I feel there is a lot of agreement around the notion of working in multi-disciplinary teams when working with some sort of development.
The thought that a team consisting of different disciplines, perspectives even origin, sex, cultur and beliefs has a higher possibility of success than a team of same-ol, same ol disciplines, perspectives, sex and beliefs has almost become a given when you enter a discussion about design, innovation or problem-solving in general.
However, although we might believe in it (and acctually work this way ourselves) the corporations dont yet seem to get it. Or do they? Maybe their problem is not that they dont get it, but that they dont know how to do it. How to staff up a multi-disciplinary team?
A team is put together on the basis of the problem they shall solve, so ofcourse there some expertise related to the topic needed. Still I wonder if its possible to create a list of different archetypes that are relevant in such a team. I know that IDEO and de Bono etc. has some opinions on this but what are your views? Does your experiences in this field give you a feeling that some roles needs to be filled in order to create success? If so, which are these roles/archetypes?
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My personal feelings about “multi-disciplinary” is that we want to avoid the Breakfast Club (remember, you had a jock, a nerd, a burnout, a prep, etc. etc.) where you bring in an archetype and have them act as that archetype, but rather to bring in a mix of people with different strengths. There’s a common set of things that everyone can do, a common set of languages that everyone speaks, and a complementary set of individual strengths.
I had lunch with a friend at frogdesign yesterday and he related a story about the MBA and the designer working together on strategy. In his story, the designer would “shoot from the hip” - express ideas without thinking them through ‘what if it was like this? what if it was like that?’ - while the MBA would stop and analayze everything. He was working with the kind of people that I am talking about - an MBA, for example, who had been an architect, who had a certain communication tendency but who also could move around depending on the situation.
I think those factors - communication and thinking styles - have to be sorted out well.
There’s a secondary layer just about basic skill sets. Say “drawing” and “talking to users” - it’s clearly less important to have the skills spread out, but again a basic understanding of those skills will support the communication above.
And here’s another blog entry on the same topic (or related, at least) with some links to other material…
http://riander.blogspot.com/2005/07/collaboration-sessions_13.html
Thanks for an interesting post and a great link!
On your view on “multi-disciplinary” teams - I agree that defining roles and apply people to act those roles rather than acting as them selves is a bad idea. However, the roles can help you select the right people.
I do believe corporations who wants to be more innovative needs to work with “diversified” and “multi…” teams. If you want to do that, there are certain rules, certain notions on communication and thinking styles - that you point out - that needs to be in place.
You also need to have a common view on some sort of process so you know what context you work within. And you need - individually - to have strengths that suppliment each other.
Your story of the MBA and the designer point that out - while sharing a common language, a way to communicate - they take on different roles since one is throwing a lot of ideas on the table and the other one is carefully wiping them off again. I guess it wouldn’t have worked if both was the same.
Btw - Hans Henrik also posted about collaboration and how to lead multi-disciplinary teams earlier with references to Sasha Verhage - http://connecta.typepad.com/cph127/2005/07/how_to_lead_mul.html
Magnus, Steve, I agree that it is challenging to put together a multidisciplinary team that works effectively.
Recently, I was part of a project to train educationalists in strategies for fostering and facilitating collaborative online learning. The team was made up of a diverse group with backgrounds as artists, designers, childcare workers, business administrators, library/research people, lecturers from higher and further education levels etc. Essentially, it was a team of people each with an interest and stake in developing this kind of learning technology.
To concur with what you say Steve, we found that the main challenges to the process were language [or lack of a common language/terminology], communication and thinking styles. Despite the fact that there was a great amount of talent in the project some seemed uncomfortable with the notion of such a diverse team.
It was a valuable learning experience, but ultimately lacked cohesion and in the later of the project stage momentum dropped to a standstill.
Although I don’t think it was a case of revisiting “the Breakfast Club” , we did lack a “common set of languages that everyone speaks, and a complementary set of individual strengths.”
More discussion and information on this topic is crucial…
Great comments! Having seen the oddest teams shape projects together this year in Ivrea (a webdesigner MBA and a computer scientist ; a psychologist, and a guy with an English Major) i think that what is crucial happens at a very early stage where visions are being shaped, the vision of the project, the vision of what needs to be done and the vision of the solution. If that is well established and agreed and understood by all, then no major problems occur, this is also true for teams from the same background. What they contribute will be enriched by their backgrounds and the type of thinking that comes with it. Just some thoughts… maybe this just applies to an educational environment…?