Teamology – The Art and Science of Design Team Formation

Nearly all design work is collaborative work. The phenomenon of the “design team” is increasingly common in both industry and project-based education. Existing organizational behavior research has shown that diversity on a team has mixed and frequently negative effects, particularly when outward indicators such as gender, ethnicity, age and experience measure diversity. However, relatively little research has been conducted on the problem solving capabilities and preferences of individual team members, or “team cognitive diversity.” This study examines 14 measures of cognitive diversity and 3 measures of project performance for 15 design teams comprised of 97 masters-level engineering students from nine universities in eight countries who collaborated over a period of 8 months. We find that students with similar backgrounds and experience level reveal a wide variety of cognitive problem solving preferences. We also find that overall cognitive diversity does not appear to correlate with overall team project performance. However, team project performance positively correlates with team level “social sensitivity,” the cognitive ability to relate to other team members problem solving preferences. Finally, cognitive diversity does not correlate with either individual and team level satisfaction, indicating that cognitive differences may be successfully accommodated over the life of the project. The implications of these findings are discussed.