A Compass to Drive Collaborative Design Practices within Private Organisations

Collaboration has currently become a must within design practices. Ranging from public to private sector, from social to business, the design activity is no longer commissioned ‘for’ the client, but is carried out ‘with’ the client and with all the stakeholders involved. This tendency introduces a reflection on the shift in design practice and the role of the designer within the community with which she is designing. This article focuses on collaborative design practices within the private sector, providing a set of case studies analysed through variables that define the main qualities of such processes. Those variables become lenses through which it is possible to zoom in on the peculiarity of the session and ultimately draw an evaluation. The correlations of the variables represent a first draft of a compass aimed at building awareness and providing guidelines for future practices.