am not very
to do that. We always need to make structured.”
calculations for our clients how much
time we need and how much it costs. Nonquantative,
intuitive approach to
his work (cf. Kolb,
2015, p. 128)
184
So, you like to Yeah, but you need more detail. It's a “First of all, I have to
build a really process of getting the details. They arise get a general picture.”
broad information more or less when you ask the right
base on which you questions. First of all, I have to get a
take a decision. general picture. The next thing: When I
want this what do I have to do to get
there? Do I have to do a stakeholder
mapping? Do I have to do interviews? Do
I need expert interview, or do I have to do
something completely different? That
reminds me of a project or a project of a
colleague. That's how you build it up.
How do you like Quick or slow; superficial or thorough: in Likes quick, pleasant
taking decisions? between, well-founded or uninformed; and fair decision-
structured or unstructured in between; making, between
fair or unfair; emotional or rational: in superficial and
between; hierarchical or equitable: that thorough, well-
depends on my role, when I am in charge founded, not too
of a meeting I want to get results so I structured neither to
have different role than when I am part of unstructured, slightly
a meeting and I just have to listen and hierarchical, not too
maybe give some advice, I am not all too emotional neither
patient, so I want to make progress, rational, between
probably in between but with a slight surprising and
tendency towards hierarchical; complex predictable, between
or simple: what? (we take that out); open open and guided
or guided: in between; uneasy or
pleasant; surprising or predictable: it's
great when surprising is good, but you
also can have negative surprise. Also,
that's not easy to say: in between
In the design The most common thing is asking Interested in other

process – what are questions. Trying to figure out and people’s ideas,
the most common inviting people to come, to talk about opinions
things you do? opinions, ideas.
What are your In the qualitative research Wants to be involved

favourite aspects in the qualitative
of the design research in the design
process? Where do process
you want to get
involved as much
as possible?
What drives you Agendas, that's the thing I hate most. “Agendas, that's the
crazy in the design Organizing things and getting people on thing I hate most.”
process? board and then they all have their
agendas and you never have the time to
plan a meeting or workshop. That really
drives me crazy. The time it costs to Inflexibility of others
organize something. ‘Ah so full. Come drives him crazy
back next month, I have one hour for
you.’ Especially when you do interviews.
185
In Eindhoven, I had to do a lot a lot of
interviews with a lot of very busy people. Impatient, likes
It takes months before you have spoken progress
to all the people. I really find that
frustrating.
How much do you Well, I run the workshops. So, I am As facilitator is

want to get involved in everything. Usually, we work involved in almost the
involved at all in in small teams of 2 to 3 people. And that's entire design process,
the process? And the max. That's always for me because I likes to be part of the
how much do you can't draw, I need people who can draw. creative sessions;
want to get That's more drawing creative. But I am
involved in most of the time part of the process. I try Likes to know what’s
creative sessions? to outsource or give people here on the going on
team some responsibility. But in the end,
I am always watching and seeing what's
happening. But I like to be part of the
creative sessions.
Is the Green Deal Well, it's not my money. I make money of “It's more the
Smart Energy the project. First of all, it's a very challenge not the
Cities program interesting topic. It has to do with energy money.”
worth your time and sustainability. Secondly, the
and money? Why? approach is a new challenge. We did
some work in this area but not on this
scale, so we had really find our way how Is on the project
to tackle these kinds of projects. It's more because it earns him
the challenge not the money. You can see money, it’s an
that first of all as learning. It's also part of interesting topic, a
the acquisition. I had a lot of follow-up new challenge, a good
projects. Not inside the Green Deal but chance to get follow-
on top of it. I earned much more and had up projects
much more projects than this initial (acquisition)
project. It was a platform first of all to
learn a lot and secondly to build up a
good network.
Under which If it's clear for us that workshop is the A meeting/workshop

circumstances is a right tool, I mean you have many is worthwhile when it
workshop/meeting workshop formats. You can do a lot of gives new insights,
worthwhile for different things in a workshop. But if you makes the process
you and your job? think of that kind of co-creative sessions proceed, or involves
what is useful to bring the process and convinces
further. Why do I want to have a stakeholders
workshop here and what would be the
outcome? Why not another format? If
there is a benefit for the process and it
gets us insights- Insights from a research
point of view but you also can see a more
political point of view involving
stakeholders in the process, make them
part and give them ownership which
sometimes makes it much easier if you
want to implement something. To involve
them early then workshops are a nice
186
format to do that. Then it's absolutely
worthwhile.
How much time 80 percent of my time. I had three Invests 80% (2-30
are you able to projects inside the Green Deal. We also hours/week) of his
invest into the had a meeting with the Creative total time in the
Green Deal Smart Producers, and Remko...there was a lot project
Energy Cities around it. There were happenings, and
project in we had to make presentations, there was
percentage a lot going on. So, it took almost all my
comparing to time. That's around 20-30 hours per
other projects week. I still have another company beside
(hours per week)? this.
When does a If I am part of a workshop that someone Wants to be inspired

workshop/meeting else is giving that really depends on the in a
get your full skills of the workshop giver. Visualizing, meeting/workshop
attention? Why? framing and re-framing the information, and wants to feel like
make progress so you have a feeling of there is progress
going ahead and not sticking in it, and
also if something gives you a new insight,
like: never thought about this, that's
great. If someone giving a workshop is Likes when someone
able to really harvest new insights and is able to harvest new
phrase them. Phrasing is very important, insights and phrase
finding the right words (snips his them properly
fingers). You probably know that if you
find the words, yes, that's it. When it was
really worth coming here today.
What outcome do I am usually not attending, my role is End goal: get new
you have in mind giving, not attending. When I am giving a input, feel up-to-date,
when workshop I already told you: It could be make progress, not
attending/giving a just stakeholder involvement, learning waste time
Green Deal Smart something new, and making progress.
Energy Cities Getting somewhere is important.
workshop or
meeting? goal-oriented
“Getting somewhere
is important.”
How did the last It was good, it was nice. Our client had Experience goals:
workshop/meeting invited a lot of people which would attend Tackling unexpected
make you feel? the workshop. We thought we would have challenges, feel smart
a workshop with five and suddenly we and in control
were 16. Why? I had never met those
people. You cannot give a workshop with
16 people. So, we had to improvise. We
were two, so we split. I gave my young “We had a good
colleague the responsibility to take one discussion and we
and I took the other groups. We split the made progress and
subjects and that worked very well. We we had all our sticky
had a good discussion and we made notes. Everything
progress and we had all our sticky notes. was there. We
Everything was there. We involved the involved the people
187
people who should be involved. We got who should be
them talking and creating ideas, and we involved.”
made progress. So, in the end we made a
customer journey and we finished that.
So, you felt Yes, it was good in every aspect. It was Likes to
successful? not just the end result but also that these activate/influence/
people were actively participating and
involved in the process. The most empower people,
important thing is: It's not my thing I am make them contribute
just facilitating things for others. They and take ownership
have to feel ownership, that's their
process, not mine. And if you succeed in
that then the people talk and give
solutions and ideas. It's not always like
that (*laughs*).
How does the There were eleven projects and I did Likes to frame the
whole Green Deal three. About those I felt mixed. That has question, find the
project make you to do with the setting of this whole right people, make a
feel? program. Because it was subsidised, and useful plan with a
it wasn't very well prepared. So, we were reasonable timeframe
thrown into something and before we and budget
started with what actually is the question.
Is this the kind of question where a
service designer is the best person to give
you an answer? Maybe you need an “I personally learned
accountant or a marketer. So, framing the a lot.”
question, finding the right people,
making a useful plan within a relatively
timeframe and budget that was the main
challenge. That was a lesson learned. I It makes him feel
personally learned a lot. I think in the uncomfortable that
outcome of the projects we could have the outcome was
done much more but it was so small. So, minimal (“only the
it was only the beginning. That's an beginning”) –> likes
uncomfortable feeling. Because you to accomplish things,
started something but then you have to doesn’t like to stop in
cut it off. We have to take them a step the middle, has high
further. We have now a follow-up of the expectations
project. It's instructive but it's not the
way to do it. The model as an outcome is
very nice. We have a lot of tools. I think
we have much better equipment now if
the municipality came with the same
question we'd be quicker to handle it and
had a better impression of what is the
question and also to give them a better Likes the feeling of
impression of the possible outcome when being prepared for a
you have three months. similar kind of project
How would you We change the world. (*laughs*) The Would like to have
prefer to feel? outcome would be to have a hundred more influence/power
thousand buildings being energy neutral. to change things,
We didn't get there. We have a problem stagnation frustrates
here in the Netherlands, and we didn't him
188
solve that problem and we didn't make
enough headway. If you go in a speed like
this you know...It's not only me, it's the
whole process, the whole wicked
problem, this whole multi-stakeholder
environment. My big insight was when
you create this ownership which really
takes time then you are getting nowhere
with these stakeholders. You need skills.
Most of the people who are responsible
for this project doesn’t have these skills.
They are the owner of the problem. They Wants other people to
have to develop the skills not me. So, do I take responsibility,
do that? Their role is to really get these put more effort,
results and be responsible for the develop more skills.
process.
So, you would like Yes, but also what I would like to see is
to feel like there is that people acknowledge what is
something necessary to tackle this kind of problems.
moving, there is And also, to have them organize
something themselves to really do that. But they
happening, people don't.
take
responsibility?
So you feel kind of I am not helpless. It's a huge challenge

helpless. because I can't change that. They are
stuck in their own organisation, they have
budget cuts and they are understaffed.
There are a lot of limitations which are Would like to have
outside my sphere of influence which more influence.
makes these projects difficult.
How does your I have my inner boss. There is always Wants to know what’s
superior/company your inner voice that tells you...(*laughs*) going on, likes to be in
want you to feel in First, I want to have the idea that I know control, likes to know
the project? what's happening, were we are. And that people appreciate
secondly, are the people I am working for his work wants to
are happy with what we are doing? Do please
they understand and like what we are
doing? Do they see the value? That's the
most important part.
Why does your There are many reasons to be in the Likes to bring
inner boss want project. Otherwise I would be sitting out something to a good
you to be in the in the streets and just smoke cigarettes end,
project? instead of doing something useful. There
is always a personal challenge to bring Likes simplicity,
something to a good end and see what projects shouldn’t be
you can do. I like the challenge and also, I too complicated
would like it not to be too complicated. anymore
Sometimes you have really complicated
projects and problems and I don't like
that anymore. I want to make it clear and
break it up into small manageable parts
189
that everyone can see so in the end of the
day you can still make the progress.
That's funny: I used the word progress a
lot of times during the interview. I realize
how important that is. Usually we don't
have much budget and time, so you have
to be efficient. But you can't push that's
the funny thing about this whole co-
creation game.
What are your That we would be seen as a partner of Wants to do a good

inner boss' choice who could really make a difference job and be
expectations in these very very complicated processes. professional, cares
towards you? That we are recommended. about his reputation
What would you The opposite. They did a lousy job, don't
consider failure? talk to them.
In your There is always risk involved in the things Result-oriented

unit/company do we do because you never know what culture
you focus more on you’re dealing with. Risk is part of the
the how or on the deal. First, it's not the how but the why.
what when you Why is this question asked to us?
carry out work? Is Framing is always what we start with. The company is more
it more important Framing the question. That's a why. And focused on achieving
to achieve a result we always have to do that: make sure a result even if that
even if that means we're addressing the right problem. The means taking some
taking some risks? process is a holy grail because we know risks. “Risk is part of
Or is it more when we follow our process we always get the deal.” The process
important how results. And we always want a result, we is important but “we
you do things always want a good result. That's really always want a good
focussing on the what we want. result”.
process, and
rather risks?
User 1 perceives
himself as
comfortable with
unfamiliar situations
and puts a maximal
effort, each day
bringing new
challenges
Do your working We've been doing this now for a couple of There is some routine
days feel very years and for instance I made many thanks to their well-
much the same to customer journeys, so you feel known process, tools,
you or do they comfortable with making it. So, you can and methods but the
bring new say it's a routine but it's not because every context is always
challenges? And context is different. But the process you different. “Maybe 25
how do you feel feel more comfortable with the process. % is routine and the
about it? Do you That gives me always the faith that we rest is new or
feel comfortable in always end up with something different.”
unfamiliar worthwhile. The customer journeys are
situations or do always for different clients, in different
you feel better in a situations. Sometimes you have days
190
routine-based which feel like the day before. The routine
environment? is the process because I know that. That's
a routine or a skill. I like that. But the
situation where you apply your process is
always different. You never know. Of
course, I know but they don't know
(*laughs) The longer you do this - that's
also a pitfall because you tend to trust a
lot on your process a lot and you have
think we could do it better - but it's less
routine than expected. Maybe 25 % is
routine and the rest is new or different.
What is more Of course, customer requirements but the customer’s

respected in your again we have to always reframe requirements and
department: requirements. There is never a customer results are more
ethics, honesty, that says: I want this and you do that. We important (externally
and correctly always question what's at stake. That's driven) and a
following part of what we do. Then you have a pragmatic rather than
procedures or collective understanding and a well- an ethical or dogmatic
results and framed starting point. And then you attitude prevails
customer's work.
requirements?
Would you say On a personal level, I think it's easy- Rather easy-going
your work going. We are structured, not as work discipline with a
environment is structured as we would like. Maybe we rather loose internal
rather serious and should be more structured but in general, structure, a lack of
disciplined or little again, because we know how to do a predictability, and
controlled and project and how to deal with the different little control and
easy-going? steps of phases in a project you always discipline; there is
have a structure with agendas. In multi- quite a lot of
stakeholder environment, there is always improvisation and
something happening that's different or surprises
changing the perspective, or you're not
talking to the right organisation or
person. There is always something
unexpected. Easy-going but with “There is always
structure. This might sound like a something
contradiction but it's not. unexpected. Easy-
going but with
structure.”
When you recruit If someone like running, skiing or playing professional culture
does the personal chest that's not so very interesting. So, we where private lives are
life of the have a profile where we look at different considered
employee play a aspects of a person and of course the employee’s own, and
role in the professional skills are very important. But they think far ahead
interview or does that's not all because also you need good
only the job social skills that's really important. And
competency play a secondly, it's a kind of a personal trait are
role? Do you you a curious person, are you able to ask “Of course, the
rather identify the right questions. That's much more professional skills are
with your boss or important. Some people come here, and very important.”
would you say are they have a very nice portfolio and they
you more graduated but they lack empathetic skills.
191
determined by We want to have good visualizing skills
your profession or and a lot of them lack that also. And be The
content of your able to conceptualize. Are you able in all profession/content of
job? Do you feel a this to create concepts that's a high the job is more
strong or some ‘overthing’ and from there work down important than
social control to be again or do you always mess around with personal
like everybody else all these facts and data. So, we look at
around you? different aspects, but I mean family life is
not ... unless someone is an alcoholic. But
if you have dog or a cat you know... And I
think it's quite individualistic.
How much time I am going to ask. There is a difference more open

did you need to feeling at home and comfortable within a organizational
feel at home in week, you get familiar, make people and communication
your company? A get to know the people. But finding their climate, feel at home
few days or did it roles when they come from school, what's within a week
take a long time, expected that takes a couple of months. I
maybe a year or think we're rather open.
more? How would
you describe the
communication
climate in your
company? As
rather secretive or
rather open?
How do you When something dramatic or positive Rather employee-

perceive your thing happens in your life we're not super oriented
company? Does it involved, but we are involved. I think we organisational culture
take responsibility are involved and we try to understand where the members of
for you and your and help. We really show interest, but you staff feel that personal
family's welfare or know...If someone ask for help with problems are
is it only painting we would do that. considered; important
interested in the decisions are made by
work you do? Are What do you consider an important the partners (rather
important decision? collectively)
decisions made by
individuals or
collectively?
That takes a lot I could make an important decision in a

responsibility. project or on the structure of the
company which is completely different.
Like a budget Financial decisions are only made by my

decision. partners and me. But on a project level
you can make an important decision. It
really depends on what are you talking
about. It depends on the area where you
make the decision. Hiring and firing
people that's up to us, financial decisions
are up to the partners as well.
192
To which degree It's a bit the structure of this company. Degree of acceptance
do you identify We're three partners and every partner of leadership style
with your has responsibility for its own sales cannot be answered
organisation? Do targets. I have to get my own projects and
you identify with we all three have to do that. More or less
different aspects we're three little companies within a
more than with company. That's always about finding the
others, including right balance: What's really common?
internal goals, the What do we really share except the
client, your own billing? What are values, what's
group, your boss, important for us? Then we have this little
the whole mini...
organisation?
That's typical of ideate. The structure we
chose. We always have to pull the right
handles you be three islands instead of
one company. And sometimes that's not
easy because I tend to do projects
differently than my partners. So, if you
work for different partners you don't get
the same thing. We all do it differently.
We have the same process but we're
different persons. Sometimes we
exchange ideas and asking for feedback,
but I am responsible for my own projects
also to acquire them. And when we have
large projects usually we first try to get
people involved here because we have to
pay them, so they have to work. I don't
get paid like them. It's my risk because I
am an entrepreneur. I am not on the pay
role.
193

• area of specialization: IT development: “I was trained and worked for
five years as an architect, but now I’m specialized in IT development
(by self-studying/learning-on-the-job/learning-by-doing)” I’m trained
as an architect, but I didn’t design a building in the last 30 years. So,
I’m really a developer.”
• educational specialization: university degree (Diplom) in architecture
and urban planning
• current job title: owner + financial director + CFO + in charge of
special development projects of his architectural office at E.,
Netherlands
• company size: architectural office with 25 people + IT office
(developing their own software tool52 for building industry with > 100
people
• sector: IT
Question Answer Codes
Tell me about your We started by making Self-starter, seeks for

background in application on other opportunities
service design. How programs, extensions on accommodating
did you start and other programs. We
where are you started with CAD software
now? (computer aided design)
in the 1980s. First thing
we made/developed was a
library with a collection of
pre-designed pieces of
drawings of buildings (“a
building-object-library”).
And then a few years later
we started developing
additional programs to
make it easier to fit the
walls and the other parts
of the building together in
a very intelligent way so
that the one who uses the
software didn’t have to do
that himself. This was
automating the drawing
52
software is meant for residence to be able to influence changes in their own life (by starting
with the changes of their houses (with focus on energy saving) in the Green Deal project. But the
tool is much broader and can be used for all kind of changes.
194
work, using an owner
program to do the actual
model/drawing. So, we
made an application on an
existing CAD software.
Later we started
developing our own
software. We stepped one
step further and we said
‘well, the existing Goal-oriented
programs can’t facilitate as
enough to do what we
want’. The existing
programs could only be
operated by trained
software Entrepreneurial
engineers/users/architects
. I became a developer
because I started to use
software for my own
purposes to make digital
drawings as an architect.
We bought our first
program. It didn’t work
like we wanted and then
we started changing it.
That’s how .. the
beginning of my .. as an IT
developer. And then
slowly I specialized more
in IT development. And He is an IT
architecture became less developer
important for me as a
profession.
Ok. So, would I’m trained as an architect Computer Scientists

always call yourself but I never…I didn’t are mostly
a developer rather design a building in the convergent and
than an architect? last 30 years. So, I’m really assimilating learners
a developer. And not just (cf. Galpin et al.,
software development, it is 2007)
also … we try to be
involved in the use of the
software. Try to think
about the situations ‘how
you gonna use it’. We
develop also visions on
communication with large
groups of people. The Not just IT
software is really meant to development but
enable individual people also communication
to make choices in their principles
own life about the
adaptations their own
environments starting
with their house. We also
195
develop the vision of
people of ‘how people
should be enabled to do
that’ and then we designed
a tool to do it. So, it’s not
just IT development, it’s
also a kind of
communication principles
that we develop and
ensures the use in the
Green Deal project.
Is that some kind of Yes, of course. If we make

user research or software, we do usability
usability testing? testing.
So, you also do We design the software “We make our own
some kind of design ourselves, yes. To fit the specifications”
work? purposes that we defined
ourselves. So, we don’t
make software on the
specifications of somebody
else. We make our own
specifications and then we
make the software.
What do you see Same, but a bit on a higher Reaching higher

yourself doing five level. (laughs).
years from now?
What does that That means that we are Experimenting,

mean? experimenting with the activate and
activation of people to use influence other
our software. We do that people
together, for instance,
with user 1, who advises us
also about the way the
software should work and goal
should be adapted to be
easier to use for people
who are not used to
working with software and Business goal
we hope to improve the
software much further so
that big groups of users
can use it. At the moment
about 5.000 people are
using our software. And
we wish in 5 years it will
be a million in the
Netherlands.
That means you It is already user-friendly, Improve the

want to do it more but you can always software
user-centered/ user- improve it. The software,
friendly? we have now, is only
196
available for three years.
The first version was really
hard to understand for the
users. I think the third
version that is used in
Eindhoven in the project Make the product
that you are investigating sustainable
now…. There we see that
most users can
understand what happens
there. But then also you
have to include other
topics in the software to Vision/business goal
make it interesting enough
to keep people using it. So, Goals beyond the
it’s not just a one time use project
of the software that we are
aiming for. We want the
software to be the digital
home of the people where
they will coming back on a
regular basis to try out
different things. Not only
energy reduction but also
just to look how different
the house looks when you
move the table, for
instance. They can really
play in a game like way
with the houses and the
possibilities to change it.
We want to develop that
further in a way that it is
that interesting for people
that they will come back
on a regular basis at least
once a month.
But if you look at Yes. More customers, “More customers,

yourself in five more users! We really more users!”
years you will be want to explore that in the
still the owner and common years.
you will still be
working with the
software but on a
higher level? You
want to be more
sophisticated?
You want to Yes.

expand?
What do you enjoy (laughs) To make “Make something

most about your something happen that happen that looks
job? What is what looks impossible before impossible before
you did it. So, what we did
197
you always tackle is .. we designed a kind of you did it.”
first? software and everybody accommodative
told us it’s impossible
what you want. There is no
way that you can a
software that can do that.
We made a plan to
develop the software in
2001, that’s when we
started. And everybody Challenges motivate
thought we were totally him
crazy. And that was the
trigger to make it happen
(laughs).
Ok, that triggers you Yes. It triggers him if

when someone says: someone says,
‘that’s not possible’? “that’s not possible”.
And on a more daily Solve the problems that

base? What is what you meet when
you always tackle developing. So, every day
first? What do you you got new problems that
like to do in your you have to solve.
job?
What for example? That’s really on a technical Solve technical

basis… One of the main problems every day
problems in what we do is
performance, the speed of
the software. We do an
incredible amount of Make the system
calculations live when faster
people are changing their
building. That’s also why
other people said that it’s
impossible to do that. It’s
a much too heavy job for
the computer. The
challenge is to find a smart
way to do those Make the interface
calculations faster or … intuitive
well it becomes to
technical. It’s just mainly
performance problems on
the one hand, and on the
other hand it’s the
interface problem of ‘how
can you make a complex
problem understandable
for people who are not
professionals’.
So, that means that I don’t program myself. I I am not a

you program can program a little, but I programmer, I am a
yourself? am not a highly software architect.
198
sophisticated
programmer. We have a
lot of programmers in the
house. We design the
architecture of the
software, that’s why I am
still an architect. I’m a
software architect. The
principles that the
software uses to come to a
conclusion.
When you say what Well, the developers come He likes helping his
you most like about with problems. They were coders to think out
your job or what working on a task to make of the box look at
you always tackle a piece of the software and thinks from other
first and you say they meet problems that perspectives
“it’s improving the they cannot solve (divergent thinker)
speed of the themselves. So, you need
software” – what to help them to think out
exactly does it of their box and then it
mean? Like you helps when you are not
come to work in the totally involved in the
morning, what source code because then
would be the task you are too much focused
that you would like on the technical coding.
to tackle first? That doesn’t help to take
some distance and have an
overview of how you could
approach a problem in a
different way. So, it’s
basically helping people to
get out of their line of
thinking.
And how exactly do By brainstorming, let Try to approach the

you do that with them explain what the problem from a
them? problem is for them and different way by
try to approach it from a brainstorming
different way. divergent thinker
Ok, like you sit If somebody wants to go He likes to help his

together, and they through a wall and he is employees overcome
tell you what is not trying to do that for five a deadlocked
working and then days and says “well the situation. He likes to
you discuss the wall is too strong, I can’t act like a coach and
solutions? go through it. Then maybe bring in new
you can help him perspectives.
implement the idea that
he does need to go
through it as long as he
can’t get on the other side.
And then he also can go
around it, for instance, or
under it or over it. So, that
is basically what I’m doing
199
all the time when IT is
involved. So, I’m helping
people to think… to find
other solutions.
What is what you do What I don’t want to do is Dislikes financial

not like about being a CFO, for instance. and organisational
working in the (laughs) I really don’t like tasks.
development area? the parts of the work that
What do you have to do with the
procrastinate on? organization and the
What are tasks that financial and all the parts
you would hand to of running an
someone else? That organization. But it has to
you just don’t want be done.
to do?
The financial parts Well, the human Dislikes “The human

and what else does resources, for instance, resources, that kind
it involve? that kind of stuff. And of stuff.”
what I’m also doing is a lot
of acquisition. So, talking Likes talking to
with customers … well, I customers, because
like that because that’s it’s about the use of
about the use of our the software: “the
software, the vision that vision that we have
we have and about the and about the things
things that we make. I like that we make”
to tell about that and
convincing to use it in a
good way for the right
purposes. But the
technical/ operational
things that you need to do
to run an organization that
are the things that I am
not really fond of.
Like Hiring and Yes. It has to be done but “I don’t like

Firing? … management.”
Something that
managers would
also do … Yes. I don’t like
management.
When you think of On a general level… what Software developers

developers? What you see at work. What they like to work on new
do think is like is working on new things. Coming up
important to stuff. And what they don’t with a first version
developers? What like is finishing the new makes them really
do they like and stuff and get all the happy. But finalizing
what do they dislike problems out of it. So, they it they dislike.
at work? have a first version that
200
works … then they are
really happy. They like to
make the first version,
what they don’t like then –
and that’s about 20% of
the work mostly – and
then you have to finish it,
so you have to do the hard
work to get all the little
bugs out of it, etc. That’s
what they don’t like.
So, they like to Yes. Get a new problem They like to move on
move on quickly? and solve it. Yes. They like quickly.
to move on to new
functionality.
And anything else Well, most developers like Most developers like
that they typically very clear specifications of clear specifications
like or dislike? what you want them to and like to know why
make. Most developers they are making
like to understand why something.
they’re making what they
make. There are also
different kind of
developers, more in the
(autistic) spectrum, that
really don’t give a damn
why they make what they
make, so they just make it.
But also they would like to
have very strict
specifications.
In which spectrum? We call it autistic in the Some developers act

Netherlands. They have a very much within
little mental disorder that their own world
they only can live in their (autistic tendency).
own world. Some
developers go in that
direction. And what you
meant they don’t
communicate during the
development. It’s very
hard to get in the contact
with them … it’s kind of a
black box. You give
specifications to them and
then one month later you
get something that works.
(laughs)
They don’t tell you It’s really hard to get Prefers the
what they are information out of them. communicative
working/ how they Of all that kinds of developer who is
are would do it? developers, I like them
201
more when they are more interested in what he
communicative and that is doing
are also interested in why
they make it. For what
purpose and what the use
of the software is. We have
both kinds. You also need
both kinds because for
very technical dungeons of
the software you need the
first kind of programmer
that really focuses on just
making the bits and bytes
work. And on a higher
level, close to the interface
and the user you need to
understand how the
software is used.
What is a typical day It’s really different. I think His days are very
like for you? What three days in the week I’m different. Most of the
do you do when you not in the office. I’m out week he is out of
first come in? What talking to customers, office trying to sell
do you do after doing acquisition, talking and demonstrate the
that? to interested parties that software.
want to use the software.
For instance, talk with
user 1 about the use of our
software and optimization
of the software for the
project in Eindhoven. That
kind of work when I’m not
in the office. I’m doing a
lot of demonstration of the
software to possible There is no strict
customers. And then I organized working
have, I think, one day in a scheme.
week that I use to do the
management of the
organization, so financial
management, human
resource management, all
that kind of things. And
the rest is, but it’s not
really organized .. so it’s
not a strict scheme. And
the rest is talking to
developers and do
development. Helping
developers getting ahead.
And what did you do Yes. This morning Many different tasks
first when you came (laughs) … it’s not a typical ranging from legal
in today? day. This morning I wrote work to scientific
a paper for … we are suing work to acquisition.
another party. We’ve to go
202
into court. So, I have to do
some legal work.
Preparation of the process,
to that’s part of my
management tasks. And
then I called you.
And what you are I’m going to a possible

going to do after customer to do
that? demonstration of one of
the types of the software
we have. I hope to
convince him that he’s
gonna use it. It’s a large
construction company.
What would be an Well, I’m not very easy to Not easy to surprise
unusual event at surprise anymore. anymore
work for you? (laughs) All different kind
of things come by. So, I
couldn’t name a specific
event that I would call
unusual.
The Well, sometimes you have

party/court/legal that kind of things. It’s not
thing that you have the first time I go to court.
to do is not Ok, it’s not unusual then.
unusual? No.
What makes a good That I see something Seeing that

day for you at work? working in the software something works
that didn’t work before. Or that didn’t before is
that I see any interface a happy moment.
that looks good and is
understandable. You just
try things and when they
made it you see it then,
sometimes you
immediately see ‘Ok, that’s
not the way to go’. And
sometimes you think ‘Ok,
yeah, this is it!’. That’s a
happy moment then? Yes!
And what makes a A bad day is when you lose Goal: make/see
bad day? in court (laughs). A bad progress every day
day is where no pushy
progression is made.
You’re just waiting for
things to get ahead.
And what activities Well, management tasks goal: as little

currently waste feel like ‘waste of time’ for management as
your time? me. They are not but they possible
feel like that. You need to
203
do it, it’s necessary work.
But I don’t like it, so it
feels like a waste of time.
And sometimes when you
work with a lot of people,
inside and outside your
organization,
communication is really a
problem. To get
everything and everybody
aligned in the same
direction. That everybody Goal: depend on
has the same others as little as
understanding of a certain possible, proceed as
project. And sometimes, much as possible,
for instance, at the avoid feeling of
municipality of E. you wasting time
think that you’re getting
along and getting in the Goal: feeling in
right direction and there’s control
a budget for something to
do and suddenly
somebody didn’t do a job
because he was too busy
and then you’re just gone
back to zero. An awful
feeling that this was a
waste of time. A lot of
effort making something
happen and it doesn’t
work in the end outside of
your control.
And that’s This kind of things happen

something that on a regular basis. The
currently waste more people are involved
your time? in a process, the more the
risk is that something like
this happens.
Can you name five Intelligent. Straight- • Intelligent,

adjectives that forward thinking, so… • straight-
describe most developers are not forward
developers? really ‘out of their box’ thinking,
thinkers. Single, a lot of
• specialized,
Some kind of ‘lone developers don’t have a
ranger’? relation. (laughs) It’s • single,
really true. • lone-rangers,
• loyal,
• committed
Yes. You could also say
that gets them focused
but… (laughs). Loyal, a
developer is really loyal to
a company. Most
204
developers are. They’re
not job hoppers, most of
them. They’re also
committed to the project
that they are making.
Do you have a By his output? A prove is a The output shows

strong sense of who result. Can they make who is a developer
is and who is not a something? The output…
developer? How can the programs they make
you tell? are really the prove if
somebody is a developer
or a good developer or not.
If someone is a No, because there are There are different

developer, in different kind of kinds of developers
general, like if you developers. I told you so there is no strong
meet people … is about the developers who sense of who is a
there something can think and put developer
that gives you a themselves in the place of
strong sense of who the user. And there are the
is a developer or other ones who just focus
not? on their work. So, it’s
different. Both have their
value. Totally different
kind of developers. I’m
talking about software
developers, so you have
also developers of other
things. I think they have
different characteristics
then the software
developers.
In teamwork you Well, by the way they Developers approach

would not approach to work? Most their work
necessarily be able software developers are analytically
to tell who is a more analytic. They think
software developer more analytic. If you don’t
and who is not? think analytic you can’t
develop software. But not
everybody who thinks
analytic is also a
developer. If somebody is
not thinking analytic, he’s
not a good developer.
Ok, but you would No

stick to the answer
that you cannot
necessarily tell who
is or who is not a
developer?
What were Inside or outside the

relationships like organization?
205
with other groups
outside software
development? What
groups do you like
to work with or not
work with?
Outside as well… in
general?
Well, I would like to work Goal: working with

with people who are … a people who are like
combination of hands-on him: a combination
people that can think out- of hands-on and
of-the-box … but also can thinking out of the
maintain a direction of box, also flexible,
acting. People who are not and adaptable, who
beating about the bush but like to try new
do things. But also can do things, who are “very
things in a different way open”,
then it was done before. entrepreneurial
That are the people that I
want to work with.
Somebody who always is
“we don’t do that like this”
or “we always do it like
this” … you don’t get
anywhere. Not in my line
of business anymore. You
need people to do new
things. Very open. Yes.
And what do are What relation I have?

relationships like
with other groups
outside your own
development
profession?
Like the
relationships to
other professions.
Like when you’re
working in a multi-
stakeholder That differs a lot. When Cooperation with
environment – what you’re working for a city, employees of the
are the for instance, then you have municipality is
relationships like? people working there that difficult looks for
Like easy-going? don’t want to do anything people who
for you. And then it’s contribute to his
206
Like you cooperate really hard to make goals, who want to
well? Are there progression. But there are make progress in his
some parallels if also people there that way
you work with want to do different in a
special groups? new way. You meet all
kinds of people, people
you can work with and
then the relation is good
but you also have people
you need to work with
because you can’t depose
them and then it’s hard
work to you to make any
progression. So, the
quality of the relations is
really different depending
on the person that you are
He easily adapts to confronted with. You can’t
the situation? always choose who you are
working with because
somebody who buys our Good co-operation
software is pointing his with user 1 he
own context that have to prizes contacts with
deal with us. So, people who
sometimes it works very understand his
well, sometimes it doesn’t. values and goals he
With user 1, for instance, is working toward
we can really work very
well. He’s not fixed in his
thinking. He is also
constantly trying to find
new solutions for
problems and improve
processes and the way
we’re acting in the project.
Yes.
What helps you What helps me make A good plan helps

make decisions? decisions…A good plan him make decisions.
(laughs). An interesting …
we tend to choose for the He wants his work to
things that we like, the contribute to
nice things more than the something that
profitable things. matters to him,
Basically, we are not in wants to have a
here for the money. Of purpose beyond his
course, we need to earn pay check, and is a
money otherwise we’re not perfectionist
going to work anymore. wherever his feeling
But the driver of the is engaged.
decision is of course also
financial because you can
only keep things doing
207
that cost money. When the
budget is OK and the plan
is OK and it’s an
interesting project then
the decision is made easy.
Then you go for it. Yes.
How do you like quick or slow; superficial Preferred decision-

taking decisions? or thorough: in between making:
(when it’s a development
project it is often • quick
superficial, when it’s a • between
commercial project it’s superficial
always thorough), well- and thorough
founded or uninformed;
• well-founded
structured or
unstructured: in • between
between; fair or unfair; structured
emotional or rational: in and
between; hierarchical or unstructured
equitable: in between; • fair
open or guided: in • between
between; uneasy or emotional
pleasant; surprising or and rational
predictable: in between;
• in between
hierarchical
and equitable
• in between
open and
guided
• pleasant
• in between
surprising
and
predictable
Let’s come to the What we mostly do is Is responsible for

design process of think about the interface improving the
the Green Deal about the software, and interface and
project. What are the functionality of the functionality of the
the most common software… additional software in the
things that you do in functionality of the Green Deal process.
the design process? software to make the
software appealing to the
That’s your users.
personal task as
well?
Yes.
What are your In describing the goals. Favourite part of the

favorite aspects of Setting the outlines of the process is to define
208
the design process? software and the interface. the goals
Where do you want So, what do you want to … (expectations) for
to get involved as what are the goals the the software. Goal:
much as possible? software and the interface Understand was is
have to meet, describing needed from him
that. Thinking about the and his team; getting
‘Why’. What are you going a bigger picture of
to use it for.. Yes. And the project
then secondly, what kind
of solution on a main level
could you think of. So, the
‘why’ and the ‘how’ on a
higher level.. that’s where
my basic interests lies.
What drives you When people don’t It drives him crazy

crazy in the design understand the ‘why’ when people on the
process? (laughs). Why we are project don’t see the
here? Why we are doing bigger picture and
this? The ‘how’ is basically are not ready to take
not the problem. But risks like him.
you’re developing new
processes and some
people are very hard to
convince that the new Dislikes sceptics
process is necessary or can
work because they stuck to
the old process. That kind
of people in your
brainstorm team… it’s
really a big hustle.
In the Green Deal So, we have a certain role Goal: Focus on

project, how do you in the project. We’re the software related
want to get involved provider of the software, tasks, doesn’t’ want
at all? Like if you so we don’t want to to overtake the
think about your overtake the whole project whole project
time – how much and do anything that
time do you want to needs to be done (laughs) Goal: avoid
invest? because there are other management tasks
people who rent their
tasks, for instance Kai.
They’re doing their own
Can you give a thing. We spent as much Time spent in the
number or time as is necessary to do Green Deal project:
something? our job in the process as 2 hrs/week (+ 1-2
good as possible. employees on a
fulltime-basis)
Other ppl carry out

Myself, not more than two his plans/ideas
hours a week, dealing with
this project. But people
here that are carrying out
the things that I invent or
think of … I think there
209
are one or two people on a
full-time basis busy with
this Green Deal project, in
some way.
And how much do As much as possible. Wants to be involved

you get involved in as much as possible
creative sessions? in creative sessions
Is the Green Deal Yes, because we invent in Goals: use the Green
Smart Energy Cities new ways to reach the Deal project to
project worth your goals of this time. And you advance the software
time? Why? can develop that further in and improve it for
other projects. So, we’re other projects, learn
learning a lot and we also new things, the
use this knowledge in project as a
other projects and in other springboard
cities. We are also setting
projects in Amsterdam, in
Rotterdam, etc.
Everything we learn in
Eindhoven we can reuse in
other projects and in other
cities.
Under which Either, when we convinced Goal: convincing,

circumstances is a people that what we’re inventing
workshop or a doing is the right thing (convincing people
meeting in the and so that they will do of the software and
Green Deal project what’s necessary from make them
worthwhile for you their part. Otherwise when contribute to the
and your job? (That we get new insights for the process; get new
you say that was a development of the insights for the
good software or the process. software)
workshop/meeting?
)
You mean when you

decide on your new
tasks/work
packages?
When we get new input to

develop the software or
the
process/communication
process. If you get new
input for the development
of that then I would say a
session is successful.
Otherwise, when nothing
new is invented but you
just convince other people
210
that what you’re doing is
good and that what you
are going to do is
necessary to bring the
project further then it’s
also a success. Sometimes
it’s convincing, sometimes
it’s inventing.
How much time are In this case you mean?

you able to invest in
percent comparing
to other projects?
How many hours do
you want to in
invest in hours per
week max.?
Yes.
And in percentage
in comparison to
other projects? At the start, we put much
more effort in this project
than in the new projects. In the beginning,
Because it was the first they invested a
one. I would say …at the multiple of time into
time it’s equal. the Green Deal
project, now they
invest as much time
in it as in all other
Well, I think, because this projects this
In the follow-up was the first project we project was a
projects? spent maybe five times first/special
more energy in this
project than in the new
projects that we do. But
now it’s equal. Every
project spends the same
time. But this was a big
project where we tried
new principles for the first
time, so then you have to
spend more time then
when you reuse these
principles and develop
them further. That’s why
we spent more time in this
project than in the new
projects.
Yes.
211
When does a When you challenge to Goal: be actively
workshop/meeting think and are able to put involved in a
get your full your own input in the meeting/give your
attention? Just process … so, if you’re just own input in the
think of a listening for maybe half an process, just
meeting/workshop hour (laughs)…You drift listening is too
– what’s necessary away… than it’s over. boring for him
so that you pay full
attention, you don’t
get distracted by e-
mails or calls or
thinking of other
things?
You need to be
actively involved?
Yes.
What outcome do It depends on the meeting. Goal: progress in

you have in mind It cannot tell you in every
when attending general. workshop/meeting,
workshop/meeting e.g. develop
of the Green Deal customer journeys
project? for different target
groups
For example?
Outcome on mind:
So, the outcome that get a task done
you have in mind is We have some meetings to
to get a task done. develop a customer
journey for different target
groups and what I have in
mind before we start a
meeting is that we have at
least… a design of the first
version of the customer
journey or a part of the
journey. We want to bring
it further, so we need to
see progression and the
212
development of the
subject/the work/the
session.
Yes.
How did the last I’m just trying to recall

meeting or what the last meeting
workshop in the was… Well, it was alright.
Green Deal project That was mostly in the
make you feel? category of convincing
workshops. A process was
invented but it was already
invented before by user 1
with the idea of how to do
it. But the result of the
workshop was that the
process was very different
but that the people had a
feeling that they had been
able to do some adjusting
on that process and most
important had the feeling
that it was going to work.
So, that they were
committed to the process
afterwards. And that’s
really important for that
kind of workshop.
So, the meeting Yes. Well, I saw that the

made you feel other
satisfied/released people/stakeholders, the
because you saw new stakeholders in the
other people process, for instance, the
understood? builders and the
construction companies
who are involved in the
process were
understanding the new
process and were also
appreciating it. And they
were committed to the
process. And that was an
important result for the
process/the project as a
whole. So, I didn’t get very
much out of that session
myself, for my own work Goal: see the project
but it helped the project proceed and
get further because people stakeholders commit
even if he doesn’t get
213
were convinced about the out something
process that we designed. directly
So, the meeting Yes. They understood and, Felt released and
made you feel so they proceeded with the satisfied with the last
satisfied/released project. When they don’t workshop
because you saw understand they reject the
that other people process and you can’t get
understood? along with your project.
This was an important
workshop to get support
and commitment from
So that you can keep others/other stakeholders.
on working for
yourself.
Yes.
How does the whole It is quite a struggle. Goal: make this

project make you Things last much longer project a priority to
feel? than they should, in my other stakeholders
opinion. This has to do too and avoid feeling
with the fact that there are frustrated due to
a lot of different stagnation.
stakeholders; processes at
the municipality go
And how does it incredibly slow. People
make you feel? who are working on the
project are very often
taken off the project
because other things get
priority. So, there’s a lot of
delay constantly.
That’s very frustrating

(laughs).
How would you Not frustrated of course. Goal: feeling

prefer to feel? Euphoric (laughs)! In my euphoric, optimistic
head I got a solution and
there’s no problem getting
the project in a fast pace to
an end/positive result. But Goal: convince
you depend on other people
stakeholders and they
don’t always have the
same insight and not the
same priority to the
project. They have their
own agenda. So, that’s a
fact of life I think… What I
learned in different
projects is the more people
are involved, the more this Loves
kind of frustration you get. brainstorming, but
I’m a fan of brainstorming only in small groups
214
but not especially of big
groups.
And you said you Well, sometimes you even

already have a agree with the other
solution in your stakeholders and on the
head but it’s solution and you invented
difficult to take that together. But then
everyone on the other people, there are
same page. problems in their
organizations to get it
done or there are other
people that don’t like it in
their organization and
they are going on a break,
slowing down the process.
Sometimes the people that
I’m working with are
enthusiastic and their
organization needs to be
convinced and does not
want to get along. So, it’s
on different levels. So, it’s
not just a question of if
people don’t understand
what you mean but it’s
also a matter of priority
Even if the
and organizations etc.
stakeholders in the
Things that you have no
project are
influence on. Yes. Very
enthusiastic you
often you’re talking with
can’t know the forces
somebody of an
in the background.
organization and he
understands and he’s
enthusiastic. But later on,
there are forces in that
organization that are
slowing the process down
because they don’t
understand, or they have
different priorities or a
different vision. And it last
long before you can get to
the next step. So,
sometimes you think you
can got things settled and
still they aren’t. Because
there happens something
in the background. Yes. I
think that background that
you don’t see is one of the
biggest problems in this
kind of projects. It’s a lot
of influence coming from
that and this is slowing
things down.
215
Why does your Because we could test our Goal: test software
company wanted to new software there. And in real life
be in the project? see what it does in real
life. So far, we just had a
prototype and it was a
perfect opportunity to try
it in real life.
What are the That the project will be Goal: make the
company’s successful and that municipality want to
expectations successful will be defined use the software
towards you (as a as that the municipality
person) on the mostly is convinced that
project?? this is the way to go when
it comes to activating
inhabitants to adapt their
homes in a way that
energy will be saved.
That’s sustainability is
promoted. The
expectation is that the
municipality recognizes
your work as … Yes. So,
the project is successful …
I’m successful in this
project if the municipality
has a positive evaluation
of our software in this
project. So that they want
to use it in the next
project.
What is the Program the value of this Goal: Value creation

company’s goal in new kind of software. for the company and
this project? the users (empower
And taking the next steps the user)
Anything else in developing the new
beyond that? software. Mainly, that’s it.
And, of course we have an
Ok, to empower idealistic goal that it helps
people. people to take direction of
their own life and make
their own decisions.
Yes.
What would be the The next project (laughs) Goal: get a new
dream outcome of project out of the
this project? A Yes. current one
follow-up project?
Yes.
A new contract?
216
What would you If we don’t get a new Goal: avoid failure,
consider a failure? contract. getting dismissed by
the municipality
If people don’t like
the product?
Yes. If the outcome is that
the city decides not to do a
next project with this
software in this process. I
don’t think that’s gonna
happen but that would be
a failure.
In your It’s the what. We need to A rather goal-

unit/company do achieve the what. It’s oriented culture in
you focus more on about the result, not about which effectiveness
the how or on the the risks. is high/important,
what when you specific goals or
carry out work? Is it results need to be
more important to accomplished even if
achieve a result that involves risks,
even if that means opposing to a (very)
taking some risks? means-oriented
Or is it more culture in which
important how you people perceive
do things focussing themselves as
on the process, and avoiding risks and
rather risks? making only a
limited effort in their
jobs, while each
workday is pretty
much the same
(Hofstede Insights,
n.d.).
Do your working Here are no two days the Every day is

days feel very much same. Every day is different, “I like
the same to you or different. I like that. that” comfortable
do they bring new in unfamiliar
challenges? And Yes situations
how do you feel
about it? Do you feel
comfortable in
unfamiliar
situations or do you
feel better in a
routine-based
environment?
What is more The last one. A rather externally

respected in your driven culture which
department: ethics, emphasises on
honesty, and meeting the
correctly following customer’s
procedures or requirements;
217
results and results are most
customer's important, and a
requirements? pragmatic rather
than an ethical
attitude prevails (cf.
Hofstede Insights,
n.d.).
Would you say your Last one, second one. Reveals a rather
work environment loose internal
is rather serious structure, a lack of
and disciplined or predictability, and
little controlled and little control and
easy-going? discipline; there is a
lot of improvisation
and surprises. A
(very) strict work
discipline reveals the
reverse. People are
very cost-conscious,
punctual and serious
(Hofstede Insights,
n.d.).
When you recruit Little role. Small role. In between

does the personal employee and work-
life of the employee oriented
play a role in the
interview or does
only the job
competency play a
role?
Do you rather
identify with your
boss or would you
say are you more
determined by your
profession or
content of your job?
Do you feel a strong It’s both. A rather
or some social professional/learnin
control to be like g organisation in
everybody else which an employee
around you? is determined by his
profession and/or
the content of the
job. There is little
social control nor is
there pressure to be
like everybody else
around them.
218
No.
How much time did I think a few days. People A rather open
you need to feel at are adapting very fast culture in which
home in your here. newcomers are made
company? A few immediately
days or did it take a welcome, one is
long time, maybe a open both to insiders
year or more? How and outsiders, and it
would you describe is believed that
the communication It’s open. almost anyone
climate in your would fit in the
company? As rather organisation (cf.
secretive or rather Hofstede Insights,
open? n.d.).
How do you I think that’s both. The management

perceive your philosophy is rather
company? Does it We talk about it. So, we employee-oriented,
take responsibility are not just talking about members of staff feel
for you and your the work. So, in that way that personal
family's welfare or we are interested in the problems are taken
is it only interested personal life of the people into account and the
in the work you do? that are working here. So, organisation takes
we care but we not change responsibility for the
the dipers (laughs). welfare of its
employees, even if
this is at the expense
of the work. In a
(very) work-
oriented
organisations, there
would be heavy
pressure to perform
the task even if this
is at the expense of
employees (cf.
Hofstede Insights,
n.d.).
OK, but you pay yes

attention and you
show some interest?
Are important Depends, so that’s both. In

decisions made by between.
individuals or
collectively?
Financial is just by Sometimes, yes.

you, I guess?
To which degree do 100%. Total identification

you identify with with the
your organisation?
219
Do you identify with organisation, its
different aspects goals etc.
more than with
others, including 100%
internal goals, the
client, your own
group, your boss,
the whole
organisation?
220

• Educational specialisation: master’s degree in environmental sciences
• current job title: policy adviser/consultant for sustainable energy at the
city of E. in the field of environment
• company size: about 2.000 people, size of his department: about 35
people,
• industry/sector: local government
Question Answer Codes/Notes/Paraphrase
Tell me about your After my educators, teachers, and

background as a “policy education/master’s in scholars are mostly
adviser”. How did you environmental sciences, I assimilative learners (cf. Kolb,
start and where are you worked 20 years in solar 2015, p. 184), so are
now? research and re- researchers (cf. ibid., p. 128)
education. And about 7
years ago I switched to people in science-based
the subject of energy and professions such as specialists
climate. So, my and inventors prefer the
experience in the field of convergent learning style (cf.
climate and energy is Kolb, 2015, p. 184)
about 7 or 8 years now.
What do you see yourself Probably the same what No personal professional goals
doing five years from I’m doing now.
now?
So, there is no higher

position that you are No, I have no ambition to
aiming for? get a higher position.
What do you enjoy most Well, I usually not tackle Likes “thinking about and
about your job? What do things first that I like finding strategies to resolve the
you always tackle first? most. What I do, that I enormous problems we have in
tackle things first that I tackling climate change”
don’t like. So, that I get
rid of them. First, do the
task that you don’t like
and then you have more
time to do for the things
you like. The question
was ‘What do you like
most?
Yes.
Thinking about and
finding strategies to
resolve the enormous
problems we have in
tackling climate change.
221
What do you like about Well what I like is Needs a purpose introverted
working as a policy certainly the fact that it’s feeling type/divergent learning
adviser? a very important subject. style
That I am working on
something that really
matters and the other
interesting fact that there
is a lot of positive
feedback in the sense that
many people are
recognizing the problem
of climate change at the
moment. So, we get a lot
of energy; energy in the
sense like getting a lot of
work done in this subject.
For instance, last night
we had a very interesting
evening with about 25 or
30 people from the city
who are all very involved Experience goal: wants to feel
in this problem and energized, wants to feel part of
trying to find solutions. a big
So, it gives energy to do change/movement/community
this.
What do you think is Well, I think it’s Feels intrinsically motivated

important for people like important to be
in your job position? motivated because you
What do they like and have to have intrinsic
dislike at work? motivation to do this; you
have to understand that
this is one of the biggest
problems we face as
humanity. I think it is
important to keep a cool,
analytical perspective as Wants to feel cool, analytical
what are the causes of the and effective
problem and how can we
solve them. It’s important
to try to find the most
effective ways to solve the
climate problem and
probable solution in an Dominantly analytic
analytical way to be able convergent learning style
to have best results.
Aims at the best results
What is a typical day Well, I get up usually very Very disciplined

like? What did you do early at about 5.30 am. As
when you first came in I said, I start my day with
today? What did you do paying bills and doing my
after that? administrative
obligations. And lots of
my time, as for those in
222
case of today, I spend in
meetings, trying to get Spends most of his time in
results, to get people to meetings, “trying to get results,
do things, to evaluate to get people to do things, to
situations. So, this evaluate situations”
morning we had a accommodative learning style
meeting of about 4,5 (can get other people to adapt
hours. After, I did my too)
administrative
obligations. And this
meeting of about 4,5
hours was dedicated to
the fact that there is a bit
change in our law system
concerning
environmental
management. And we are
trying to find out how this
change in the law system
can help us and can
enable us to get to better
energy transition or
“Energiewende”. We had
a special group of about
25 people on the aspect
on how this change in our
law system may help us,
how can we get maximum
profit on that, on our
goals. That’s something of
the typical things I do.
After that I had a
discussion or
session/meeting with
people who are from an
airbase in our city and we
are trying to get to the
point that some parts of
this airbase can be used
as a solar field. So, we
would like to have about
2 hectares of the field to
use it for solar panels and
that’s what we’re trying to
manage. And it points to
next year, that we can
start the project. And
after that I had a meeting
which was concerned
with the fact that as a city
we own a lot of public
spaces, of the ground in
the city. Sometimes we
sell grounds to have any
development there and
our task is to make sure
223
that new developments
on ground in the city are
climate neutral and the
question is how can we
get that. That was our last
meeting. And after that I
had an interview at 5
o’clock with some people
from Magdeburg
Yes, I do a lot of
.So, a typical day for you meetings. Every day,
is that you have every week.
meetings? “I do a lot of meetings. Every
day, every week”
What would be an usual There are so many Indicates a goal-oriented

event? unusual events, difficult. organisational culture
I guess, this interview

might be an unusual
event? Well, it’s quite usual at
the moment. I think at
They are like meetings to all, maybe one interview
you? every week.
So, you can’t give me Yes. Well, it’s unusual to

some examples? One or meet the king (laughs).
two? It’s hard to say, there are
a lot of things that are
unusual. In my opinion,
as a policy advisor what
I’m doing all day is
talking and when I’m not He is an intellectual, a
talking I’m producing mastermind, a civil servant, an
letters on paper. I’m armchair strategist
writing things. What I’m assimilative learning style
not doing, what is not
usual for me, is to do
hand labor or to do
physical projects in the
city. That’s not my job. It
would be unusual for me
to be involved in very
physical projects.
What makes, on the one Well, I have a good

hand, a good day for you feeling at work when I get
at work and, on the results. So, if I’m able to
other hand, a bad day? start a day with agile
development (?) and at End goals: meetings that result
the end of the day I would in something, agreements
like to have agreement on (make people adapt
a point with some people accommodative learning style)
and when I reached there
224
that makes a good day for
me. I try to be, and I
think I am result-
oriented. So, I am (not?)
very happy in the cases
where there are meetings
of 2 hours where we
conclude that we had a
nice, interesting talk but
nothing happens and
nothing changes. So, a
good day for me is a day
where we get a lot of
results, and a bad day for
me is when we have to
talk and at the end of the
conclusion nothing
changes, that’s frustrating
and that happens, too.
What activities currently Yes, of course. But also, I Too much talking, esp. when
waste your time at your think at my case there is not related to his goals, wastes
job? So, you mention the too much talking, not his time
managing stuff, for related to the goals we
example. have. Well, that’s not so
nice to say that to my
colleagues but I’m not
always very much into
talk, I’m trying to reach Wants to be goal-oriented
my goals. But I’m trying accommodative learning style
to be goal-oriented and
sometimes, it takes time
in social things which are
not goal-oriented.
Name five adjectives that Analytical. Goal-oriented. • Analytical

describe people like in Social. Motivated, so • Goal-oriented
your position. intrinsically motivated, • social
not motivated by money
• intrinsically motivated
but by trying to reach a
certain goal. Flexible. • idealistic (not
motivated by money
but by trying to reach a
certain goal)
• Flexible
Do you have a strong After, let’s say, ten (got the question wrong, the
sense of who is and who minutes talk, I tend to intention was to describe the
is not a person like you have an opinion of occupational culture of people
in your position? How someone’s way of work. It like him)
can you tell? is not always correct but
many times, the first
So, it is the first impression after speaking
impression and a kind of to someone for ten
gut feeling? minutes there is a “right
225
or wrong think” in my
mind.
It is a kind of gut feeling

but also sometimes the
gut feeling is not correct
but speaking to someone
for ten minutes and ask
questions gives the
impression of something.
What were relationships I like to work with goal- Likes to work with goal-
like with other groups oriented people. Regular oriented people, e.g. from the
outside your position? working as I am in a local commercial non-governmental
What groups do you like government, sometimes sector accommodative
to work or not work with there is a tendency to just learning style
and why? have meetings and not
reach a goal. On the other Working at the local
hand, when you with government can be less goal-
people who are more oriented, efficient
from commercial or from,
let’s say, a non-
governmental institution,
those people are more
goal-oriented. And I like
to work with them.
What helps you make Good analysis. If I can Decision-making preferably

decisions? make a good analyses of based on analysis with a
the problem.. ‘so, well strategic approach, keeping in
this is the problem, this is mind possible consequences
the way it is. If we take
decision one, this will be “analyze a problem as
the consequence. And we good as possible and
take decision two, this then decide”
will be another Not knowing the
consequence.’ Then I can consequences gives him
make a good decision. a hard time to decide
Sometimes it is very
difficult to see what will
be the consequences of
your decision. Then it’s
hard to make a decision.
So, you like to think a hypothetical-deductive
Yes, I like to try to reasoning converging
little bit more before you analyze a problem as
make decisions? learning style
good as possible and then
decide.
How do you like taking Quick or slow: in • Not too quick, not too
decisions? between; superficial or slow
thorough; well- • Thorough
founded or uninformed;
• Well-founded
structured or
unstructured; fair or • Structured
unfair; emotional or • Fair
226
rational; hierarchical or • Rational
equitable; (complex or • Equitable
simple;) open or • Simple
guided; uneasy or
pleasant; surprising or • Open
predictable • Pleasant
• surprising
In the design process – Analyze Most common thing he does:

What are the most Analysis End goal:
common things you do? analysing
You mean more
analyzing than doing
some ‘creative stuff’?
Yes
What are your favorite Well, I think that is His role in the design process
aspects of the design analyzing. Finding what is analysis, problem definition
process? Where do you the problem exactly is and trying to find a solution
want to get involved and trying to find a
much? solution. But I’m not the “But I’m not the most creative
most creative person. person”
So, you don’t want to be
much involved in ‘idea Maybe less than
generation’, for analyzing.
example?
Analyzing is that part Doesn’t want to be involved in

you are most interesting Yes. creative sessions/idea
and involved in? generation
What drives you crazy? Having to work with Unpredictable people that
people that are don’t analyse drive him crazy
unpredictable and not
analyzing. It’s hard for conflict with
me to work with people accommodators and
that ‘one day go left and other intuitive learning
one day decide to go right styles (trial and error)
without any rationale
behind there’. It’s OK for
me to change the opinion
but that has to be based
on something, not just on
guess.
How much do you want I am more interested in Not interested in

to get involved at all? finding the right analyses designing/creating the process
And how much do you than in the creation
want to get involved in process.
creative session?
227
So, there is a high
priority to ‘analyzing’.
Yes. So, that’s the person

I am.
Does the Green Deal Yes

Smart Energy Cities
project is worth your
time and money? (Why?)
Under which A good workshop or a A meeting/workshop needs to

circumstances is a good meeting for me is be structured and goal-
workshop/meeting when it’s structured and oriented, wants to know about
worthwhile for you and goal-oriented. So, at the the goal and the process of the
your job? beginning of a meeting I meeting/workshop in advance
want to define what we
like to have reached at the organizes facts, situations, and
end of the meeting and operations well in advance,
what will be the process, and makes a systematic effort
how to get to an end. So, to reach his carefully planned
it’s important to define objectives on schedule
what should be the convergent learning style
results of the meeting. So,
structure is important for “structure is important for me”
me.
How much time are you Maybe 5 percent of my Can/wants to invest 2

able to invest in percent time. Well, 5 percent hours/week in the Green Deal
comparing to other would be 2 hours per project
projects? How much is week.
that in hours per week?
When does a Well, if the proposed He needs to see an alignment

workshop/meeting get outcome of the goals in between the goals of the
your full attention? the meeting is in the same meeting/workshop and the
Why? line as my own goals in goals of his work to be
my work. So, it’s motivated
important to see the
relation between the
meeting and the goals in
my work. So, that’s
motivates me to be at my
best.
What outcome do you Well, interesting End goal: wants to get into the
have in mind when question. For me, at a content of a project (describing
attending a Green Deal certain level to get into the ecosystem and the
Smart Energy Cities the content in a specific stakeholders of the project)
workshop/meeting? project … In this case, the
outcome has been to get
228
to some description of the
ecosystem of the project
in place where it takes
place. That was one of the
most important things to
do. So, any meeting has
had a goal to get closer to
defining this ecosystem
and the different
stakeholders in the
project. So, that was quite
interesting for me.
How did the last Green Well, the worst meetings The last meeting made him
Deal Smart Energy Cities after which I had the unsatisfied because there was
workshop make you feeling that there is not as not much progress from his
feel? (e.g. creative, this much progress as I point of view
smart, professional, had wished for. So, that
appreciated, was a bit of unsatisfying.
uncomfortable, an
outsider). Why?
How did the whole In general, I had a In total he is satisfied with the
project make you feel positive feeling about the outcome of the project even
and why? project. But on the other though he thinks there could
hand, maybe it would have been more progress
have been even better.
We could have made
more progress than we
actually reached. But Adaptable, realistic, doesn’t
what we were able to fight the facts
reach was also good. accommodative learning style
How would you prefer to I would like to have the Experience goal: team building
feel when attending a feeling of getting closer to (process) + a good outcome
meeting/workshop of what are our goals. So, (content)
the Green Deal Smart after a meeting either you
Energy Cities project? have the feeling that
people in the meeting got
closer together and got
closer the be a good team.
So, teambuilding. Or a
good outcome of a
meeting would be to get a
step further in reaching
your goals. So, either
more of a process thing,
to get process better by
teambuilding or it would
be a content thing to get
closer.
When you think of your I seldom think of my boss Trusts his own intuitive insight
boss/superior/employer: (laughs). regardless of established
How do you want to feel authority assimilative
learning style
229
in the Green Deal
project? I do feel a lot of pressure
in sense of I would like to
So, you do not feel a kind reach goals. Sometimes
of pressure, for there are time pressure
example? things. But that’s what
usually not comes from
my boss but from the Feels a lot of pressure from the
outside world or of outside world or himself
myself.
Why does your Well, I think that’s Thinks he is on the project due
superior/company want because they think that to his competency
you to be in the project? the project is worthwhile,
and they think that I am
able to reach the results
which should be reached.
What are her/his I think my boss expects

expectations towards me to reach the goals.
you?
What is his/her goal? Well, goal is ultimately … End goal: minimize our
at a higher level the goal problem, find new solutions,
is to minimize our new perspectives
problem XXX levels. But
in this specific project it’s
to get to new solutions,
new to opinions or new
ways to do this specific
location which is XXX.
What would be dream Well, specifically I think a End goals: a great description
outcome of this project? dream outcome would be of the ecosystem and all
to have a great stakeholders involved + great
description of one the one description of technical
hand the ecosystem and possibilities to improve the
all the stakeholders energy system
involved and on the other
hand a great description
of technical possibilities
to improve the energy
system and to get to more
integrated energy
systems.
What would be a failure? Well, that would be not to Avoid an unprecise and
reach those goals. So, a incomprehensive description
not very comprehensive of the ecosystem and technical
description of the possibilities
ecosystem or a not very
good description of the
technical possibilities
230
In your unit/company, No, results are important. Goal-oriented organisational
do you focus more on the Results are more culture
how or on the what when important than the how.
you carry out work? Is it
more important to
achieve a result even if
that means taking some
risks? Or is it more
important how you do
things focusing on the
process, and rather
avoiding risks?
Do your working days New challenges every Prefers challenging situations,

feel very much the same day. Well, I consider new comfortable in unfamiliar
to you or do they bring situations, unfamiliar situations, rather goal-
new challenges? And situations as a challenge. oriented, risk taking
how do you feel about it? Sometimes it’s difficult
Do you feel comfortable but it’s more rewarding to
in unfamiliar situations confront them than a
or do you feel better in a routine situation.
routine-based
environment?
What is more respected Results, I would say. Externally driven

in your department: Results and customer’s
ethics, honesty, and requirements
correctly following
procedures or results
and customer’s
requirements?
Would you say your Maybe, little controlled Easy going (floating working
work environment is and easy-going. hours, flexible working place)
rather serious and
disciplined or little loose internal structure, a lack
controlled and easy- of predictability, and little
going? control and discipline; there is
a lot of improvisation and
surprises
Do you have an example Well, in the sense that we

for that in mind? all have floating working
hours, everyone works at
the time and place which
suits him or her best. So,
that’s very loose. Choose
your own time and place
to work. It is not very
controlled in the sense
‘you have to be here at
this place at 8.30 until 5
pm in the afternoon’. So,
that’s quite loose
231
When you were Well, I would say for Professional organisational
recruited did your more than 90 percent my culture
personal life play a role job competences.
in the interview or only
your job competences?
Do you rather identify Last one, profession and Professional organisational

with your boss or would content. culture (identity of an
you say you are more employee is determined by his
determined by your profession and/or the content
profession or content of of the job)
your job?
Do you feel a strong or No Professional organisational

some social control to be culture (little social control to
like everybody else be like everybody else)
around you?
How much time does it Not very long, no. Maybe Open (newcomers are made
take to feel at home in a few weeks. immediately welcome, one is
your company? A few open both to insiders and
days or does it take a outsiders, and it is believed
long time maybe a year that almost anyone would fit in
or more? the organisation)
How would you describe Open Open communication climate

your communication
climate in your
company? As rather
secretive or rather open?
How do you perceive No, it does take some employee-oriented

your unit/company? certain responsibilities organisations, members of
Does it take for my family’s welfare. staff feel that personal
responsibilities for you problems are taken into
and your family’s account and that the
welfare or is it only organisation takes
interested in the work responsibility for the welfare of
you do? its employees, even if this is at
the expense of the work
Are important decisions Collectively. Employee-oriented culture

made by individuals or
collectively?
To which degree are you Well, I think to 90

in line with your direct percent.
boss’s preferences?
Is there some conflict No

between her/his
expectations towards
you and the way you act
in the project?
232
To which degree do you If I have to say it in Identifies 50 % with his
identify with your percentage, it would be organisation
organization? 50 percent.
Do you identify with Internal goals are what I Identifies with the internal
different aspects more identify with. goals
than with others,
including internal goals,
the client, your own
group, your boss, the
whole organization?
233
13. Appendix: Learning Style Test from User 2
I can look at things from different perspectives
I am sensitive
I prefer to watch rather than do
I tend to gather information and use imagination to solve problems
I am best at viewing concrete situations several different viewpoints
I perform better in situations that require ideas-generation, for example,

brainstorming
I have broad cultural interests
I like to gather information
I am interested in people
I tend to be imaginative and emotional
I tend to be strong in the arts
I prefer to work in groups
I prefer to listen with an open mind
I like to receive personal feedback
My preference is for a concise, logical approach
Ideas and concepts are more important than people
I require good clear explanation rather than practical opportunity
I excel at understanding wide-ranging information and organising it a clear

logical format
I am less focused on people and more interested in ideas and abstract concepts
I am more attracted to logically sound theories than approaches based on

practical value
234
I am good at making information effective
I am into science careers
In formal learning situations I prefer readings, lectures, exploring analytical

models,
I prefer having time to think things through
I can solve problems
I will use my learning to find solutions to practical issues
I prefer technical tasks
I am less concerned with people and interpersonal aspects
I am best at finding practical uses for ideas and theories
I can solve problems and make decisions by finding solutions to questions and
problems
I am more attracted to technical tasks and problems than social or

interpersonal issues
I have specialist and technology abilities
I like to experiment with new ideas, to simulate, and to work with practical
applications.
I a 'hands-on' kind of person
I rely on intuition rather than logic
I use other people's analysis
I prefer to take a practical, experiential approach
I am attracted to new challenges and experiences
I like to carry out plans
I act on 'gut' instinct rather than logical analysis
I tend to rely on others for information than carry out my own analysis
235
I like action and initiative
I prefer to work in teams to complete tasks
I set targets and actively work in the field trying different ways to achieve an
objective
236
14. Appendix: Learning Style Test from User 3
I can look at things from different perspectives
I am sensitive
I prefer to watch rather than do
I tend to gather information and use imagination to solve problems
I am best at viewing concrete situations several different viewpoints
I perform better in situations that require ideas-generation, for example,

brainstorming
I have broad cultural interests
I like to gather information
I am interested in people
I tend to be imaginative
and emotional
I tend to be strong in the arts
I prefer to work in groups
I prefer to listen with an open mind
I like to receive personal feedback
My preference is for a concise, logical approach
Ideas and concepts are more important than people
I require good clear explanation rather than practical opportunity
I excel at understanding wide-ranging information and organising it a clear

logical format
I am less focused on people and more interested in ideas and abstract concepts
237
I am more attracted to logically sound theories than approaches based on
practical value (in between)
I am good at making information effective
I am into science careers
In formal learning situations I prefer readings, lectures, exploring analytical

models,
I prefer having time to think things through
I can solve problems
I will use my learning to find solutions to practical issues
I prefer technical tasks
I am less concerned with people and interpersonal aspects
I am best at finding practical uses for ideas and theories
I can solve problems and make decisions by finding solutions to questions and
problems
I am more attracted to technical tasks and problems than social or

interpersonal issues
I have specialist and technology abilities
I like to experiment with new ideas, to simulate, and to work with practical
applications.
I a 'hands-on' kind of person
I rely on intuition rather than logic
I use other people's analysis
I prefer to take a practical, experiential approach
I am attracted to new challenges and experiences
I like to carry out plans
238
I act on 'gut' instinct rather than logical analysis
I tend to rely on others for information than carry out my own analysis
I like action and initiative
I prefer to work in teams to complete tasks (depends on the task)
I set targets and actively work in the field trying different ways to achieve an
objective
239
15. Appendix: Paper Protoype of Stakeholder Profiles
240
241
16. Appendix: Usability Test Transcript
Classification of test results (adapted from German UPA., o.D.):
Good: Something is working and should be kept
Good idea: A suggestion from the participant that could improve the user
experience
Minor problem: User was hindered briefly, hesitated or had to think

about it (less than a minute)
Serious problem: User was constrained for a long time (one to five
minutes), but could accomplish the task by himself
Critical problem: User failed in accomplishing the task, existence-

threatening problem, can cause considerable financial damage or similar grave
consequences
At least 25 percent of the report should describe positive results, including what
the participant liked (cf. German UPA., o.D.).
Note/
Question Quote/comment Consequence/ Code
Idea
Before the In which Just started five new projects

start phase of the within the Green Deal
Green Deal project, with the same goals
project are and the same software, kick-
you right off workshop was on 2nd of
now? October 2017, 100
households shall be
approached and introduced
to the software
242
Before the Which The municipality of E. is
start stakeholders involved again being
are still on represented by a project
board? Are manager and another
there new responsible on a higher
stakeholders? hierarchical level with the
overall responsibility, there is
a new innovation coach, from
the former project there is
only user 2 left
Classifi-
Task
cation
Task 0 Take your “That’s a lot of text.” Usability

time to look
at the Problem:
stakeholder
profiles and complexity
read them.
Task 1 Please think Opens his laptop and shows Affirmation

of the next the planned activities of the
step in the recently started project. Test
Green Deal leader encourages the test
project and person to take an empty
write it on paper and write down the
the top of an name of the first project step
empty paper (kick-off workshop). User
(landscape prefers the test leader to
format). Now write things down (“It’s your
put together project.”). Test leader writes
the next down “Kick-off workshop”
meeting or including the date on a white
workshop paper in landscape format
with the help and puts it in front of the user
the method so he can put methods cards
cards. If on it. While user choses
there are method cards that are spread
methods in front of him on his desk he
missing, explains what he/the team
please use a did and continues like this
post-it or the with the future step.
like and
make your After one hour the whole
own method process has been compilated
card. from pre-phase until wrap-up
workshop.
Task 2 Now take Test person: “But these Unfortunately, Usability

those stakeholders are not test person had
stakeholders not updated us Problem
243
profiles and involved. And I am always about this in
take some present.” advance even
time to though I had
inspect them. asked him in one
Once you are of my e-mails.
ready, please,
use them in
order to
decide which
stakeholder
should be
invited to the
project step
you just set
up.
Adjusted If you “No. In the Setting the stage Ties in with Needs
imagine phase we defined roles and existing
task
these responsibilities. Who is going stakeholder mismatch
(former) to do what in the project?” analysis tools?
stakeholders
would be in
the project,
do these
profiles help
you to decide
who to
involve?
If we set up a “I wonder how useful it is to Is the test person Needs

meeting or work with personality types. the right kind of
workshop In a project I am not facilitator for our mismatch
retrospectivel interested in personality research
y, could you types. I know I should be, but questions?
then try these I don’t have time for that.”
out?
“In practice you don’t have
the luxury to choose people
by their capabilities. You
have to do it with the people
who are there.”
Test leader “We define that in the Stakeholders are Insight

brings spreadsheet that I showed not asked about
forward the you. When I plan a workshop, their availability.
argument they have to be present. We They are expected
that the have a time load for them.” to make time
stakeholder when it’s
profile “In the first project people scheduled.
prototypes didn’t have time. In the new
contain project there is a lady who is
people’s dedicated to the project three
availability days a week. That’s a luxury.”
(hours/week) “So, characteristics are not
. relevant.” “From our
perspective it’s the personas,
244
the residents who are much
more important.”
What is “Relevant is governance. Who We should New feature

relevant for does what? Who takes consider this for
you? responsibility for what? We our prototype! suggestion
call that ownership. That is
really important: Who is the
owner of a specific task?”
Test leader User explains the main New feature

proposes to features from his point of
scribble new view, including hierarchical suggestion
stakeholder level of the two members
profiles on from the municipality in his
the spot. team (one is running the
project “which is a very
practical thing” the other one
is overall responsible (similar
to user 5 in the hierarchy)
So, you “From our perspective it’s the Discrepancy Needs

would say personas, the resident’s between our
that the needs that are much more findings from the mismatch
cultural important. Of course, they pre-study
differences, have goals and
different responsibilities. That’s why
approaches we define their roles and who
of the is accountable for what. If
stakeholders they are creative or not is not
in your team the most important thing.”
are not
relevant.
Can we still “Actually, it’s a colleague of Recruiting

try to mine who is responsible for mismatch?
exercise the getting this whole thing
planning of going, and preparing all the
one or two workshops, making all the
project steps visuals and get all the work
with the help done. The other people must
of these tie in. The most important
profiles? thing is that they are
cooperative, and really
willing and enthusiastic – but
somehow by nature.”
“It took some time within

W.C. to have their
cooperation lined up to have
the roles and responsibilities
which I needed in the project.
In E. is wasn’t the case. There
was only user 2. We had to do
a lot of communication stuff
but there was no one there.
245
And there was no one overall
responsible and they weren’t
really organized. They
learned, and we learned that.
So, now we have a much
better structure within W.C.
also in terms of roles,
responsibilities and
capabilities. That was the E.
outcome.
So, would “I am thinking of how I could test person gave Definition

you say the make sense of them. This is the authors of this
stakeholder my team, not stakeholders. thesis the names Issue
profiles are Stakeholders are out there. If of the project
useless? you have internal stakeholders
stakeholders, there are many saying that they
more. Building the team for are not
me it was important that we “stakeholders”
defined the governance but “team
before.” “There are so many members”
characteristics that’s my
problem. “
Too many
features Layout
Could you Takes the profile of user 5 Misunderstandin Insight

highlight and marks goals, including g between the test
those influencing people and leader and the
characteristic changing situations, leading test person: test
s that are others, being personally person
important for involved, see results, also approaches
you? marks characteristics like stakeholder
active, goal-oriented, profiles with a
influential, seeking and human resources
exploiting opportunities, attitude (who has
getting things what I need?),
accomplished…then stops test leader
and says: “But the most intended to find
important thing is that I feel out which
responsible. I don’t see that characteristics are
here. I have ownership. Henri important for him
didn’t feel ownership. Is it a to know about in
personal or a role order to plan
characteristic?”
“It’s a political decision

whether there is ownership
or not. It’s not in my power to
create ownership.”
“I need to find out who is he

working with. So, I find the
246
person who is actually
working in the Knowing the
neighbourhood. He doesn’t context,
have decision-making power, circumstances,
but he has a lot of network, and
information, he has the other people that
network.” “But I also need influence him
someone who has budget Insight
power.”
“That’s also very important: Definition of roles

If there is an issue, approach and of
me. That she is open. When I responsibilities is
have problem, I can call her, important so that New feature
and she responds. So, being “I have the title to
responsive is also very approach people Suggestion
important.” (explains the when they don’t
trouble he had reaching user fulfil their
5) duties”.
“I found being responsive is

one of the most important
thing. Reacting, coming back,
and feeling ownership,
again.” “If things happen
around you like three
colleagues get fired then it’s
New feature
not a personal characteristic.
But being responsive is. Some
suggestion:
people are very busy, but they
responsiven
still call you back.”
ess
Knowing his position, the Know the power New feature

impact and power, for what and the impact
can I address him, what can Suggestion:
he solve on his own, for what impact and
does he need other people power
This long list doesn’t help. So, Too long, too Relevance
have it really role based complicated,
(what’s his/her role in the include roles, not
project, not just the position). just positions
I find it complicated. So
many…it’s too much. I would
simply it, condense it into a
couple of main things. Simplify it!
Post-
session
Questions:
247
Your Referring to the first task: The method cards Affirmation
conclusion: “For me this didn’t add worked well,
What did you anything, because I know could be kept
like most? this. This is just explaining to
What didn’t you.”
you like at
all? What
made sense
and what Referring to the second task: The test person
didn’t? “I don’t know what to do with felt overstrained
that. That’s too much. I can’t by the Needs
work with that.” stakeholder
cards; moreover, Mismatch:
“User 3 says he is not a very they did not
creative person. I doubt that. contain relevant complexity
When he was in my workshop information in his
he was perfect.” “Being opinion
creative, what is that? Being
open, being committed, that’s
much more important.”
Test leader Yes, structured, Affirmation

gives test disciplined…you have the
person a first colours. You shouldn’t use
handwritten them. He is a blue one. But
version of the not completely. You have
stakeholder mixed pairs. He is
cards and dominantly analytic, but he is
asks him if also a very social person. I
those are wouldn’t do that. It
better than complicates things even
the more more. It’s better than the
elaborated printed-out version.
printed- Include only skills
prototype. Reads out the quote of user 5 that are relevant
in which he acknowledges for the concrete
that people are different. project and note
“What do I do with that? I what is the
would rather have him say responsibilities of
which skills he has to bridge each character
the gaps.”
248
17. Appendix: Spreadsheet of Interview Answers and
Persona Hypotheses
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
18. Revised Stakeholder Profile Prototype
262
263
264
19. Appendix: Mind Map Pre-Study
265

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M.A.

Stakeholder Involvement in Co-

A Master Thesis by Anne Koslowski and Laura Schulz

University of Applied Sciences Magdeburg-Stendal

Breitscheidstraße 2,39114 Magdeburg

Prof. Björn Stockleben

Prof. Dr. Michael Herzog

June – November 2017

Dabei war die Aufteilung der Arbeit wie folgt:

Anne Koslowski: Organisation der Kooperation mit der Hochschule Utrecht;

Laura Schulz: Transkription 2/4 Interviews (Pre-Study); Ausarbeitung der

Gemeinsam: Korrespondenz mit der Hochschule Utrecht; Erstellung Fragen für

Anne Koslowski, Matrikel 20113415 Laura Schulz, Matrikel 20123560

Münster, 14.11.2017 Hamburg, 14.11.2017

My (Anne) colleagues at Westfälische Nachrichten for allowing me to take six

The participants in the Netherlands that answered our interview questions.

The term co-design can be described as an approach which attempts to actively

In chapter 6 the authors present their stakeholder profile prototypes derived

1. Pre-Study by Anne Koslowski

“Co-Design (originally co-operative design) is often seen as involving users in the

“stakeholders are key members of the organization commissioning the design

Three of the interviews were conducted face-to-face at the University of Applied

Afterwards the data was re-organized by assigning it to four areas of interest.

(available until May 5th 2018).

1.1 Findings by Anne Koslowski

5 Streich & Brennholt (2012, p. 62) name three similar levels of

• “The way of making choices is a big difference because healthcare

Consequently, a better understanding and gaining deeper insights into the

Paying close attention to stakeholders is especially important for co-design

Therefore, it is paramount to understand stakeholder needs, interests, and

1.2 Research Design by Anne Koslowski

RQ 1: How can facilitators of a co-design project identify their key stakeholders

The purpose of this chapter is to outline the development of the co-design

2.1 Definition of the Co-design Approach by Laura Schulz

The term co-design is related to participatory, co-creation7 and open design

8 User-centered design is firstly presented as a design approach in The Design of

As mentioned before, co-design is confirmed as a process of knowledge

However, designers may encounter resistance to change which can be caused by

Project commitment is characterized by individuals’ acceptance of and a strong

From this perspective, the design process becomes a necessary embodiment of

2.2 The (Co-) Design Development Process by Laura Schulz

through divergent and convergent phases which is similar to some of Jones’s

The Innovation Process of Beckman

Figure 5: Innovation Process of Beckman (2014)

13 See for further information: Beckman, 2014, pp. 67

2.3 The Changing Role of the Designer in the Co-design

In the field of design, the role of the designer as facilitator is commonly

• The establishment of a clear and shared intent;

regulations, documents, websites, and artefacts; whereas the tacit knowledge is

The literature describing methods of collaboration between organizations and

2.4 Conclusion by Laura Schulz

The term co-design can be described as an approach to design attempting to

This research, therefore, focuses on the study of managing multiple stakeholder

2.5 Case Study: “The Green Deal” Project by Laura Schulz

Participants of the “Smart Energy Cities” program are17:

• The municipalities of Amsterdam, Arnhem, Eindhoven and Enschede

• Building shared understanding in this multi stakeholder environment

19 called user 2 (chapter 6)

The purpose of this chapter is to outline the development of the idea of

3.1 History of the Stakeholder Approach to Strategic