Co-design Is Not a Workshop.
It's a Mindset.

There is a familiar pattern across many systems. When organisations seek to improve outcomes, they often begin by gathering stakeholders for a workshop. People sit at tables arranged in neat circles. Facilitators encourage the sharing of ideas. Sticky notes fill whiteboards that soon photograph well but dissolve into abstractions once participants return to their daily responsibilities. These sessions are not meaningless, yet they can create the illusion of co-design without shifting any of the deeper conditions that determine whether change will truly occur.

Co-design is not defined by a room or a set of activities. It is defined by the redistribution of authority, the integration of lived experience into decision-making and the recognition that the people closest to an issue understand its nuances in ways systems often cannot. When co-design becomes a mindset, it reshapes how institutions listen, learn and act.

The case of Maranguka Justice Reinvestment in Bourke demonstrates this shift with remarkable clarity. The project began not with solutions but with a commitment to deep listening and community leadership. Agencies, police, service providers and government departments learned to share decision-making with the Aboriginal community of Bourke, whose generational experience held the knowledge needed to redesign local responses to disadvantage.¹ Traditional consultation would have yielded insights, but co-design created a governance model where the community held authority. The results, reduced youth offending, improved family safety and strengthened relationships, emerged because the system changed how it understood expertise and who held it. Co-design became the operating principle, not an isolated event.