T-Game: A Team Formation Game for Enhancing Cross-Disciplinary Cooperation

Abstract

The advance of technology has communication and knowledge acquisition become more convenient. The ability of participants in single professional field can no longer solve complicated problems. The establishment of cross-disciplinary teams aims to collaboratively solve problems and accomplish tasks which cannot be achieved by a single participant or in a single field. Among factors in facilitating the creativity in the cooperation of designers and technical participants in a cross-disciplinary team, technical participants need suitable communication skills and technical skills and avoid proposing action programs which is technologically practicable but does not conform to designers’ intention. Designers, on the other hand, should acquire relevant professional knowledge and be able to reflect and learn from other experts.

From prior research and evaluation, it was discovered that most problems in cross-disciplinary team cooperation appeared on the team formation stage. For instance, uncertain personal positioning and contribution in the team or not understanding other team members’ work procedure resulted in conflict among team members and difficulty in achieving the consensus. Due to different professional fields, what was normal in an individual field might not be understood by participants from different fields. The solution should be realized by team members. The cognitive diversity formed by the cross-disciplinary team members from different fields is the key factor in increasing creativity and thoughts; however, how to smoothly integrate such ideas should be considered by team members. Playing characters with different specialties allows members in engineering and design putting themselves in someone’s shoes to precede communication and coordination in the process, observe other participants to understand the difference between engineering and design members, and find out solutions to accomplish the goals in short period.