Consensus in design: a study of interdisciplinary team conversation and consensus reaching during the early phases of design

The focus of this research is to explore how consensus is reached amongst teams during the initial phases of design projects. In building on previous studies on the social aspect of design, and on team cognition this research seeks to understand the cognitive processes and conversation activities used during the interactions of design teams to reach consensus. The research also examines other factors that were identified as having a potential bearing on the research focus; the difference between the phases of the design process, the difference between experts and novices and the impact of conflict. Four cases were studied across different design domains. The cases involved two bio-medical fellowship programs, an undergraduate product design project and a user experience design consultancy. Content analysis (CA) was used as the main method to analyse the data. The research has contributed to a better understanding of how teams reach consensus while solving complex unstructured design problems. The findings show that during team interactions design teams alternated between 4 cognitive process types: knowledge processing, critical thinking, creative thinking and meta-cognition. Six conversation activities were identified which supported these cognitive processes; domain knowledge, analogies, arguing, mental simulations, scenarios and building on and were instrumental in enabling teams to reach common ground and consensus. The cognitive processes and conversation activities used were also found to be dependent on the objectives of the different phases at the initial phases of the design process. Experts were found to be more successful than novices at building consensus due to a greater and more effective use of the cognitive processes and conversation activities. Conflict has the potential to be a barrier in reaching consensus however this research found cognitive conflict to have a contributory effect on consensus as it encouraged the elaboration and negotiation of information and perspectives. This prevented teams reaching premature consensus and misunderstandings. Conflict was found to be more appropriate at the problem definition phase and the concept development phase but not at the ideation phase. It was also more beneficial in more unstructured problems. Experts were better able to benefit from conflict and at times appeared to deliberately instigate it to broaden the perspectives of topics being discussed

Is design education preparing product for the real world? A study of product design graduates in Ireland

This study aims to identify professional product design roles. It presents the results of a survey of 251 graduates from undergraduate product design courses. Data was gathered about graduate s job descriptions; the companies that employ product designers and the postgraduate education taken. The objective was to show how design practice has evolved and the effect that this has had on product design as a discipline. The results highlight the cross over between design disciplines, the integration of product designers across different industries and the variety of roles that product designers undertake. Implications for product design education are discussed and recommendations are presented

How scenarios support empathy in design: a case study of undergraduate students

In user-centred design, there is recognition that designers must understand the perspectives of the users for whom the product or service is being designed. Sometimes however, designers may not have direct access to end users or their environment and must rely on techniques to evoke their own and others experiences to uncover user needs. The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of scenarios in developing empathy for the users in an undergraduate design project where there was a lack of access to users and the context of use

Design teams management of conflict in reaching consensus

Purpose - The purpose of this article is to explore the conversation activities of design teams to negotiate task conflict and reach consensus. Design/methodology/approach - Four case studies were conducted to analyse the conversation activities that teams use in the course of design projects. Findings - The conversation activities that teams used to negotiate conflict and bring about consensus were identified. These conversation activities are associated with collaboration, communication and social skills enabling teams to engage in the high level of information exchange and negotiation that is required to manage task conflict. How they were used to negotiate conflict and bring about consensus is also discussed. Research limitations/implications - The findings from this research are based on a small number of participant's so cannot be generalised without further study with larger groups. However, the questions this research has raised can be generalised to other tasks and groups. Practical implications - The findings have implications for the management of design teams and teams working on complex unstructured problems both in industry and education. They highlight how conflict can be constructively managed to bring about consensus that integrates the knowledge and perspective of all team members. Originality/value - The benefits of task conflict have been disputed in the literature. This research has identified the conversation activities that facilitate the constructive management of task conflict to bring about consensus that integrates the perspectives and knowledge of a team. Keywords: Task conflict, design teams, conversation activities, consensus building Paper type - research pape

Comparing the dialogue of experts and novices in interdisciplinary teams to inform design education

Design education has moved towards a collaborative practice where designers work in teams and with other disciplines to solve unstructured problems. Along with the cognitive skills involved in the execution of the design process, designers also need skills to work in teams, share information, negotiate common ground and reach consensus. Conversation is core to establishing successful collaborations and learning for students. In order to assess and facilitate collaboration skills, it will become necessary to understand what constitutes constructive and effective dialogue amongst students. The aim of this research is to compare expert versus novice interdisciplinary teams to understand how to better support teams to engage in constructive dialogue during educational design projects. Two cases were studied across different design domains during the problem definition, ideation and concept development phases of the design process. The cases involved a bio-medical fellowship project and an undergraduate product design project. The teams’ conversations were recorded and qualitative content analysis was applied to reveal the cognitive processing and conversation activity that enabled the teams to progress during team collaborations. The findings show that during team interactions design teams alternate between four main cognitive processes, supported by a further six conversation activities to execute the design task. Experts were found to use these cognitive processes and conversation activities more effectively than novices. Recommendations are proposed that can guide design educators to support students during team interactions when solving design problems. The findings have implications for how team work is facilitated and assessed in education

How task conflict can support creative problem solving in teams by stimulating knowledge sharing, critical and creative thinking and meta-cognition

This study explores how task conflict can support creative problem solving in teams and the cognitive processes applied. As multidisciplinary teams can be diverse in nature, they may not always partake competently in the pooling of information, and as a result task conflict may arise due to differences in mental models. Under certain conditions task conflict is considered to be beneficial to creative problem solving because it stimulates knowledge exchange and integration and constructive criticism to reach co-created decisions and solutions. Four case studies were conducted to analyse the discourse of teams carrying out design and innovation projects. Task conflict was found to have a positive impact on creative problem solving in the application of four cognitive processes: knowledge processing, critical and creative thinking and metacognition (team self-reflection). Task conflict was positively related to creativity in the proposal of solution alternatives. The successful application of the cognitive processes was dependent on an awareness of when task conflict is appropriate and high level social skills. The findings have implications for managers of teams solving complex problems. They highlight how the cognitive processes can be constructively used to stimulate and manage conflict to effectively solve problems in teams

How to engage design students to become problem finders as well as problem solvers

Due to a changing economic, social, cultural and technological landscape design problemshave become more complicated with the role of the designer expanding. Designers aremoving from just responding to a brief from a client to also actively engaging with usersand stakeholders to become problem finders as well as problem solvers . In order tomeet these challenges design education must equip students with the skills to seek outnew opportunities for design solutions. This article outlines a methodology adopted anddeveloped to guide Product Design students in carrying out primary research to identifythe needs of users and stakeholders in any given context. The methodology was developedin the course of conducting a number of projects at University Limerick (UL) in conjunctionwith University Limerick Smarter travel over a three year period. Its effectiveness isoutlined and the extent to which students were able to develop a mind-set that enabledthe uncovering of insights that led to innovative solutions is examined. Furthermore, thechallenges faced by the students are also explored