DESIGNERLY WAYS OF SHARING
The Dynamic Development of Shared
Mental Models in Design Teams
Designerly Ways of Sharing
The Dynamic Development of Shared Mental Models in
Design Teams
Andre Neumann
andre.neumann@live.com
Ph.D. thesis, Delft University of Technology
February 2012
ISBN: 978-90-8570-980-0
Designerly Ways of Sharing
The Dynamic Development of Shared Mental Models in
Design Teams
Proefschrift
ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor
aan de Technische Universiteit Delft,
op gezag van de Rector Magnificus prof.ir. K.C.A.M. Luyben,
voorzitter van het College voor Promoties,
in het openbaar te verdedigen op
vrijdag 17 februari 2012 om 12.30 uur
door
Andre NEUMANN
Doctorandus Kunstmatige Intelligentie
geboren te Kleve, Duitsland
Prof. dr. P.G. Badke-Schaub
Prof. dr. K. Lauche
Samenstelling promotiecommissie:
Rector Magnificus, voorzitter
Prof. dr. P.G. Badke-Schaub, Technische Universiteit Delft, promotor
Prof. dr. K. Lauche, Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen, promotor
Prof. dr. J.A. Buijs, Technische Universiteit Delft
Prof. dr. M. Norell, KTH - Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden
Prof. G. Goldschmidt, Technion, Israël
Dr. R. Verburg, Technische Universiteit Delft
Dr. R. van der Lugt, Hogeschool Utrecht
ISBN: 978-90-8570-980-0
Copyright © Andre Neumann 2012All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronical or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any storage and retrieval system without permission from the author.
Chapter 1: General Introduction ... 1
1.1 Shared mental models ... 2
1.2 Goal of this research ... 3
1.3 Outline of this thesis ... 5
Chapter 2: Literature Review and Theoretical Model ... 9
2.1 Designing ... 9
2.1.1 Designing as a process ... 10
2.1.2 Designing as cognitive process ... 17
2.1.3 Design as a social process ... 22
2.2 Researching shared mental models ... 29
2.2.1 Characteristics of shared mental models ... 29
2.2.2 Shared mental models and performance ... 32
2.2.3 Team cohesion ... 34
2.3 Measuring mental models ... 34
2.3.1 Existing approaches ... 34
2.3.2 Process analysis ... 39
2.3.3 Observational approach to shared mental models in design ... 40
2.4 Theoretical approach and model of the development of mental models ... 43
2.4.1 Task ... 47
2.4.2 Process ... 48
2.4.3 Team coordination ... 48
2.4.4 Team cohesion ... 49
2.5 Research questions ... 49
Chapter 3: Observing Shared Mental Models in On-going Teams ... 51
3.1 Introduction ... 51
3.1.1 Hypotheses ... 53
3.2 Method ... 54
3.2.3 Data analysis & categorisation scheme ... 56 3.2.4 Task... 58 3.3 Results ... 58 3.3.1 Task... 59 3.3.2 Process ... 62 3.3.3 Team ... 63 3.4 Discussion ... 68
Chapter 4: Examining the Development of Shared Mental Models in Design Teams . 71 4.1 Introduction ... 71 4.2 Method... 72 4.2.1 Sample ... 72 4.2.2 Procedure ... 72 4.2.3 Team functioning ... 74 4.3 Results ... 76 4.3.1 Idea generation ... 76 4.3.2 Sketching ... 78 4.3.3 Cohesion ... 80 4.3.4 Process ... 81 4.3.5 Coordination ... 81
4.3.6 Comparison of the best vs. the worst functioning team ... 82
4.4 Discussion ... 84
Chapter 5: The Influence of Collective Sketching on Shared Mental Models ... 87
5.1 Introduction ... 88
5.1.1 Sketching in design teams ... 88
5.1.2 Idea generation in teams... 89
5.1.3 Research question and hypotheses ... 90
5.2 Method... 91
5.2.1 Sample ... 91
5.2.2 Research design ... 91
5.3 Results ... 95
5.4 Discussion ... 97
Chapter 6: A Behavioural Marker Tool for Analysing Design Teams ... 101
6.1 Behavioural markers for shared mental models in design teams ... 104
6.2 Validation and reliability ... 107
6.2.1 Sample ... 107
6.2.2 Results... 108
6.2.3 Team performance ... 109
6.3 Discussion & conclusions ... 111
Chapter 7: General Discussion ... 113
7.1 Practical implications ... 115
7.2 Challenges & limitations ... 117
7.3 Recommendations for future research ... 120
7.4 Conclusion ... 123 References ... 125 Appendix A ... 137 Appendix B ... 140 Appendix C ... 143 Appendix D ... 144 Summary ... 151 Samenvatting ... 155 Acknowledgements ... 159 Curriculum Vitea ... 161
1
Chapter 1:
General Introduction
Due to an ever increasing complexity of design projects, collaboration in product development is a central aspect of nowadays design. This asks designers to engage in design activities in teams rather than individually. Successful innovation and thereby the fate of such projects is strongly reliant on efficient collaboration between designers within a team. Diverse expertise is required to develop successful products, yet a group of designers does not automatically form a highly functional team that guaranties a successful project. The main research focus, however, often lies on the design process, overlooking the social aspects of collaborative design activities. In order to implement and support teamwork in design, we need a thorough understanding of the individual cognitive and social processes of designing in teams. Design ideas should therefore be studied as a function of the relationship and roles between the individual designers that generate those (Cross & Cross, 1995). Identifying which aspects of teamwork influence design outcomes is thus a major topic for understanding the cognitive and social processes in collaborative design.
Successful collaboration requires efficient coordination among team members. Team members do not only need a mutual understanding of the vision of the artefact to be designed, they also need to be aware of the skills and abilities of their colleagues and how the other team members approach the task. Although it is generally agreed that these
2
factors play an important role in successful design collaboration (e.g., Chakrabarti, 2009; Norell, 1998), little is known about how these factors influence collaborative design.
In recent studies of design projects, shared representations within design teams have been argued to be a key factor of the project’s destiny (Kleinsmann, 2006). Once shared representations are achieved in a team, team members hold a common view of the design problem and the artefact. In order to reach shared representations, the use of sketches, generally viewed as an essential part of the design activity as a common ground to develop shared representations. Can designers make use of one of their most valuable tools to facilitate working together in a team?
In order to understand collaborative designing better, the aim of this thesis is to develop and test a framework to investigate how designers reach sharedness within teams. The goal is to formulate a methodological approach to study the development of shared mental models in design teams. One particular focus lies on how this is achieved in time, as previous methods mainly focus on whether or not sharedness is present but not on how this is reached. In the following section, the concept of shared mental models is described in more detail.
1.1 Shared mental models
In recent years, numerous studies have investigated how designers think and act in various conditions (e.g., Badke-Schaub, 2003; Cross, 2006; Visser, 2006). This thesis aims to contribute to this field as an approach of studying human behaviour in design by exploring the concept of mental models as a basic theoretical concept for describing the underlying cognitive mechanisms that drive designers. Mental models are theorised as internal representations that people build about the world around them.
In order to use the team members’ individual knowledge and skills efficiently, it is beneficial for all team members to develop a shared understanding. From a cognitive perspective, each member of a team holds mental models that may or may not be similar to those of the others. The term “shared mental model” refers to members of a team sharing their individual mental models (Klimoski & Mohammed, 1994). These mental models can be thought of as knowledge or believe structures about key elements of the
3
team’s environment that allow team members to anticipate one another’s actions and to coordinate their behaviour. Developing a shared mental model might therefore help individual designers coordinate their ideas and activities.Designing in general is not an easy field to study, and including social and cognitive aspects do not ease matters. One of the main reasons is that successful design is hard to define. For example, conflicts exist between a good, innovative product as the target for a design team working together successfully, and a short, time-efficient design process. Moreover, the quality of a designed artefact is at least difficult to determine. Performance as the mere variable on which the quality of collaboration is measured is no option. Investigating the factors that contribute to a successful and collaborative teamwork is thus necessary.
When focussing on the design process, another challenge results from the fact that different design phases are characterized by very distinct needs and characteristics (Birkhofer, Badke-Schaub, & Frankenberger, 1998). In the conceptual or orientation phase, diverse ideas about the product are needed, whereas in an evaluation or decision phases clear shared views about the task at hand are required. Studying the process of designing in order to gather what is exactly going on is thus essential in order to fully gather teamwork in design. Leaving out the process would mean not to deal with the complexity of the field and neglect essential influencing factors of the result.
Unfortunately, there are no easy or direct ways to research this issue. However, there are several useful and promising techniques that can be adapted in order to become applicable to the field of design. Although these methods all have their limitations, they can serve as directions of finding a new direction for studying shared mental models in a complex field as design.
1.2 Goal of this research
In this thesis, a new way of studying shared mental models in designing is presented, a theoretical model of the development of shared mental models is offered and a new method of studying them is applied. Though such a research can only be exploratory in
4
nature, it offers an original view of how shared mental models are formed and can be assessed.
Thus, the main goal of this thesis is to investigate how shared mental models develop in design teams. Shared mental models are known to be a necessity for efficient and well performing teams (Langan-Fox, Anglim, & Wilson, 2004). However, especially for tasks regarding ill-structured problems, the mechanisms that lead to the development of these shared mental models is not well understood. Furthermore, due to the complex nature and difficult assessment of mental models, the measurement of such proved very challenging. Besides, existing approaches that measure the mental models of individuals and compare them at several defined moments during task completion do not pay sufficient attention to the dynamic nature of the shared mental models. A useful approach is therefore needed for assessing and understanding the development of shared mental models in teams in an unobtrusive manner.
Though substantial research into design collaboration exists (see literature review in chapter 2), the underlying psychological factors that influence teamwork are not well understood. A more profound understanding of how teams regulate themselves and how they coordinate their actions is needed in order to integrate the known effects in the design research. This thesis aims to shed some more light on the mechanisms that drive design teamwork. The concept of shared mental models is elaborated and applied to the field of design in order to meet this need.
For understanding the content of mental models, a theoretical model that distinguishes the different factors is needed. The already existing distinctions of the content of shared mental models for the domain of design may not be the most appropriate as the domain has specific characteristics. Furthermore, though it is extensively researched that, and to a lesser extend how shared mental models influence team performance, their development has received far less attention. This is due to the fact that most existing measurements ask individual participants at several points in time how they perceive the task and the team and what actions they would perform (Langan-Fox, Code, & Langfield-Smith, 2000). Afterwards, these individual answers are aggregated in order to calculate a shared mental model score. However, these methods cannot
5
capture how an agreement is reached on a team level. Moreover, these methods are very obtrusive and cannot easily be applied to real team settings. One aim of this thesis is to provide a framework how to determine shared mental models on a team level.While some factors, like team composition or team training, that influence the development of shared mental models in general have been found, actions that are design specific like sketching and design process reflection have received little attention. One goal of this research is to analyse both factors as very important for the development of shared mental models in the domain of design. Based on the findings, recommendations that can improve design collaboration are formulated.
This thesis aims to answer the question: How do shared mental models in design teams develop during time? If actors have different knowledge and expectations about the goal, the current situation, or the system they deal with, a team may encounter misunderstandings, or they may end up with coordination problems resulting in a waste of time and resources. But apart from shared representations about the task, a mutual understanding of how to approach a task, e.g., by applying a specific method, and of the team is essential for successful collaboration. On the other hand, team members could also mutually challenge their preconceptions and therefore avoid the limitations of individual mental models. It seems obvious that the development of shared mental models is highly relevant to design, particularly in multidisciplinary product development teams, which typically struggle to establish a common ground.
1.3 Outline of this thesis
This thesis analyses the effect of the development of shared mental models on design teamwork. Figure 1.1 presents an overview of the thesis layout. First, based on a literature review that results in a theoretical model of how shared mental models develop and can be measured, three empirical studies on the development of shared mental models in design teams and a resulting team diagnosis tool are described. The first study is an observation of an on-going engineering team in industry and serves as an exploratory study. The following two studies involve ad-hoc teams of advanced design students, aiming to investigate how sharedness develops and what influence sketching
6
plays in controlled conditions. Based on the theoretical model and the empirical studies, a team diagnosis tool to detect missing sharedness in teamwork and to recommend interventions is developed and tested. While all studies are related to each other, they each have a specific focus and they can be read independently of each other.
Figure 1.1: Thesis outline
Chapter 2: Literature review and theoretical model Chapter 3: Observing shared mental models in existing teams Chapter 4: Shared mental models in design teams Chapter 5: Sketching in design teams Chapter 6: Development and validation of a team tool Chapter 7: General discussion Chapter 1: General introduction
7
Chapter 2 presents the literature review on previous work on design research and design teamwork, shared cognitions as a general concept to study thinking processes in teams with a focus on the construct of shared mental models. The importance of understanding the implicit mechanisms that drive design teams is elaborated. Then, an overview of shared mental models and methods to measure these with their strengths and weaknesses are presented. Based on that, a theoretical model of the development of shared mental models is described and explained in detail.The study presented in Chapter 3 describes an exploratory study of the development of shared mental models in an existing engineering team. Based on the theoretical model from chapter 2, a method to measure shared mental models from observed explicit utterances is developed and tested. In order to do so, a coding scheme is defined to investigate shared mental models based on overt behaviour. This scheme has been applied to study the dynamic process shifting from explicit to implicit coordination in teams. The findings contribute to the theory of the development of shared mental models in teams.
The study described in chapter 4 investigates the effect of shared mental models on teamwork in a quasi-experimental study on ad-hoc teams. Based on the theoretical model and the coding scheme, design teams were observed during an idea generation task. The effects of task, team and process shared mental models on the teamwork and the productivity are discussed. Based on the findings, sketching and reflection are identified as two important factors that influence the development of shared mental models.
The study described in Chapter 5 examines the effect of sketching together on the development of shared mental models in a team during a concept development task in an experimental study. Furthermore, its effect on the productivity, the satisfaction with the final result and the quality of the resulting concept is described.
Chapter 6 describes a team diagnosis tool that is developed based on the theoretical model and the empirical findings. The main aim of this tool is to provide an instrument to indicate problems in teams’ shared mental models in an unobtrusive way and to provide recommendations for interventions.
8
Finally, Chapter 7 provides an integrative discussion of the findings as related to the proposed theoretical model and team diagnosis tool. Implications are discussed and recommendations for future research and practice are presented.
9
Chapter 2:
Literature Review and Theoretical Model
1This chapter provides an overview of the literature on shared mental models in design teams. It starts with a description of designing in general, followed by views of designing as cognitive and as social processes. Mental models are introduced as a construct embracing both aspects. The literature review describes the cognitive and social processes with an overview of current research on shared mental models and design. Next, the issue of how to measure mental models is addressed, providing an overview of several methods and their advantages and disadvantages. Based on the literature, a theoretical model is developed that acts as a framework for the rest of this thesis is presented in the next section.
2.1
Designing
Products are omnipresent in our daily life. Whether products are used as a service or as a physical object, with all their functions and properties, products are designed in order to fulfil needs and wishes. Product design is the process devising and laying down
1 This chapter is based on Badke-Schaub, P., Neumann, A., Lauche, K., & Mohammed,
S. (2007). Mental models in design teams: a valid approach to performance in design collaboration? CoDesign, 3(1), 5-20.
10
the plans that are needed for manufacturing a product (Roozenburg & Eekels, 1995). Designing is an activity that includes the elaboration of a problem, the development of a concept, and the evaluation of a solution. During this activity, designers go through several phases and they constantly change and adapt their process. This can be due to new ideas, requirements, information, or external factors. Hence, designing needs to be understood as a process with specific characteristics (Cross, 2006). There are several steps and phases during a design process that are to be taken. Approaching designing from a process perspective is thus necessary to understand its characteristics. Being the most prominent and classical approach of researching or understanding design, designing as a process is discussed first. This section focuses on the history of design research, including either prescriptive or descriptive methodologies (Pahl, Beitz, Wallace, & Blessing, 2007). Prescriptive models are an abstract form of good design practice which can be applied by and taught to designers, while descriptive methods aim to formulate how designers work. Both models, however, do not pay much attention to the cognitive or social processes designers face while designing. Apart from following a generic process, designers have to solve problems, which is a cognitive activity. The search for solutions depends on human thinking and acting. Investigating both cognitive and social processes is thus vital for understanding designing. The cognitive processes are elaborated in more detail in section 2.1.2. Finally, designers mostly work in team in which they must rely on other people’s input. This makes designing a social activity, and it should be considered as such (Bucciarelli, 1994). Designing as a social activity is described in section 2.1.3.
2.1.1
Designing as a process
Although every design process follows its own way, due to the specific nature of the problem, similar good practices can be found in designing. In early design research in the 1960’s, design methods were studied by describing them abstractly. This resulted in
prescriptive design methodologies, which formulates generic stages through of good
11
fundamental reasoning process from goals to means that every designer has to go through is depicted in the basic design cycle shown in Figure 2.1. This model describes designing as a process, starting with the analysis phase. Starting from the proposed function of the product, an analysis is carried out, which leads to a set of criteria according to which the product should conform. In this phase, a basic concept of a new design is formed which is worked out in detail in the rest of the design phase. During synthesis, a conceptual design is proposed and built, which might be simulated by prototyping and should be evaluated later on. Based on the outcome of that evaluation, a decision is taken whether the new product idea is sufficient or whether a new analysis or synthesis is required. During the years, it was acknowledged that designers do not have to pass all stages sequentially to achieve good practice. Due to that, the design process was modified, leading to an iterative model as the one described in Figure 2.1.Figure 2.1: The basic design cycle (Roozenburg & Eekels, 1995)
Within such a design process, designers create and execute solutions to a variety of design problems, taking into consideration the function, form, properties, usability, user interaction, marketing, and distribution. Unfortunately, the goals and criteria designers have to deal with are often ambiguous and far from clear at the beginning of a design project. Such problems are called ill-structured problems (Simon, 1973). The term ‘ill-structured’ refers to problems that have no prescribed way to solve them, as not one single solution exists. In contrast to well-structured problems, these problems have no definitive course of steps that can be taken in order to solve the problem. They are difficult or impossible to solve because of incomplete, contradictory, and changing
12
requirements that are often difficult to recognize. Therefore no definitive formulations of ill-structured problem can be given beforehand. In order to define an ill-structured problem, gathering information and thinking of a solution is necessary. The definition of an ill-structured problem is thus related to the solution finding of the problem. Moreover, because of complex interdependencies, the effort to solve one aspect of an ill-structured problem may reveal or create other problems. Solving such a problem thus requires a dynamic problem solving strategy. Eventually, once a solution has been found for an ill-structured problem, one can never be sure that this is the best one as there is no immediate or ultimate evaluation of the ill-structured problem. A generic procedure that can lead to a solution of complex problems is to decompose problems into smaller sub-problems. Doing so, manageable subtasks are generated that allow proceeding towards the desired goal.
Furthermore, as design situations are dynamic and may change, given information might not be valid at a later point in time. This is one reason why design problems are often characterized as complex problems. Solving complex problems requires overcoming various barriers between the initial state and the goal. During that problem solving, many interrelated aspects must be taken into account, which can lead to unintended outcomes. Some of these aspects are also hidden, resulting in possibly unforeseen consequences of decisions taken during the problem solving process. Additionally, complex problems have no clear single goal, asking for goals to be adapted or broken down into sub-goals during the process. Furthermore, complex problems are often time-dependent, meaning that the context may change during the solving process and some decisions cannot be taken back. Finally, complex problems are often context dependent. Choices have to be adapted to this context and are often difficult to foresee.
Dealing with the complex nature of design problems, the aim of prescriptive design methodologies is to indicate how to proceed. Thus, design methodologies aim to provide structured guidelines that lead to reliable, effective and efficient design activities (Roozenburg & Eekels, 1995). One major stream within design methodologies is a generic approach in which the design process is described on different levels of abstraction.
13
Methods that follow that approach are generally prescriptive design methods that provide rules for good design practice. A famous example of this approach is the four phases model (Pahl, et al., 2007). The model describes an iterative design approach in which four major phases are distinguished that defines the immediate results to be generated at the end of each phase (see Figure 2.2).14
Designers should start with the task specification, which includes the requirements of the task, and in turn, the characteristics of the task. This is followed by the conceptual design phase, in which designers should specify the goal and come up with a principal solution. In the third phase, the embodiment design phase, the conceptual solution is analysed and globally worked out. Principal aspects like ergonomics, safety, aesthetics, and production are already included in this solution. Finally, the solution is worked out and specified in such a way it can be produced in the detail design phase. These four phases are seen as universal for all design processes. Although numerous other design methodologies exist that describe the design process in other ways with different names (for overviews, see (Chakrabarti, 2009; Pahl, et al., 2007; Roozenburg & Eekels, 1995), the basic structure remains the same. In this thesis, the focus lies on the first two phases of the model as these are the innovative phases when new solution ideas are generated. As solutions are not clearly defined yet, designers can not merely rely on their own knowledge. Consequently, collaboration is very important in those two phases.
It appeared that prescriptive design methodologies that were derived from best practice in designing were not sufficient to describe the process. Designers can demonstrate very distinctive behaviour while designing such as jumping between phases, but still perform well. The steps described in the prescriptive methodologies are steps in the problem solving process of designers that need to be done, however, not necessarily in the order of the methods (Dorst, 1997).
This lead to descriptive approaches that take a very different starting point (Dorst, 2006). These aim to describe the activities of designers during their design activities. This is an interesting starting point because it aims to understand how individuals steer the design process. One example is “reflection in action”, in which design is considered as a reflective dialogue between designers and the objects and environment around them (Schön, 1983). Whereas this approach does not attempt to provide any guidelines, it can function as a method by controlled reflection. There, the term reflection refers to an action of becoming aware of one’s action or self, often to evaluate previous behaviour and to learn. For this thesis, the main focus lies on the development of the designers’
15
mental models and how these are shared within a team. Reflection is important during that process, but in this thesis it is considered as merely one aspect during the design process rather than a main design approach.Although descriptive models of design have been of great value for understanding designing, they seem to be lacking some needs of designers. Designers in practice require models that guide them during the design process, thereby reducing time and errors. Descriptive models, however, mainly provide insight on what happens, but not on what to do about it. Therefore such models are generally not used by designers in practice. This promoted a rise in empirical design research, investigating aspects of human behaviour and cognition that influence the design process, and, in turn, aiding designers in practice.
A graphical overview of cognitive and social aspects of designing is presented in Figure 2.3. The figure shows the requirements, representations, and activities designers must face individually and while working together. In the following, each cell is described in detail.
Figure 2.3: Overview of cognitive and social aspects of designing
cognitive aspects
of designing social aspectsof designing situational
requirements
representations
activities
building
mental models mental modelssharing
task analysis sketching coping with
complexity analyzing process interdependency roles & responsibilities
task analysis sketching process management process management team coordination 2.1.2.1 2.1.2.2 2.1.2.3 2.1.3.1 2.1.3.2 2.1.3.3 communication & coordination: analysis & solution finding:
16
First, designers have to face complex problems and make difficult decisions during the design process, which asks for cognitive processes. Obviously, the cognitive processes determine which steps and actions designers take and, in turn, influence the quality of the solution. However, the cognitive processes are only included at a task level in the previously described models, thereby leaving out the individual aspects of designers in their problem solving process. In order to understand the cognitive process, one must understand the situational requirements of designing. In other words, this is about the characteristics of the problem designers need to face. These requirements determine the problem solving process. This includes coping with different factors of complex problems, including aspects like variety of variables and their interdependencies. Moreover, considering the representations designers’ hold of problems and solutions are essential for investigating the cognitive processes of designing. Mental models as a construct to research these representations is introduced and described in detail. Next to that, the
activities and behaviours that designers are engaged in, working on the task or
structuring the process, are outlined. One important activity that designers use in order to cope with the complexity of problems is sketching. The function and use of sketches is not included in the previously described approaches, leaving out a vital aspect of designing.
Furthermore, products are seldom developed by one single person alone. For example, designers are usually not the ones who manufacture a product, nor the ones who take care of selling the product afterwards. But even within the conceptual phase designers with different backgrounds or expertise work together. This means that designing is a social activity, asking different designers to take consideration of others’ influences. Such teamwork also has special situational requirements like assigning roles and responsibilities or structuring the process. Moreover, the representations of members in a team must be conceptualized in order to understand what happens during the teamwork. The concept shared mental models is introduced as a way to research this topic. Next, effective teamwork requires specific activities. For example, designers must coordinate and communicate in an appropriate way in order to be successful.
17
Additionally, the activities that are important for designing individually are also vital for effective teamwork. Team members must work on the task and structure the process together. Sketching is an important design activity, functioning as a way of communication for members in a team.2.1.2
Designing as cognitive process
2.1.2.1 Dealing with design representations
Designing is a cognitive activity (Thomas & Carroll, 1979; Visser, 2006). Starting with the first step in the design process, the initial problem formulation, designers need to build mental representations of the problem to be solved. This representation is dependent on the designer’s knowledge and expertise. But as the existing knowledge is usually not sufficient for finding the solution, further information must be acquired and integrated into the representation. Along the problem solving process, new, sometimes contradicting information must be included, asking to constantly analysing and adapting the mental representation.
This means that designers need to constantly modify their mental representations of the problem. The representations, in turn, are used during solution search, having direct consequences on the resulting product to be designed. A variety of complex and uncertain decisions have to be taken till the task is finally fulfilled.
The understanding of design processes can substantially benefit if not only considered from an engineering point of view that deals with the content and the structure of the design task, but if insights from psychological literature on design cognition are also included. An integration of both disciplines will help to better understand the underlying processes of creative designing (Howard, Culley, & Dekoninck, 2008). Given the difficulties solving complex problems, knowledge of human behaviour in general should be considered as an integral part of design research (Dörner, 1987; Dörner, Kreuzig, Reither, & Stäudel, 1983). That means that the problem solving process
18
itself can be explained by human motivation and emotions, and the context and environment of the problem solver are taken into account.
A recent review also showed that design researchers make only limited use of the psychological literature (Lauche, 2007a). Consulting the psychological literature could provide valuable knowledge and research methods for studying cognition and social processes in design. This research can help to account for many influencing factors that are found in descriptive design studies.
One aspect that has been shown to have a strong influence on collaborative design is the representation of the design problem and the concept. They can be used to investigate the development of shared understanding in a design team. While sharing different representations in a team, sketching plays a vital role. Both aspects are discussed in more detail in the following sections.
2.1.2.2 Mental models as design representations
In order to investigate cognitive activity, it is necessary to define non-observable mental representations in such a way that allows investigating and measuring them. One influential approach to theorize mental representations in cognitive psychology is the concept of “mental models.” A mental model is someone’s representation of the variables of the real world, the properties and attributes of variables that describe the world, and the relationships between the various variables. It includes the knowledge and beliefs about a system, as well as the relationships within those knowledge and belief structures. Mental models guide people’s perception about their own acts and their consequences. It is a hypothetical construct that allows representing and investigating cognitive activities by conceptualizing the content representations and reasoning. Therefore, the concept is very useful to describe the mental representations that are required to perform complex tasks. Previous research has pointed out the importance of mental models in design projects (Davison & Blackman, 2005).
The idea that we carry mental copies of the real world has a long tradition in philosophy, even dating back to Greek philosophers like Plato. However, it was not before
19
1943 that Kenneth Craik worked out this idea to make it applicable to studying cognitive aspects of human behaviour. In his view, the mind creates small scale models of reality (Craik, 1943). A new, unfamiliar object is represented in a model by a similar, more familiar object. We reason, explain things, and anticipate events on those models and constantly modify the models accordingly. Although Craik’s notion had some influence in the emerging field of cognitive science, researchers did not use the term mental models as an explicit research paradigm until much later.The term mental models was reintroduced to the cognitive science community in the early 1980’s by Johnson-Laird (1980). In 1983, he published a book on this topic (Johnson-Laird, 1983), which together with another book titled “Mental models” by Gentner and Stevens (1983) brought this concept back to attention. While Johnson-Laird viewed mental models as the basic structure of cognition that describes how people reason about reference in terms of syllogistic reasoning, Gentner and Stevens introduced the term to the ergonomic community in order to study the interaction between humans and systems. As Norman states: “In interacting with the environment, with others, and with the artefacts of technology, people form internal, mental models of themselves and of the things with which they are interacting. These models provide predictive and explanatory power for understanding the interaction” (Norman, 1983, p. 7).
Johnson-Laird (1983), and Gentner and Stevens (1983) point out that the notion of mental models seems applicable to various disciplines, all with their own focus. A review of the definitions and use of mental models in different domains also revealed that many different understandings of this notion exist (Rouse & Morris, 1986). These authors argue that in order to avoid just rephrasing knowledge into mental models, the particular type of knowledge of which they are composed, and the purpose for what they are used, should be considered. They suggest that research on mental models should be applied cautiously to every specific domain.
Johnson-Laird (1983) proposed at least three types of mental representations: “Propositional representations, which are strings of symbols that correspond to natural language, mental models, which are structural analogues of the world, and images, which
20
are the perceptual correlates of models from a particular point of view” (p.165). He argues that both, propositional representations and mental images are dependent on mental models. Depending on the task the mental models are related to, they are diversely implemented, taking various forms with different level of accuracy. They might include concepts, propositions, scripts, frames, or mental images (Bainbridge, 1992). Mental models are therefore not equivalent to (declarative) knowledge. They are also different from explanations that are formed in order to interpret events. An essential issue in investigating mental models is the relationship between representations, which are often understood in spatial terms (Keil, 2006). It is more about how the knowledge is structured. Although this distinction is not always unambiguously possible, mental models reflect the tendency of people to categorize what they know and how this knowledge is organized (Klimoski & Mohammed, 1994) rather than just knowing something.
The basic idea is thus that people construct internal working models of the world. This allows people to understand and make continuously predictions with little mental effort. Due to their nature, these working models are necessarily simplifications of the world (Smyth, Collins, Morris, & Levy, 1994).
An important implication for this research is that mental models are not necessarily accurate but reduced representations of the world, as also stated by Craik. People may interpret accidental co-occurrences as a causal mechanism, which is in fact not the case (Besnard, Greathead, & Baxter, 2004). Mental models, although facilitating fast decision making, can thus be fallible. For designing, especially in earlier concept generating phases, shared but inaccurate mental models do not have to be negative. It has been argued that ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ is not always of major importance while designing, as long as it is inspiring (Buijs, 2007).
21
2.1.2.3 Sketching as an activity of designing as cognitive
process
When solving complex problems, designers engage in several activities. They must understand the problem they are facing. This involves the definition of the problem, the analysis the problem, and the search for possible solutions. Doing so, they must examine the situation that they are dealing with and find and evaluate possible solutions. Finally, a decision must be taken as solutions are chosen. Doing all these activities, sketching plays a vital role for designers. An introduction of sketching as a design tool is given hereafter.
Besides the task, a designer also needs to structure the process. This includes prioritizing activities, making plans, reflecting about activities, and defining necessary steps. More about process is presented in section 3.3.2.
Dealing with design problems, sketching seems to play a crucial role. Muller (2001) argues that visual thinking is essential in design. Designers’ ideas can be visually represented and visualized via sketches. Design concepts constitute artefacts that resemble objects in the real world. Designers hold mental images of these artefacts that assist them during their thinking process (Athavankar, 1997). These mental images are constantly manipulated and altered during the design process. Additionally, sketching is not just a process of representing the mental images on paper, but also a dialectic process in which designers transform and evaluate their images (Goldschmidt, 1991). Therefore, sketching can regularly be observed in the design process.
Sketching is generally viewed as the preferred form of representation for designers (Ullman, Wood, & Craig, 1990). Sketching is a particularly preferred aid to extent visual imagery into visual designs. The development and use of visual representations by sketching the design provides a memory extension which reduces the cognitive load needed for the visual design process (Purcell & Gero, 1998). Once a design idea is represented in a sketch, a designer does not need to devote any cognitive load on mentally representing the object. In turn, it takes less effort for the designer to mentally envision and manipulate the still unformulated object, as its representation is visually present.
22
Therefore, designers who sketch during the design process perceive problems as less difficult (Sachse, Hacker, & Leinert, 2004). The use of visual representations has been argued to facilitate design problem solving by making the designer’s mental images more explicit. Furthermore, designers who used sketches could infer more relations between components of complex concepts (Sachse, et al., 2004). This supports the idea that sketches contribute to a better and deeper understanding of one’s own ideas.
2.1.3
Design as a social process
2.1.3.1 Requirements of social processes
So far we have discussed designing as a cognitive activity of the individual. However, most design activities are performed in teams, in which a group of people share a common purpose or goal. When working together in teams, one of the major challenges lies in the coordination and cooperation between team members, who might have different expectations of what needs to be done, or how to interpret the situation based on their expertise. Teamwork has been identified as the heart of the project development process (Brown & Eisenhardt, 1995; Bucciarelli, 1994), with a major influence on product success.
Designing in the context of new product development, is typically characterised by a collaboration of several team members. Due to the complexity of design problems and the scope of design projects, team members often have different backgrounds, such as marketing, mechanical engineering, software design, and production expertise. It is very common within new product development teams in general, and in design teams in particular, that several team members with different functional expertise work together in order to fulfil a common task. Such teams are called cross-functional teams. Although such teams are a necessity due to the complexity of design task, several factors hinder the use of their full potential. Edmondson and Nembhard (2009) identified five attributes that hinder new product development teams to attain their full potential: project complexity, cross-functionality, temporary membership, fluid team boundaries, and
23
embeddedness in organizational structures. Overcoming these factors, teams should take broad perspectives, train their teaming skills, and expand their boundary-spanning skills. In other words, team members should be more open to take others’ perspectives and become a coherent team in order to be successful. Team members need to share their understandings about the task and the team.The collaboration between team members with different backgrounds can be challenging and costs substantial time and effort. Approaches like Integrated Product Development aim at reducing project lead times by promoting closer collaboration between the disciplines involved (Buijs & Valkenburg, 1996). The authors state that, multidisciplinary teams composed of members from different backgrounds, with different knowledge, or experience, have the potential of investigating problems from several perspectives, which might result in better understanding of the problem at hand. However, there is the danger of losing focus and thereby impeding the decision making process, which has been shown to lead to performance reduction and has been implicated as a contributing factor in failures and accidents (Badke-Schaub & Frankenberger, 2004).
Communication is another bottleneck when working in teams. Effective communication is required in order to exchange ideas about the problem and the solution. However, the communication between members from different disciplines is often hindered by different understandings of topics (e.g., Kleinsmann & Valkenburg, 2003; Kratzer, Leenders, & van Engelen, 2004; Stempfle & Badke-Schaub, 2002a). In order to overcome this problem, one must better understand how individual representations are shared within a team.
Ineffective teamwork can also arise from insufficient clarity of the used terminology, probably due to differences in background knowledge (MacGregor, Thomson, & Juster, 2001). In order to identify critical situations and react appropriately, the need of a shared understanding of the task is important (Badke-Schaub & Frankenberger, 2002). It is a known phenomenon that duties, and the understanding of tasks, are often not divided in an efficient manner.
24
Communication across different topics can be challenging given the functional differences that create boundaries. Boundary objects are objects that are shared by different groups within an organization but used differently by each of them. Boundary objects can help to overcome these boundaries by severing as a shared ground (Carlile, 2002; Star & Griesemer, 1989). Such boundary objects can be a shared terminology or practice, but also shared representations like sketches. These boundary objects help to represent knowledge and transfer it to other team members, thereby creating and maintaining cohesion (Bechky, 2003). This results in more shared understanding within the team.
Shared understanding is a general construct that involves two or more people sharing their ideas and appropriate actions. It is usually assumed that shared understanding can be defined as acknowledgement between team members and that its existence facilitates teamwork. In other words, shared understanding primarily focuses on a macro level of sharing ideas and concepts that are uttered or sketched.
Valkenburg (2000) assumes that design team members need a shared understanding of the task. In her study, Valkenburg referred to shared understanding as shared frames related to the definition and understanding of a problem.
Badke-Schaub and Frankenberger (Badke-Schaub & Frankenberger, 2002) state that much can be learned about the communication between members and the used strategies from the analysis of the information transfer within design teams.
Although the positive effects of reaching a shared understanding have been illustrated, less is known on how shared understanding is being established. However, it has been stated that new product development should emphasise on cognitive and communication processes rather than on social processes only (Madhavan & Grover, 1998). Investigating how a shared understanding is reached will therefore require a detailed study of the processes that are involved and integrating both aspects, cognitive and social processes in the team (Paletz & Schunn, 2010). In a recent meta-analysis, it was demonstrated that variables regarding team process have a strong influence on creativity and innovation in teams (Hülsheger, Anderson, & Salgado, 2009).
25
Although the concept of shared understanding has helped acknowledging the fact that teams need some kind of sharedness, it provides little explanatory power as a detailed theory that explains how sharedness is reached. Additionally, the concept lacks theories of how the actual content should be shared within a team. One way to better understand and investigate the process of sharing is the concept of shared mental models.Previously, mental models have been introduced as mental representations about the design task at hand. Within a team, designers have to exchange and adapt their individual models to reach an agreement. When working together, designers start with individual mental models about the task. Within a team setting, the designers also have a representation of the other team member, thereby also having a representation of the team. Finally, they also have a mental model about the process, which is how they work and structure the design process. In time, team members exchange their mental models, which lead their individual models to change and converge. When they agree on aspects, for example the problem definition, their mental models become more similar. Eventually, teams that have achieved a shared understanding continue to employ the same cognitive processes, leading to similar mental models. Shared mental models are described in detail in the next section.
Given the research presented above, it becomes clear that research in design collaboration has provided insights into the factors that influence such. However, attempts to study the psychological processes that drive design collaboration are rarely taken. Many design researches missed the opportunity to embrace knowledge about teamwork that is already present in the mature field of social sciences. Theoretical models, concepts, and measurement techniques are waiting for being picked up and adapted to design research. Incorporating those into design research is the main aim of this work. In this thesis, I start with the concept of shared mental models and adapt this to the needs of the field of design, thereby attempting to use the best of both worlds illuminating one piece of design collaboration. The main research questions are how mental models develop in design teams, and how those are exchanged and adapted
26
along the process. This includes the question how the dynamic nature of mental models can be studied. Answers to these questions will not only provide insights in the cognitive and social aspects of designing.
2.1.3.2 Shared mental models of designing as social process
Mental models provide the opportunity to investigate in detail the cognitive processes during teamwork. Furthermore, in recent years researchers have used mental models to study how knowledge and beliefs are distributed between several members of a team. This has become known under the term shared mental models.
The concept team mental models or shared mental models has been introduced to characterize knowledge or belief structures shared by members of a team, which enable them to form accurate explanations and expectations about the task, and to coordinate their actions and adapt their behaviours to the demands of the task and to other team members (Cannon-Bowers, Salas, & Converse, 1993; Klimoski & Mohammed, 1994). It refers not only to sets of knowledge shared by some members of a team or just to an aggregate of the individual mental models, but also to a synergistic aggregation of the teams’ cognitive processes, representing similarity, overlap, and complementary (Langan-Fox, et al., 2004). Shared mental models describe, define, and measure the individual mental models, and their interactions (Langan-Fow, 2005).
Shared mental models are specific for every domain, because they are content-specific, thus they are different for each task and professional culture. This might be one major reason why there is no commonly “shared typology” about shared mental models. Nevertheless, two types of mental models are to be distinguished that can be shared between team members: the task and the team model. A more detailed distinction into four models that is commonly used was proposed by (Cannon-Bowers, et al., 1993): The task model, the equipment model, the team model, and the team interaction model. These models were identified when the main research focus was on mental models is human system interaction. This is illustrated by the equipment/technology model that is included.
27
Besides task and team related knowledge, it is assumed that attitudes and belief structures towards team members are relevant for shared mental models (Cannon-Bowers & Salas, 2001). Other than knowledge structures, attitudes and belief structures are assumptions and intuitions. Although they are more difficult to assess, and are not directly related to the task and the team knowledge, they are assumed to influence cohesion, motivation and consensus in teams.A wide variety of terms besides shared mental models have evolved around similar topics. The terminology includes terms like team knowledge (Cooke, Salas, Cannon-Bowers, & Stout, 2000), shared/team cognition (Cooke, Salas, Kiekel, & Bell, 2004), information sharing (Gigone & Hastie, 1993), mutual understanding, shared beliefs (Cannon & Edmondson, 2001), cognitive consensus (Mohammed & Ringseis, 2001), collective mind (Weick & Roberts, 1993), transactive memory (Moreland & Myaskovsky, 2000), grounding (Clark & Brennan, 1991), group learning (Wilson, Goodman, & Cronin, 2007), and knowledge management (Madhavan & Grover, 1998) among others. Most of them point at similar issues to those of mental models in teamwork, but they have different levels of resolution or focus on these topics from slightly different angles. Four prominent terms that are related to shared mental models in design are outlined here (See also Mohammed & Dumville, 2001): Shared cognition, transactive memory, cognitive consensus, and grounding. This overview is useful as similar topics are sometimes covered under different names, and a distinction between similar concepts is necessary to delimit the focus of the research. For recent reviews on the concepts and how they contribute to teamwork behaviours and performance, see (Mathieu, Maynard, Rapp, & Gilson, 2008; Rousseau, Aube, & Savoie, 2006; Salas, Cooke, & Rosen, 2008)
Shared cognition focuses on the social context in which skills and knowledge are
acquired. It emphasises the social environment in which cognition takes place, the information that is shared with others and the activities all members have in common (Cannon-Bowers & Salas, 2001; Ensley & Pearce, 2001). Shared cognition can be viewed as a global term that embraces most of the listed concept.
28
Transactive memory refers to the use of other person’s memory as an external
knowledge source. The concept was developed in studies about close couples (Wegner, Erber, & Raymond, 1991) and includes the awareness about which person knows what. Therefore, it is the awareness of how knowledge is divergent between members of a group rather than shared, and it is assumed that group member familiarity is a key to development of this mutual awareness of knowledge. Several studies have shown that the use of transactive memory improves performance (Austin, 2003; Brandon & Hollingshead, 2004; Moreland & Myaskovsky, 2000). Although this concept focuses primarily on how knowledge is distributed rather than held in common, it is very closely related to shared mental models because it investigates how knowledge is distributed between team members.
Next, cognitive consensus covers the similarity among group members regarding the conceptualisation, definition and operationalization of key issues of a task (Mohammed & Ringseis, 2001). People share assumptions that are important matters that underlie decision making.
Finally, the basic idea of grounding is that conversations require much shared information to be successful, i.e., mutual knowledge, beliefs, and assumptions. This information is called common ground and conversational partners are constantly coordinating with each other to ground the content of their conversation. Grounding is the process of seeking and providing evidence of understanding in conversation (Clark & Brennan, 1991).
2.1.3.3 Activities of designing as social process
In teams, designers need to work on the task and structure the design process in order to reach the desired outcome, as they would do when working individually. Additionally, designers working in teams also need to maintain their teamwork processes. They have to combine their efforts to reach the desired goals. This requires communication and cooperation between the team members, as well as knowledge about each other knowledge, skills, and responsibilities.
29
Working on the task, sketching also plays an important role in teams. Besides their function as aiding designers in their solution search, sketches also function as a kind of communication platform. The use of sketches thus aid designers in teams by creating a common ground on which ideas can be shared and explored (Goldschmidt, 2007; Henderson, 1999).2.2 Researching shared mental models
2.2.1
Characteristics of shared mental models
Besides the content of a mental model, the quality of the mental model that is shared within a team affects the outcome. Three major factors that influences the quality of shared mental models is discussed here: sharedness, accuracy, and importance.
2.2.1.1 Sharedness
In the literature on mental models, there are a variety of approaches how to understand sharedness. Although most research focuses on sharedness as knowledge that is held by all members of a team, other views are valid as well. From the definition of shared mental models (Klimoski & Mohammed, 1994), sharing includes both shared among (i.e. overlapping or identical) as well as shared between (i.e. complementary). Besides, team members can have the same mental models when performing a task, which is most relevant for two persons who share one task such as piloting an aeroplane. Besides, team members can have overlapping knowledge, which might happen between different persons who perform the same task in different but connected fields such as the pilot crew and tower crew. And there is the possibility that mental models are distributed in that every member has some specialized knowledge.
For complex tasks like designing an aeroplane or just a part of it, it is obvious that there is not one shared mental model of all team members. Thus, especially in heterogeneous teams like multidisciplinary teams in which distinct team roles require unique knowledge, mental models need to be distributed throughout the team. Too
30
much overlapping knowledge in teams with distinct roles seems to be inefficient and create a redundancy of effort, while too much distributed knowledge may undermine the ability of the team to work together as a coordinated whole. Therefore, both forms of knowledge must be kept in balance in the team. The question arises for what kind of knowledge a higher amount of sharedness is necessary and for which it is not. The optimal degree of sharing will likely be dependent on a number of factors, such as the specific environment in which a team operates, the nature of the task, and in terms of development in which stage of its life cycle a group is working (Mohammed & Dumville, 2001).
As mentioned before, in design and other teams performing complex tasks, more sharedness is not always better. When searching for solutions, different views are useful in order to broaden the solution space. Greater divergence of mental models at the beginning of a design task (in order to generate creativity), coupled with greater convergence of mental models at the end of the task (in order to facilitate implementation), and may contribute to high performance. In any case, in order to use distributed knowledge, it seems essential that there is at least a shared mental model of the team in order to know which knowledge is available in the team. Furthermore it seems likely that a shared mental model of the roles and responsibilities in the team facilitates teamwork. The question arises what aspects of knowledge about the team should be shared for a team to perform successfully.
2.2.1.2 Accuracy
The second aspect determining the quality of a mental model is its accuracy. Even if all members of a team agree on a common mental model, it does not imply that the model is accurate (Rentsch & Hall, 1994). All members of a team can share some identical knowledge, but all of them may be wrong. Individuals can also construct inaccurate models, such as making causal inferences about consecutive events, which can result in fatal accidents like aeroplane crashes (Besnard, et al., 2004). Although not all situations in which inaccurate models are shared result in fatalities, it illustrates that accuracy is of
31
major importance when evaluating mental models. Accuracy and sharedness are not directly related to each other. If team members have accurate mental models, this does not necessarily mean that they are also shared. Since both concepts measure two different aspects of shared mental models, they are not redundant. Both, similarity and accuracy have been shown to influence team performance (Edwards, Day, Arthur, & Bell, 2006; Lim & Klein, 2006).In structured tasks, accuracy has been assessed by comparing an individual mental model with an expert’s model (Edwards, et al., 2006; Lim & Klein, 2006). For example, when a pilot has to react to a certain constellation in a training situation, his/her mental model of that situation can be compared to that of an expert or trainer to check whether it is accurate. But how can we measure accuracy in ill-structured problems, for which no single clear solution can be defined? Shared mental model researchers have acknowledged that in certain performance contexts, there are likely to be multiple, accurate models (Mathieu, Heffner, Goodwin, Cannon-Bowers, & Salas, 2005). When there are different ways in which a team can be effective, similarity might be even more important than accuracy.
2.2.1.3 Importance
The last point that contributes to the quality of a mental model is importance. Mental models that include important aspects of the task or the team are likely to have a bigger influence on the performance. One way to operationalize importance is the identification of central attributes. When mental models are conceptualized as networks, a central attribute in the mental model has many links within the overall network and is therefore highly related to other attributes in the network (Mathieu, et al., 2005). This centrality makes an attribute more important because it consequently determines how knowledge is structured and thereby how the task is understood. It can also be viewed as an anchoring variable for other concepts, which facilitates communication about the task. Central issues are more important to be shared than marginal issues, resulting in higher-quality mental models with a major effect on team performance. If central aspects
32
of a task are shared, this contributes to a better understanding of the problem, for example, than when many special issues are held in common but the overall problem is not perceived in a similar way.
2.2.2
Shared mental models and performance
Numerous studies have pointed out a positive effect of shared mental models on teamwork performance in various areas: in flight deck teams (Cooke, et al., 2000; Mathieu, Heffner, Goodwin, Salas, & Cannon-Bowers, 2000; Mathieu, Rapp, Maynard, & Mangos, 2010; Weick & Roberts, 1993), in long-term student groups (Peterson, Mitchell, Thompson, & Burr, 2000), in software development teams (Carley, 1997; Espinosa et al., 2002), in power plant control crews (Waller, Gupta, & Giambatista, 2004), in sport teams (Eccles & Tenenbaum, 2004; Webber, Chen, Payne, Marsh, & Zaccaro, 2000), in innovative teams (Davison & Blackman, 2005; Muller, Herbig, & Petrovic, 2009), and in management teams (Ensley & Pearce, 2001). Griepentrog and Fleming (2003) and (DeChurch & Mesmer-Magnus, 2010) have confirmed the effect in a meta-analyses on the influence of shared mental models on team performance. The authors concluded that the existence of shared mental models has generally positive effects on team performance.
The empirical studies have shown that the presence of shared mental models have a positive effect on performance in general. However, most studies focussed on different aspects of teamwork that led to this performance benefit. Several results from the studies are summarized here:
- Shared mental models improve communication and coordination by using a common language (Eccles & Tenenbaum, 2004)
- Shared mental models result in better planning, thereby improving coordinated team decision making and performance (Stout, Cannon-Bowers, Salas, & Milanovich, 1999)
- Shared mental models are most valuable when only limited communication is possible due to heavy workload and time pressure (Mathieu, et al., 2000)
33
- Successful teams share more similar concepts that unsuccessful teams (Carley,1997)
- People with more experience of working in teams have more elaborated mental models about teamwork, and higher experience results in more similar mental models between team members (Smith-Jentsch, Campbell, Milanovich, & Reynolds, 2001)
- Shared beliefs about failures, as part of a shared mental model, are influenced by leadership coaching and direction and have a positive effect on performance (Cannon & Edmondson, 2001)
- Knowledge similarity about the task has a positive influence on strategy coordination, which in turns facilitated performance (Espinosa, et al., 2002) - Team processes and performance are better among teams sharing higher-quality
shared mental models than among teams with low quality models or less sharing (Mathieu, et al., 2005)
Given these empirical results in other fields, it seems likely that the investigation of shared mental models can reveal insights into the cognitive processes that help to facilitate the performance of design teams and to improve the communication between design team members. Especially in situations with a high workload or where
communication is difficult, e.g., by boundaries within multidisciplinary design teams, they seem to have most benefits to performance. It appears that shared mental models have a great impact on communication and coordination between members of a team.
Measurement techniques should therefore address communication and coordination of team members.
On the other hand, the relationship between the existence of shared mental models and team performance is not entirely clear. There are even studies that predict no or negative effects of the existence of shared mental models on performance (Smith-Jentsch, Mathieu, & Kraiger, 2005). The major reason for that might be what is referred to as groupthink, which leads team members to agree on each other’s opinions based on
