Author ORCID Identifier

Reiter-Palmon https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8259-4516

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-22-2018

Publication Title

Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers Part C: Journal of Mechanical Engineering Science

Volume

233

Issue

2

First Page

385

Last Page

394

Abstract

Interdisciplinary, or cross-functional, teams have become quite common for engineering and design. Many of today’s scientific breakthroughs occur in interdisciplinary teams, as the increasingly complex problems facing society often cannot be addressed by single disciplines alone. However, fostering creative and productive collaboration in interdisciplinary teams is no easy challenge. First, leading creative teamwork is difficult by itself. Second, many of the factors that impede teams and teamwork in general are exacerbated in interdisciplinary teams as a result of differences between team members. In this paper, we will review the team creativity psychology and management literature, and discuss how cognitive processes that facilitate creativity can be used by engineering and design teams. Specifically, past research has shown problem construction that allows teams to develop a structure to guide solving ambiguous problems. Further, problem construction allows teams to develop a shared understanding of the problem which aids in later processes. While there is significant research on idea generation, results suggest that teams may not be better at this than individuals. In this review, we discuss how idea generation in teams can mitigate some of the issues that lead to this effect. Finally, team research has only recently began to determine what factors influence idea evaluation and selection for implementation.

Comments

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Sage in Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers Part C: Journal of Mechanical Engineering Science on January 22, 2018, available online: https://doi.org/10.1177/0954406217753236

Reuse is restricted to noncommercial and no derivatives.

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