INITIAL CONDITIONS: THE STRUCTURE AND COMPOSITION OF EFFECTIVE DESIGN TEAMS
Year: 2011
Editor: Culley, S.J.; Hicks, B.J.; McAloone, T.C.; Howard, T.J. & Badke-Schaub, P.
Author: Kress, Gregory; Schar, Mark
Series: ICED
Section: Human Behaviour in Design
Page(s): 353-361
Abstract
specially when measured by demographic factors. However, relatively little research has been done on the cognitive style of team members, or “team cognitive diversity.” Our research team is conducting a study examining several measures of cognitive style as they impact project performance for 15 collaborative student design teams. Though our full analysis is ongoing, a few noteworthy trends have emerged during our preliminary analysis. We believe that these trends, separate though they are from our central argument of cognitive diversity, have strong implications in understanding design teams and, ultimately, building teams for design success. In particular, trends relating to leadership, gender ratio and the peculiar influence of a cognitive factor called “Extraverted Feeling” will be discussed. We expand upon these findings and how they might be applied in multidisciplinary teamwork in design engineering education and practice.
Keywords: SOCIAL SENSITIVITY; EXTRAVERTED FEELING; DESIGN TEAMS; COGNITIVE DIVERSITY