Interviewee: F3, Digi
Role: facilitator
Date: —
Interviewer: —
Interview Summary
Personas
Facilitator, a researcher who is always involved—more on content, researching certain topics. Then of course the client. And we have “challenge owners”: people who own specific goals.
Facilitator role
bring a lot of different organizations together. And I try to connect them, guide them, and see how I can best support them to achieve the best result. facilitate sessions as an innovation facilitator, or you work on how different innovation methodologies (which we also have from DigiCampus) can be implemented to get the best result in a session or in a specific part of the project. As a project leader I think you do many similar things, but more across the entire project. So: how do all the pieces come together, how do all the organizations come together, and how can you ensure the whole project reaches the best ending or result. I don’t steer on what we’re going to do, but on how we get there. Once a direction is chosen, I make sure we translate it into concrete plans, stay on the right timeline, and keep the budget in check. My role is to ensure that decisions don’t just get made — they actually get executed.
Facilitator s relation to decision makers project leaders
The group basically makes the strategic decisions, but there is always a check with the client. But it’s really more informing him than anything else. We have a weekly meeting with the client, that is why there is a lot of trust between us. Also seeing each other a lot. Frequent contact is a big part of the trust. About the PL: In practice you work together with the project leader constantly: thinking, talking about what’s best, joining meetings, watching and thinking along—so they’re basically always involved.
First phase start
Collaborations can start in two ways: either a client comes to us with an assignment, or we at DigiCampus identify an opportunity ourselves and then look for funding or an enthusiastic client to take ownership. So it varies. When it comes to where I add the most value, it’s in the connecting role. We work with many different organizations, and naturally, each tends to focus on their own piece — sometimes even keeping their work behind closed doors. I invest energy in breaking through that, making sure everyone collaborates and communicates openly. Bringing those organizations together is what I see as my most important contribution.
Second phase understand
When a new project starts, goals and ways of working always need to be figured out together — the whole group has to be on board. I can have ideas about what works, but implementing them top-down doesn’t work. The group needs to arrive at their own agreements. A template outlining what to discuss and decide would definitely help speed that process up. A template can set some things as standard — like which tools to use or where to meet — but it’s still worth discussing them together, so the group feels ownership over the decisions. That creates more commitment. Starting with small shared decisions builds trust and a sense of togetherness, which makes it easier to tackle bigger choices later. So it’s important to keep things open rather than fully fixed from the start.
Fourth phase experiment cocreate
Most of our collaboration happens online — we meet weekly with 10 to 12 people from different organizations. We try to meet in person at least once every six weeks, because that really strengthens the connection. In between, I stay in touch with the various parties through email, calls, or visits.
Fifth phase transfer
No response recorded.
Sixth phase finish
the idea is that the group you’ve connected may continue working together, so the facilitator role might be less needed.
Tools used
No response recorded.
Monitoring progress
Monitoring progress is important, but it’s not happening as well as it should yet. I spend time calling people for updates, but it would be much easier if progress were quickly and clearly visible — both for reporting to the client and for keeping my own overview. Measuring impact matters too, especially in a one-year project where you need to know whether you’re on track and where to adjust. And since we want to keep running this program with different topics, evaluating how we worked — how effective the process and outcomes were — is essential. The biggest value there is internal: learning how to improve. But it’s useful for the client as well.
Collaboration
A lot of calling people, talking, seeing them, staying in contact—so everyone feels heard, seen, and involved. In sessions, you have to be sharp so everyone contributes and has space, but also outside sessions.
Specific painpoints
A common frustration is that this work is always on top of people’s regular jobs. Some get dedicated time from their organization, others don’t — and that creates unequal commitment. How much freedom people have varies more by team than by organization type; it’s rarely bad intent, just a matter of pressure and priorities. In government, even attending a session can require approval, while in companies that’s rarely an issue. Beyond capacity, people sometimes speak different “languages” or have strong, long-held opinions — which creates friction, though it can also be productive. And a frustration shared by many is: when do we stop talking and actually take steps? Though what counts as “action” means different things to different people.
Room for improvement
We mostly reuse existing method templates from DigiCampus, adapting them where needed. A hackathon, for example, isn’t a new concept — we use it as a tool to move things forward. Designing entirely new methods isn’t the current focus. If something new emerges naturally, we’d want to capture it, but we’re not actively pursuing it. That’s partly because it’s not a priority, and partly a capacity issue — we don’t have as many innovation facilitators as we’d like, so there simply isn’t room for it right now. about using alkemio: We could also set up Alkemio better to create more engagement/community; now it’s used very functionally. Handling meetings takes a lot of time: preparation, the meeting itself, and follow-up—preparation and follow-up can take longer than the meeting. emails sometimes trigger a wave of replies about wording or intent, and email isn’t great for resolving that since input comes in one at a time. Part of the reason is that written agreements feel more binding than verbal ones — once it’s on paper, people want the wording to be exactly right, which can lead to backtracking or clarifications.
Platform requirements
getting everyone to see the same information and be able to provide feedback, for example on an “advert” (announcement/vacancy/posting) that has to be sent out. Sometimes we work in Teams so everyone can comment on the document, but some people download it, add comments, and send it back, and then you have to process it. Similar for other documents and presentations. Ideally you’d work simultaneously in one place, but you work with many organizations and not everyone has Microsoft, so you have to involve them differently. Top priority: being able to work on more formal documents and export something you can share externally. Now we often use a screenshot of the whiteboard and put it elsewhere to show what we’re doing. It would be great if you could really get something off the platform to share more broadly and in multiple settings. There are notes/memos where you can type together, but it’s still a memo, not a document. If that were possible, I’d say we wouldn’t need Teams anymore. Government work requires formal documents; that won’t stop soon. Second priority: real collaboration adoption—how to bring along the people who are less quick/ less comfortable digitally.