Collaborative design approaches are needed in order to produce a new self-care system which extends health care capabilities to individuals outside the formal health system, such as patients and family caregivers. To define an effective system requires a seamlessly integrated effort by medical providers, technology researchers, and consumers. The strengths of a multi-disciplinary project lay in the differences each person brings to a team. The challenge in this diversity is how to guide participants in becoming a high performing innovative team. At the University of Rochester's Center for Future Health (CFH), we have developed techniques to help disparate groups, including engineers, medical providers, and patients, become a “Cauldron of Thought”© (COT) leading to novel and creative outcomes. The patients in this Cauldron have three roles: consumer, content expert, and colleague. This paper describes the methodology for building a COT with consumers as active members of a self-care technology design team. To illustrate this process we will describe a recent project: “Building the Field of Personal Health Monitoring by Leveraging Synergies with Machine Health Monitoring.” With careful management, this process interweaves diversity, group development, and task performance concepts simultaneously for co-creation of innovative self-care technology.