Supporting a Co-creator with time, resources, and decision making power follows from a conscious decision to invest in the co-creation endeavor. This may also entail the (temporary) change of organizational rules and procedures. Given these implications, the decision to invest in co-creation will only me made after sufficient support has been created for the challenge and the objectives, co-creation as the designated process to get to the solution, and the Co-creator as the responsible process manager.6
Time It is important for the Co-creator to negotiate enough time for implementation of the cocreated solution. Often, self-imposed time pressure results from hard agreements made about the launch, market introduction, or delivery. Such time pressure may lead to taking shortcuts in the development process, so-called incomplete co-creation. Shortcuts may seem to save time at first, but often lead to a mistranslation of end-users' needs to a solution. They also tend to blur the traceability of a solution. While the relevance of an evolving solution for the intended end-users is always clear to everyone involved in a complete co-creation trajectory, shortcuts tend to obscure this understanding. After a shortcut has been taken, the conceptual solution may suddenly fail to fit end-users’ needs, without a clear reason why. This will force the co-creation team to go back into the process to the point where the shortcut was taken, and start all over again. Such loops are a waste of time, money, and energy. Furthermore, they tend to have a negative effect on the team’s motivation. Aside from wasting time, energy, resources, and motivation, the consequence of taking a shortcut may be for the higher management to halt the co-creation process. Even if the original concept was relevant and attractive for the intended target group, the unnecessary expenses associated with the deviation from its premises may lead the organization to not give the co-creation team the opportunity to translate it to a winning market introduction. In short: when a Co-creator experiences time pressure in a co-creation trajectory, he needs to fight the urge to either resign from the process or take shortcuts. It is better to negotiate with stakeholders about a more spacious planning.
Resources and decision making power Ideally, the Co-creator will receive the necessary resources and freedom to make his own decisions, for instance to form his own implementation team. When the challenge is relatively small, such as the co-creation of a marketing campaign, this is should suffice. When it concerns the development of something bigger, like an entirely new product or service, it is often best to found an independent business unit or even a separate organization. 128