Maximising the performance of multi-diverse design teams

In our Integrated Product Design master at the Delft faculty of Industrial Design Engineering we see a growing diversity in our student population. Besides a growing number of different nationalities there are also significant differences in prior education, competences, and socioemotional aspects. Within the Advanced Embodiment Design (AED) course, students work in teams on a client-based design project for one full semester. In 2018-2019, 22 student-teams started out their endeavour, coached by eight coaches. Within the course an important learning objective we want to offer students is the opportunity to experience and perform in a successful team, acknowledge all students' input, and experience a successful result. During the process of embodiment design, the project teams come across several hurdles which challenges team performance and their project progress, and thereby influences the project results. To maximise the performance of student design-teams we have conducted two studies researching the challenges these teams come across over the course of the semester. One study was based on the coaches' experiences during the project (Flipsen & Persaud, 2016), and the other one on the students' individual reflections on the project (Flipsen, Persaud & Magyari, 2021). The challenges our students come across are analysed and relate to becoming a team, doing the project right, and finalising the project successfully. The results of both studies are used to develop a framework supporting coaches in maximising the performance of multi-diverse design teams. The framework is built around the Theory U (Scharmer 2016), a model describing how teams work with each other, following the right path to success (presencing) or off-tracking by muddling through, or by absencing. To track the different team's performances, we use a project-group tracking-system existing of seven Key Performance Indicators combined with a coach journal. The combination of KPI's help the team of coaches to pinpoint lower performing teams and intervene when needed. In this paper we will present the framework, consisting of (i) preparatory activities to initiate trust, teambuilding, and a successful student cooperation, (ii) a system to track the student-teams' health and performance and pinpoint troublesome groups, and (iii) responsive activities related to the hurdles teams might come across and how to reverse them. To assist the individual coach, we have developed several responsive activities the coach can use to intervene, slowing down the process of dysfunctionality and revert the process towards highly performing teams. The activities are tested in the two cohorts following our initial studies in 2018-2019.