Interdisciplinary Collaboration and Teamwork in Design Issues: Assessment of Team Performance Conditioned by Professional Backgrounds

Design is an interdisciplinary, multi-actor process that requires the collaboration of professionals from a range of disciplines. This study aims to ascertain the potential benefits and drawbacks of integrating professionals from diverse disciplines, including design, engineering, and social science, in teams tasked with addressing design challenges. In order to achieve this, a qualitative research study was conducted, whereby professionals were observed as they worked on a specific problem concerning design issues. The professionals were grouped into three teams comprising five professionals in each. The teams were assigned an identical task. A single expert was responsible for observing and evaluating the processes of design activity. The process in question pertains to the initial five of the six principal distinct categories of design activity, namely; 'roles and relationships,' 'planning and acting,' ‘information gathering and sharing,' 'problem analyzing and understanding,' 'conflict avoiding and resolving,' 'concept generating and adopting' as proposed by Cross and Cross (1995). The study reviewed the outputs provided by each team under the 'concept generating and adopting' category. The research findings indicated that professionals from engineering and social science disciplines could successfully work out ill-defined design problems and add value to the discussion, particularly in the 'generating and adopting concepts' phase.