Co-Production and Facilitation: The Delicate Balance Between Structure and Freedom
True co-production is not a meeting, nor is it a consultation. It is a process of creating together — one that values every participant’s voice, experience, and perspective as equally valid in shaping outcomes. But while the spirit of co-production is freedom and equality, the practice of facilitation demands structure. Without it, collaboration risks dissolving into chaos, conversation without consequence.
Why Structure Matters
Structure provides safety. It offers clarity about purpose, time, and process — the scaffolding within which people can think, speak, and act confidently. Clear roles, responsibilities, and boundaries prevent confusion and ensure accountability. Without this framework, participants may hesitate, disengage, or default to the loudest or most confident voice in the room.
A well-designed framework helps people know how to contribute — it signals that every contribution is welcome, but also that every conversation has direction and consequence.
Why Flexibility Matters
Yet, too much structure can suffocate creativity. If every agenda item, question, and minute is pre-determined, then the process becomes managed, not facilitated. Participants respond to prompts rather than exploring possibilities. The conversation narrows to what was already imagined, rather than what could emerge.
Flexibility is what allows co-production to breathe. It creates space for reflection, for emergence, and for those unplanned but valuable moments of insight when someone voices a perspective that changes the whole direction of thinking.
The Facilitator’s Role
The art of facilitation lies in walking this line. The facilitator is not the chair, the decision-maker, or the expert. Their role is to hold the space — to design the conditions under which dialogue can flourish and action can emerge.
In practice, this means:
• Providing structure, not control. Have a framework, but let the group fill it with meaning.
• Defining purpose, not outcomes. Clarify why the group is meeting, but allow the what to emerge.
• Encouraging participation, not performance. Draw out every voice, especially the quieter ones.
• Using process to support equality. Tools like timed rounds, breakout groups, or reflective pauses can prevent dominance and ensure balance.
• Reflecting and adjusting. The facilitator reads the energy of the room — when to tighten structure to regain focus, and when to loosen it to let creativity flow.
Finding the Balance
If the facilitator intervenes too little, people leave feeling heard but not productive. If they intervene too much, people leave feeling managed but not empowered. The goal is to enable a thinking environment where ideas are both free to surface and anchored to purpose.
This balance can be thought of as a dance between container and content:
• The container is the structure — time, roles, agreements, methods.
• The content is what the group brings — experience, emotion, creativity, and wisdom.
When both are held in balance, co-production becomes more than discussion; it becomes a shared act of design and delivery.
In Summary
Co-production flourishes where facilitation provides enough order for progress and enough openness for discovery. The facilitator’s craft is to sense where the group sits on that spectrum — to intervene gently when drift becomes disorder, and to step back when structure becomes constraint.
It is a living process — one that requires presence, humility, and trust that the best outcomes arise not from control, but from shared ownership.
Tim HJ Rogers
Cancer Advisory and Patient Strategy (CAPS) Group
Volunteer and Co-Facilitator
Purpose: To embed patient and carer participation in every stage of Jersey’s Cancer Strategy — from prevention to end-of-life — ensuring services are co-designed and continuously improved through lived experience.