The Design Programs at Copenhagen School of Design and Technology (KEA) asked me to organize and facilitate a co-creative development process for their teachers and staff. The goal was to develop specific profiles for the graduates each program aims to educate. These profiles were intended to serve both as communication tools for prospective students and future employers, as well as providing a common benchmark for structuring the programs.

KEA Design doesn’t face challenges in recruiting students. Their challenge is selecting students with the greatest potential to become skilled designers who can create value in a constantly changing job market. Although predicting future needs in the job market is difficult, the teachers must be able to prepare students for this. Therefore, it is crucial for the teachers to have a common foundation and tools to prioritize the skills and competencies they want to equip students with during the time they have available.

A Co-Creative Development Process Over Six Months

Together with KEA Design, we developed a six-month process where the teachers, through a series of workshops, created specific graduate profiles. The format of these profiles was continuously adjusted in collaboration with the management and teachers to ensure relevance and usability. Between workshops, the teachers tested the profiles and adapted them based on the needs they experienced in relation to communication and program planning.

Three Profiles for Each Program

The outcome of the process was three distinct graduate profiles for each program. Inspired by the persona model, each profile tells the story of a fictional graduate, outlining their competencies, personal focus, and career aspirations. Each profile includes a quote from the fictional graduate and a competence profile visualized in a spider diagram, highlighting the key skills and competencies for the respective program.

The profiles are simple and standardized in format, making it easy for the teachers to continuously update and adjust them in response to new market demands and feedback from current and future students.

Common Language and Stronger Prioritization

An important side benefit of the process was that the teachers established a common language around what they, as a teaching team, consider most important in their programs. This allows for stronger, more targeted prioritization of the content in the curriculum and ensures that the programs remain relevant and dynamic in relation to the evolving needs of the job market.

If you’re about to organize a co-creative development process, you might find inspiration in some of the other projects and tools available on this site.