As i was reading the amusing new developments in the discussion about
the role of outsiders in design, this new abstract showed up in my
email (see below). Highly relevant to the discussion.
Alas, the URL that is given is not helpful: it requires a login. This
is a paper submitted to ecdtr: Electronic Colloquium on Design
Thinking Research.
However, as I wondered how to get the paper, I noticed the name of the
author: Mark Schar. Oh. Mark is a very successful Engineer who after
an illustrious career, decided he wanted a PhD. He lives in an
apartment almost directly over mine.
I wisely told him that this was a stupid idea: he was already
successful -- what could he learn by going back to school and doing
all the drudge work required of a PhD? He very wisely ignored me (and
his Stanford Advisor, Larry Leifer told me that when he heard my
rejection, Larry knew he had to accept him). Anyway, Mark has now
finished a PhD in the d.school at Stanford (Which is not a school, but
an institute, so it can't give degrees, so Mark's degree is in
mechanical engineering). And I suspect this paper is from his PhD
thesis.
So maybe Mark can supply the paper to those who are interested. I
have cc'd him to this mailing.
Don
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20120312.015 - submitted 12th March 2012
Authors: Mark Schar
Title: PIVOT THINKING AND THE DIFFERENTIAL SHARING OF INFORMATION
WITHIN NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT TEAMS
Abstract:
Functionally diverse team members bring unique sets of cognitive styles to
team interaction; it is less clear how these differences affect the
exchange of critical, mutually required team information. This cognitive
diversity in new product design (NPD) teams increases the likelihood that
individual team members will perceive the team’s task differently, leading
to “cognitive representational gaps” between teammates’ interpretations of
both the task and potential solution.
This research shows that cognitively diverse NPD teams develop
representational gaps based on individual cognitive preferences between
convergent and divergent information types and these cognitive preferences
influence both task definition and solution. A second experiment shows that
team leadership that bridges cognitive preferences, called “pivot
thinking,” can overcome this limiting behavior. Understanding these general
mechanisms deepens understanding of group information processing and
conflict in cognitively diverse NPD teams. Implications for design
education are discussed.
Keywords:
URL: http://ecdtr.hpi-web.de/edit/20120312.015
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