Impact of a Game-Type Icebreaker on the Design Idea-generation process

Palma Fontana

Master’s Thesis MSc Design for Interaction

IMPACT OF A GAME-TYPE ICEBREAKER ON THE DESIGN IDEA-GENERATION PROCESS

Master’s Thesis at

Tu delft delft university of Technology faculty of

industrial design engineering

Master course in

design for interaction

senior mentor Mentor

walter Aprile pieter Jan stappers in collaboration with

kAisT korean advance institute of Science and Technology department of

Advisor Co-advisors

industrial design youn-kyung Lim Tek-Jin nam ki-young nam

Abstract

‘ICEBREAKER’ 종류의 게임이 디자인 아이디어 개발 과정에 미치는 영향에 대한 연구 이 연구는 새로 만들어진 디자인 팀 단위 업무에서 아이디어 제안 단계의 몸 풀기 활동으로써, 게임형식으로 된 아이스브레이커가 갖는 가능한 영향에 대해 탐구적인 분석을 제시한다. 이 연구의 주안점은 팀 단위 업무의 역학관 계와 업무 분위기, 그리고 그 디자인 결과에 있다. 총 여섯 번의 워크샵을 통해, 디자인중심 배경을 가진 학생 두 명과, 공학중 심 배경을 가진 학생 두 명, 총 네 명의 학생들이 주어진 디자인 과업을 해 결하기 위한 브레인스토밍 세션이 이루어졌다. 학생들끼리 미리 서로 아는 사이일 필요는 없었다. 두 팀이 한 쌍이 되어 세 번의 다른 워크샵 조건이 실험되었다; 1) 과업에 대한 해결책을 단순 브레인스토밍을 통해서 제안하 기, 2) 아이스브레이커 게임을 수행하기, 3) 짧은 개인 소개 직후에 브레인 스토밍을 수행하기.

여섯 개의 팀의 디자인 과정과 결과물은 세 브레인스토밍 조건을 통해 비교 되었다. 아이디어들이 포함된 스케치와 비디오테입을 통해 수집된 데이터 들은 프로토콜(Protocol)과 컨텐츠 분석(Content analysis)를 통해 분석되었다. 그룹별 결과물은 그룹 구성원 간 인터랙션, 팀의 디자인 과정에서 인지적 활 동(Cognitive activities), 각 팀별 디자인 결과물의 창의성 종류를 중심으로 분 석 및 논의 되었다. 사용자 조사에서는 아이스브레이커의 주요한 긍정적 효과 세 가지를 발견하 였다: 1) 구성원 간 소통을 강화시키고 긴장감을 완화시켜주는 협동적인 그 룹 분위기 생성; 2) 인지적 과정의 구성을 통한 효과적이고 협력적인 팀워 크의 디자인 전략 제공; 3) 디자인 해결점의 창의성 향상을 통한 창의적 사 고의 가능성 강화.

A

마지막으로, 발견점에서 찾을 수 있는 아이스브레이커의 전반적 장점과 본 연구의 한계들을 정리하고, 향후 연구 과제를 제안하였다.

아이스브레이커는 관계를 만들고, 정보를 공유하도록 하며, 한결 부드러운 분위기를 조성하기 위해 디자인된 도구로서 구조화된 활동을 말한다. 이러한 활동들은 창조적인 팀 분위기를 형성하는데 수반된다. 다양한 아이스브레이커중에서, 게임 형태로 된 것은 더 효과적이고 생산적인 그룹 작업을 만드는데 초석의 역할이 되는 팀웍의 의미를 강화한다. 어떤 팀의 다학제적인 구성은 그 팀의 창조적인 잠재성을 증가시킨다. 디자인 과정에서 살펴보면 창조성은 아이디어 제안 단계에서 일어난다.

Abstract

IMPACT OF A GAME-TYPE ICEBREAKER ON THE DESIGN IDEA-GENERATION PROCESS Icebreakers are structured activities designed as a tool to build relationships, facilitate sharing information and institute a relaxed environment. These benefits involve the formation of a creative team climate.

Among the variety of icebreakers, the game type enhances the sense of teamwork giving the base to forming more effective and productive group works. The multidisciplinary composition of a team increases its creative potential.

Considering the design process, creativity takes place during the idea generation stage.

This study presents the explorative investigation of the possible impacts of a game-type icebreaker applied as a starter activity of the idea generation process of newly formed design teamwork. The focus was addressed to the team-working atmosphere, the teams’ dynamics and the design outcomes.

Six workshops involving teams of four students, two with design-oriented background and two engineering-oriented one, performed a brainstorming session to solve a given design task. Not previous acquaintance among the students was required. By pair of teams, three different workshop conditions were tested: 1) participants were asked to simply brainstorm to generate solutions to the task, 2) they were exposed to the icebreaker game, and 3) they were asked to start brainstorming right after a short personal introduction.

The six teams processes and design outcomes were compared among the three brainstorming settings. Protocol and content analysis were carried out of data collected by the videotapes and the sketches of the ideas produced. The aspects leading the discussion of the results were group interactions, cognitive activities of the teams’ design processes and typology of teams’ outcomes with focus on the levels of creativity.

The study reveals three main positive effects of the game-type icebreaker: 1) create a collaborative group atmosphere by enhancing the group communication and reducing the tensions; 2) produce effective and collaborative teamwork strategies by structuring the cognitive activities of the teamwork process; and 3) empower the team’s creative thinking potential in the design solution generation.

The work ends with a reflection of the benefits of the findings on a broader view, the limitations of the study and suggestion of further research.

B

Table of Contents

c

A

Abstract

C

Table of Contents

E

List of Tables and Graphs

G

List of Figures

01

1 INTRODUCTION

02

1.1 Research background

03

1.2 Research aim

04

1.3 Research process

07

2 Ice-breaking, design teamwork and creative ideas

08

2.1 The icebreaker

08

2.1.1 Purpose and application

12

2.1.2 Selecting the icebreaker: advantages and disadvantages

14

2.2 Design teamwork

14

2.2.1 Effectiveness of teamwork

15

2.2.2 The creative potential of teams

16

2.2.3 The creative environment

17

2.3 Creativity and design ideas

17

2.3.1 Creativity in design

17

2.3.2 Creativity in idea generation teams: the case of the brainstorming technique

21

3 Research study: setting and analysis’s criteria

22

3.1 The aim

Table of Contents

22

3.2 The experiment

22

3.2.1 The methodology

22

3.2.2 The condition

24

3.2.3 The participants

24

3.2.4 The task

26

3.2.5 The procedure

30

3.2.6 The icebreaker: a game type

31

3.2.7 The survey

32

3.3 The analysis

33

3.3.1 Level and type of collaboration

33

3.3.1.1 Quantity of discourse

33

3.3.1.2 Pattern of silent moments

34

3.3.2 Strategy of the design process

36

3.3.3 Ideas proposal

36

3.3.4 Experimenter bias

37

3.3.5 Participants’ evaluations

39

4 Findings: communication, design process and solutions

40

4.1 Team communication

40

4.1.1 Differences in the frequency of utterances

41

4.1.2 Differences of silent moments

44

4.2 Team design process

44

4.2.1 Differences in content, process and not-work-related cognitive actions

49

4.2.2 Differences in content-goal clarification and content-solution generation cognitive actions

d

Table of Contents

E

53

4.3 Comparison of ideas generated

53

4.3.1 Outcomes of the control condition teams

56

4.3.2 Outcomes of the icebreaker condition teams

57

4.3.3 Outcomes of the introduction condition teams

62

4.3.4 Evaluation of the creativity level of the workshops’ outcomes

66

4.4 Comparison of participants’ evaluations

69

5 Discussion and conclusion

70

5.1 Discussion

70

5.1.1 Teams-working atmosphere: collaborative environment

71

5.1.2 Dynamics of the design process: more effective and collaborative teamwork design strategies

73

5.1.3 Teamwork’s productivity of creative ideas: Creative design thinking of teamwork

75

5.2 Conclusion

77

5.3 Limitations and further studies

80

References

83

Appendix

91

Acknowledgement

List of Table and Graphs

34 35

Table 3-1 A sample of coding system for the cognitive activities of the team design

process

Table 3-2 The color-coding system for the content-related cognitive activities of the teams’ design process

54-55

Table 4-1 The summary of the final ideas proposal of the control condition teams

58-59

Table 4-2 The summary of the final ideas proposal of the icebreaker condition team

60-61

Table 4-3 The summary of the final ideas proposal of the introduction condition teams

63

Table 4-4 The creativity table of the design solutions of the six teams

F

List of Figures

2-5

g

1-1 The graphic schemata of the research process showing the different stages of the study.

08

2-1 A United States Coast Guard Heavy Icebreaker.

09

2-2 The FishPong project.

09

2-3 The i-Band project.

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3-1 The schemata of the workshop conditions.

24

3-2 The schemata of the tested teams.

25

3-3 ‘The Clothing Beast’, an example of IKEA advertising campaign of 2009.

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3-4 The schemata of the workshop conditions.

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3-5 The real setting of the conducted workshop.

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3-6 The scheduled timeline of the workshop conditions.

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3-7 Some scree-shots of team 2 (top) and team 5 (bottom)’s workshops.

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3-8 The board game ‘Taboo’.

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3-9 The cards-game used as icebreaker.

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3-10 The designed survey.

32

3-11 The graphic schemata of the analysis’s criteria applied to interpret the data

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4-1 The bar chart of the mean scores of utterances depicted in the three workshop conditions.

41

4-2 The graphic chart of the utterances’ scores of each participant in all the six teams.

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4-3 The bar chart of the mean duration of total silent time among the three workshop conditions.

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4-4 The bar chart of the mean duration of a silent moments among the three workshop conditions.

43

4-5 The graphic visualization of the sequences of silent moments in all the six

44

4-6 The bar chart of the mean scores of the control and process types (left and right) of

collected.

workshops.

List of Figures

utterances among the three workshop conditions.

46

4-7 The graphic visualization of the sequences of content and process cognitive actions in all the six workshops.

47

4-8 The bar chart of the mean scores of not-work-related type of utterances among the three workshop conditions.

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4-9 The graphic visualization of the sequences of not-work-related cognitive actions in all the six workshops.

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4-10 the bar chart of the mean scores of content-goal clarification and content-solution

51

4-11 The stacked column chart of the frequencies’ mean scores of content-goal

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4-12 The graphic visualization of the sequences of content-goal clarification and

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4-13 The mindmaps generated by team 2 (icebreaker condition)

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4-14 The sketches representing one of the team’s 5 ideas (bottom and the solely team’s

66

4-15 The bar chart of the means of the survey total scores of each participant among

66

4-16 The bar chart of the mean scores for the question ‘Are you satisfied with the overall

67

4-17 The bar chart of the mean scores for the question ‘Are you satisfied with the

70

5-1 The structure of the discussion and its key points.

75

5-2 The structure of the conclusion and its key points.

76

5-3 The summary of the limitations of the study.

generation related type of utterances among the thee workshop conditions.

clarification and content-solution generation related types of utterances in the three workshop conditions. content-solution generation cognitive actions in all the six workshops.

3 solution (top).

the three workshop conditions.

performance of the teamwork?’ among the three workshop conditions.

reached outcomes?’ among the three workshop conditions.

H

1 INTRODUCTION

©edoardoCoSTa

01

1 INTRODUCTION

that can be classified by means of their objectives (Jones, 1995). The icebreaker, under the form of a game structure, is considered to be the most successful one. it increases the feeling of being part of a team to achieve a common goal.

LITERATURE REVIEW

in the context of everyday life, awkward situations might occur while meeting a stranger or a new group. ice-breaking activities are well known and commonly used to literally break the frozen barrier that is veiled between people who meet for the first time. Icebreakers are designed as mediator tools to ease tension and relieve formality. There is a huge variety of ice-breaking techniques

ICE BREAKER

The ice-breaking activities are adopted as a facilitator for group work in different fields. Researches in the field of education, training and organizational socialization investigated and supported the importance of the ice-breaking activities as a source of improvement

GAME

DESIGN PROCESS

environment

IDEA GENERATION

1 02

potential

creative

CREATIVITY

In the industrial design field the individual work has also been shifted to a collaborative activity. The complexity of the product development requires people with different expertise,

‘TABOO’ modified version effectivness

DESIGN TEAMWORK

of the group process (anderson and Thomas, 1996; feij, 1998; Joost, Jansen and velde, 2001; wanous, 1992; wanous, reichers and malik, 1984).

The impact of the icebreaker has been demonstrated to be positive on the group interaction and skills acquisition (almeth-hib, 2009).

R E S E A RC H A I M

1.1 ReseARCh bACkGRound

GAMEICE BREAKER

BRAINSTORMING

2

1 INTRODUCTION

knowledge and skills to work together. moreover design teamwork is believed to be a vehicle for developing creative and innovate ideas (Sutton and hargadon, 1996). in this term researches remarked the factors that enhance the creative potential of teamwork.

The main promoter of creativity in groups is believed to be the diversity of group members (Paulus, 2000).

Therefore multidisciplinary design teams appear to be a source of creative ideas production. however, the role of context, group climate and individual

abilities should be highly taken in consideration (agrell and gustafson, 1996). in fact, those factors can impact negatively the dynamic of the group in term of productivity and efficiency. however, creativity in design has been objective of discussions due to the difficulty of specifying an operative definition that allows the development of methodology to increase its effectiveness. The majority of design studies investigated the concept of creativity on the level of design 1

IMPACT

‘BRAINSTORMING’ PROCESS

2

TEAM-WORKING ATMOSPHERE

2

TEAMWORK DYNAMICS

3

DESIGN OUTCOMES

creativity

process. most of the focus, exploring the area of design process, is addressed on investigating the methods for a creative design process. idea generation techniques, such as brainstorming, were shown to bring both positive and negative aspects to the productivity of creativity in design teamwork. The call for developing the brainstorming techniques in order to maximize their creative potential emerged from the literature review.

1.2 ReseARCh Aim This research study investigates the role of the application of a simple social game as an icebreaker on the idea generation process of newly formed design teamwork. The aim mainly concerns exploring the impact of the gametype icebreaker on the brainstorming phase of teams’ design processes and its creativity issues. hence the study carried out explores the possibility of 1) enhancing an effective creative teamworking atmosphere and 2) affecting the teamwork dynamics of the design idea generation process. moreover 3) 03

1 INTRODUCTION

the icebreaker’s possible influences on the teams’ design outcomes, both in term of creatively quantity and quality, are discussed.

1.3 ReseARCh pRoCess

R E S E A RC H S E T U P

The research starts from a review of the existing literature regarding the concept of ice-breaking, followed by a review of researches about design teams’ dynamics remarking the cognitive and physical

04

aspects related to the effectiveness of their design process. moreover is presented an overview of positive and negative aspects of the idea generation phase of teams’ design process and their creativity issue. Particularly stress is addressed to the brainstorming technique, which is the methodology chosen for this experimental study. in fact the brainstorming methodology resulted, from the literature review, to be the most suitable one among the design idea generation techniques for teamwork.

TEAM 1

from the presented arguments, the empirical study performed is explained starting from its structure and procedure. a framework establishing the analysis criterion is designed. it comprehends a protocol and a content analysis. The first one is performed in order to investigate the team-working atmosphere and the teams’ dynamics by examining the verbal communication among the team members. a coding strategy is designed on the base of the cognitive design process described by Stempfle and Badke-Schaub (2002). The teams’

TEAM 4

Brainstorming

3 different conditions

WORKSHOPS TEAM 2

TEAM 5

TEAM 3

TEAM 6

3

same topic

generate

IDEAS

1 INTRODUCTION

Figure 1-1 The graphic schemata of the research process showing the different stages of the study.

LEVEL&TYPE OF COLLABORATION STRATEGY OF PROCESS

content

survey

IDEAS PROPOSAL PARTICIPANT’S EVALUATION

4

1

Team-Working Atmosphere

2

Teamwork Dynamics

3

Design Outcomes Perception and Satisfaction

CO N C LU S I O N

A N A LYS I S

protocol

provided illustrating the main effects of the game-type icebreaker by structuring the arguments into the principal sections of investigation (the teamworking atmosphere, teams’ dynamics and design outcomes). finally, a briefly conclusion with limitations and suggestion for future works is presented.

DISCUSSION

cognitive operations are identified and analyzed comparing the steps of their problem-solving process. instead, the content analysis is carried out for describing the teams’ design solutions and their level of creativity by applying the criteria of creativity defined by gilford (1950). The results are shown by means of the analysis framework generated. The insights of the to analyses are crossed in order to draw a complete picture of the characteristics of teams’ design solutions and the way they were achieved. lately a discussion is

5 6

LIMITATION and FURTHER STUDY

05

2 ICE-BREAKING, DESIGN TEAMwORK AND CREATIvE IDEAS

©edoardoCoSTa

07

2 ice-breaking, design teamwork and creative ideas

2.1 the icebreaker According to the Oxford Dictionary the expression of ‘to break the ice’ refers to the definition of ‘Do or say something to relieve tension or get conversation going in a strained situation or when strangers meet’ (Simpson and Weiner, 1989).

The so called ‘icebreaker’, therefore, represents a tool that serves to relieve inhibitions or tension between people, where the word tool stands for an opening remark, action, a gesture and so on.

Originally the terminology of ‘icebreaker’ derives from the term coined to indicate the Atlantic ship designed to break a channel through the iced sea [Figure 2-1]. As those ships help other boats to find a safe route, the ice-breaker activity takes the role of moderator between two strangers or among a group of people who meet for the first time.

2.1.1 Purpose and application Ice-breaking exercises are designed activities that enable people to be relaxed, introduce them to each other,

Figure 2-1 A United States Coast Guard Heavy Icebreaker (© Michael Menard; http://emilymichael.wordpress.com/2011/02/06/uscg-polar-cutters/) 08

encourage conversation, energize them in a formal atmosphere, make them feel more comfortable and lead into a lesson or topic of discussion.

The ending purpose of an icebreaker basically aims to achieve a constructive and creative group atmosphere. Ice breaking techniques propose the tasks that can be intellectual, practical, creative and managerial subtly requiring communicational skills (Elwyn, Greenhalgh and MacFarlane, 2001).

The icebreaker activity is mainly applied in the first ‘group stage of development’. Tuckman in 1965 supported by his empirical studies outlined the stages of forming, storming and performing (1965). The forming step represents therefore the starting point of a team building in which phase the team takes place. The individuals meet for the first time and start to know each other exchanging information and impressions. Their behaviors are driven by the need to be accepted by the other in order to avoid conflicts and controversy in their incoming future group relationship. Mainly tentative of explorations are the first activities in the

2 Ice-breaking, design teamwork and creative ideas

forming stage. The ice-breaking method performs the role of a moderator in order to reduce the potential tension that might occur when strangers meet with the prospective of working together.

The ice-breaking techniques are popular in the field of education, training and organizational socialization. Previous studies among these areas have been investigating and supporting the importance of this methodology as a source of improvement of the group process (Anderson and Thomas, 1996; Feij, 1998; Joost, Jansen and Velde, 2001; Wanous, 1992; Wanous, Reichers and Malik, 1984). Unfortunately a small number of studies investigated the impact of icebreakers on performance, integration of newcomers with their colleagues, teams work, and the setting they work in (Bauer, Morrison and Callister, 1998). Unique is the experimental study of Almeth-hib who demonstrated the validity of the positive impact of the application of an icebreaker on the trainee interaction and skills acquisition (2009).

The concept of ice-breaking in design field is touched by interactive design

studies that concern Figure 2-2 The FishPong project. the development of an interactive product as an ice-breaking tool for social interaction in a daily life environment.

One example of these studies is the FishPong project: an interactive system design to provoke and facilitate collaborative social play in public space throughout a computersupported tabletop simulating a game (Gupta, et al., 2004). Similarly are the ‘The Opinionaizer’, an interactive public display for enhancing socialization in gathering people in real-life, and the ‘i-Band’, a wearable interactive bracelet which enables to share personal information by the gesture Figure 2-3 The i-Band project. of shaking hands intending to explore the possibility of ubiquitous methodology exploring the possible computing for social interaction (Rogers implications on design process is still and Brignull, 2002, Kanis, et al., 2005). lacking.

However research that concerns the ice-breaking activity as a tool for design 09

2 ice-breaking, design teamwork and creative ideas

2.1.2 Selecting the icebreaker: advantages and disadvantages Positive and negative effects of using ice-breaking techniques while forming a group depend on their characteristics and way to perform them.

There is an enormous quantity of variety of icebreakers. A categorization of interactive ice breaking methods was defined by Jones; he presented a detailed explanation of a set of ice breaking activities clustered into exercises, games and simulations (1995). Those three categories are important to be distinguished since require specific activities and involves different implications. Exercises results to be the most used ones and concern the completion of a task, the resolution of a problem or a puzzle. They are not competitive since no prize for achievement is expected. Games, instead, are ruled structures that require competition among the players. This aspect increases the momentum to a group and stimulates the concentration of the members. Despite the fact that 12

Icebreaker- an example of exercise

Icebreaker- an example of game

Half a Vote

Paper Tubes

The aim of this exercise is to agree on topics to put on the agenda of a political organization. Each participant is given half a vote, but in order to have a valid topic for the agenda, a full vote (e.g. prevention of teenage pregnancy, genetically modified foods) and where they would like this issue debated. By a process of negotiation with others in the group, participants must combine half-vote into a full vote so that the topic can be eligible for an agenda. In other words, pairs must agree on ‘issues’, and this may require one or both members to change their ‘issue’. Individuals do not have to combine votes. However, once pairs have formed they cannot separate, although they can join other pairs and see whether they can combine their votes on a single issue. Any one individual can veto merger on issues, but once a group consensus has formed the group must always remain together.

The aim of this exercise is to get pairs to work together on a practical task which requires negotiation and collaboration.

Pairs are asked to support a tin (e.g. a sheets of A4 paper and adhesive tape (three strips of tape, each no more than 3 cm in length). A pair of scissors is also provided. The tin must be supported for at least 10 seconds.

This exercise needs a reasonable amount of space, as it will generate movement, groupings and re-groupings. It is an excellent way of creating purposeful negotiation and a large amount of interaction. Debriefing can focus on the ways in which agreements and negotiations occurred.

There are a number of possible solutions.

Cylinders can be made by rolling the paper along its width or length. The sheets can also be cut lengthways, and a strip cut off one of the pieces. Two long cylinders are then created (by inserting one rolled-up piece of paper inside another) and put together vertically, with the offset piece acting as collar (like a double-barreled gun). The tape needs to be cut lengthways in order to create six strips to support this tubular column. This ambitious solution requires dexterity, patience and the support of a willing collaborator. The debriefing can focus on how the pairs approached the problem and what issues surfaced during the discussion and implementation.

2 Ice-breaking, design teamwork and creative ideas

Icebreaker- an example of simulation Image a Map If the group members have come a long way and from all over the place, draw an imaginary map on the floor. Invite people to stand on the area they come from.

Individuals will immediately identify with someone who lives relatively near to them. There is usually some amusement when a crowd gathers or two people realize that they share the same postal code. Enterprising foreigners may even climb on the windowsill. Participants will have to move about and come close to each other, and the activity has the advantage of being completely nonthreatening.

Debriefing can concentrate on the effect that this exercise has had, and the way in which it generates mental models of geography and creates associations and spatial connections between people. The exercise can also de done ins tags. For example, got to where you were born, where you live or work now, and where you would like to live.

games can be very successful, the issue of involving winners and losers can be strongly negative. Moreover unfavorable consequences can be produced by applying games that require unevenly distributed skills among the participants. Also, games that involves task to be completed by individuals can have the same effect.

Simulations are the ‘artificial’ recreation of the hypothetical work environment by using ‘actors’. Participants are asked to actually perform the task and are often assessed in the process. Considering their long time for preparation for conduction and debriefing they are not recommended to be used at the start of a group process.

Relevant considerations should be taken into account when choosing and performing an icebreaker. The selection should be done reflecting the aim of the application. Different icebreakers can in fact have different objectives.

They can be distinguished in: getting to know each other better, supporting one another, working together, creative thinking and aligning teams (Elwyn, Greenhalgh and MacFarlane, 2001).

Each of them will affect the team process

in a different way, so it is important to choose wisely the most suitable to the nature of the expected work of the team. Other factors regarding the effectiveness of the ice-breaking techniques concern the modality of performance. Instructions both of the aim of the ice-breaking activity and the requirements for the teamwork outcomes must be very clear. Vague explanations and directions can cause chaos and confusion. Finally another failure of these helping methods for forming groups falls into the phenomena of ‘cringe factor’. This occurrence happens when the icebreakers are contrived introductions (e.g. cushionthrowing exercises), simple exchanges of information, premature requests of feelings and emotions exploration, potentially embarrassing or demeaning, contrived, ritualistic or childish (Elwyn, Greenhalgh and MacFarlane, 2001).

Considering the application of the icebreaker in a design context, the game type results to be more suitable.

In a design environment, the different parties involved in the design process need to work together efficiently to generate a design solution of a problem.

11

2 ice-breaking, design teamwork and creative ideas

Therefore the perception of being a team and the individual motivation of being part of the team play an important role.

Winning becomes a common goal to be accomplished by performing a game in team. Moreover participants are motivated to maximize the capability of their skills in order to give a strong contribution to the team. However, the selection of the game should be weighted in order to balance the side effect that the game could impact, such as the competition between team members.

2.2 design teamwork The definition of teamwork overcomes the simple meaning of team as ‘a group of people working together’ (Simpson and Weiner, 1989). Instead it refers to the combined action of a group who is working together in an effective and efficient way. Therefore a team should be defined as ‘a distinguishable set of two or more individuals who interact dynamically, interdependently and adaptively to achieve specified, shared and valued objectives’ (Morgan, Salas and Glickman, 1993). The 14

traditional individual work task has been increasingly shifted towards teamwork usage to accomplish the task in the organizations area (Salas, Burke and Cannon-Bowers, 2000).

Also in the industrial design field the workplace is progressively mutating into a collaborative activity. The product developments process, in fact, demands different type of expertise, of specialized knowledge and the involvement of several responsibilities due to its complex nature. For this reason teams, having possible diversity of structures, are required to work together in order to accomplish different tasks for the product development.

Moreover design teamwork is believed to be an important vehicle for the development of creative and innovate ideas (Sutton and Hargadon, 1996).

2.2.1 effectiveness of teamwork The effectiveness of a group can be expressed as success of an achievement of a task accomplished in a group, which could not be accomplished by an individual. Researches supported the supremacy in term of performance of

the group over the individuals. Peacock declared that there was evidence of the ‘infinitely’ high performance of teamwork over individuals (1989).

Additionally Salomon and Globerson supported that teamwork can induce to greater mindfulness as much as helping groups to perform better (1989). These assumptions were not supported by the results of controlled experiments.

In was demonstrated that working in groups was less effective than working alone (Dunette, Campbell and Jastaad, 1963; Sutton and Hargadon, 1996).

Unfortunately from the literature review there is not a robust set of generalizations that allow the prediction of how well a group would perform based on previous assessments of input and process variables (Hackman, 1987). However reviewing some previous studies’ results a summary of the main variables, which are identified as indicators of team effectiveness, can be outlined.

There are three factors of a task that determine the success of a group: task independence, outcome independence and potency (Shea and Guzzo, 1987).

The first aspect regards how closely

2 Ice-breaking, design teamwork and creative ideas

the group members work together; the second one concerns whether and how group performance is rewarded; and the last one represents the members’ belief that the group can be effective.

Paulus’s researches have demonstrated that group members may perceive their efficiency and productivity even tough their objective performance is quite low (Paulus and Dzindolet, 1993). In addition to these factors the interaction in work teams has been objects of different studies suggesting both positive and negative effects on the productivity of the group (Hackman, 1990).

The challenge take places in developing methodologies that could guarantee or at list enhance the effectiveness of the group by minimizing the negative impact of those factors.

2.2.2 The creative potential of teams Despite the fact that for decades the individual performance has been considered as the main source of innovation, in the recent past years the focus has addressed towards the work

of teams (Agrell and Gustafson, 1996).

In order to better understand what creativity and innovation mean in the context of teamwork, the concept of divergent thinking should be introduced.

Baer defined the divergent thinking as the extent to which individuals are able to generate a wide variety of ideas or solutions to a particular problem situation (1993). However, when more individuals are working together to achieve a common goal, the divergent thinking definition proposed by Baer is not sufficient. Therefore it can be integrated with the prospective of Mendrik that posted the creativity as the process, which involves associational skills such as the generation of many ideas proposed simultaneously (1962). As shown by different studies in organizational scholars, divergent thinking is affected by both association and social process (Paulus, Larey and Dzindolet, 2000). Considering the organizational prospective, scholars has identified some of the factor that influence group creativity and innovation. Group creativity performance represents the core of organizational creativity by Woodman,

Sawyer and Griffin (1993). Moreover Individual characteristics (abilities and knowledge), group characteristics (norms, cohesion and diversity), and organizational characteristics (resources and culture) are additional aspects affecting the creativity of teamwork. The studies of Agrell and Gustafson support the emphasis on the role of context, group climate and individual abilities (1996). Furthermore the works on team innovation of West and Anderson are highly relevant. They examined innovations developed by top management teams in 27 healthcare organizations. They obtained the selfreport measures of group compositions, in terms of proportion of innovators, and group process, such as commitment to objectives, participation, task orientation and support of innovation.

Their theoretical analysis of the innovations generated reported the overall innovation of the team highly related to all the group process variables (West and Andersen, 1996).

Another significant factor believed to be promoter of creativity in teams is the importance of diversity. Cognitive diversity in groups increases the 15

2 ice-breaking, design teamwork and creative ideas

potential number of novel combinations that can be developed within the group (Paulus, 2000). Diverse members of a group enrich the overall knowledge of the team and facilitate the process of creative thinking. However, in order to obtain the highest potential of the group for achieving creative solutions the knowledge should be shared in an effective manner. Loss of attention to ideas of all group members, external distractions and the tendency of focusing on common information can negatively influence the effectiveness of sharing knowledge. Group members should have a common ground of understanding of the knowledge and abilities distribution in the group (Paulus, 2000).

Scientific researches support the potential of diversity as a facilitator of creative process in teamwork. They assess that group should be diverse; in fact group that contain people with different but overlapping knowledge are most creative (Dunbar, 1995). Even tough they promote the important role of social process in the creative process of a team, there is not a clear understanding of how exactly scientific groups 16

develop creative ideas. Therefore other studies have stressed the focus on the communication and interaction among members of creative teams providing an opportunity for sharing of information, skills and feedback on shared ideas.

One of the best ways to develop creative ideas is to indeed connect ideas from different fields perhaps in a random way (Simonton, 1995). Crucial will be the language barrier in the communication.

Not only types of expertise often are spoken with a different language but also knowledge and skills. Therefore it is required a degree of linguistic overlap for a knowledge team to work together for accomplish an effective creative solution. From the literature review, a multidisciplinary team appears to have the potential to be a source of creativity production.

2.2.3 The creative environment The work environment both on a physical and cognitive level represents a relevant factor affecting the productivity of a teamwork and also its creativity.

A contradiction reflecting two major goals of an organization lead to the

hard definition of an appropriate team environment. On one side the need of effectiveness and efficiency recall to an ordinate daily process. On the other side, instead, the necessity of innovation opens the door to a non-routine work involving procedures, which are not restricted by the order of routine tasks.

Both spheres should be integrated in order to achieve results that encompass both qualities belonging form the diversity of the groups expected to be ordinary or creative.

Teams should be provided with an environment where individuals experience a positive social process (Kleinman, Siegal and Eckstein, 2002).

It could enhance the interaction among members and lead to a team atmosphere that provides the ground for an effective sharing of knowledge.

In this context freedom of choices and autonomy, challenge and support can be emphasized. Hill and Amabile supported those factors as critical for intrinsic motivation and creative accomplishment (1993).

2 Ice-breaking, design teamwork and creative ideas

2.3 Creativity and design ideas 2.3.1 creativity in design The term ‘creativity’ in everyday speech can be defined as the ability of create something new, where the word ‘something’ could be a product, a solution, a concept, a story and so on; and where the adjective ‘new’ is associated to the attribution of certain ‘values’ to the creation. The definition of creativity appears to be vague and confusing. Postulating an absolute definition of this term has been the objective of research for decades. In the literature definitions are conceived by approaching to different aspects.

Creativity can refer to personal traits, the process itself and its outcome.

Defining the domain in which the definition should take place seems to be an important issue (Christiaans, 1992a).

In the design field, in fact, it has been argued which approach should be used to fulfill the requirements of the domain. Commonly the act of designing

is defined as a creative operation, due to its nature of generating solutions to a certain problems; and the designers are labeled as ‘creative people’ (Lawson, 1980). However the meaning of creativity is still not clearly provided.

Christiaans discussed the need of an operational definition of creativity for the design field and, more importantly, the necessity to find methods of assessment (1992a). The majority of design studies investigated the concept of creativity on the level of design process where the ‘illumination’ stage is believed to be the unexpected idea creation (Lawson, 1980; Cross, 1989). Therefore the socalled ‘creative leap’ is considered as the significant event whose occurrence characterized the creativity in the design process. Being sudden in nature, the creative leap cannot be clearly identified during the whole design process. Moreover there is no certainty of the occurrence of a creative ‘event’ during the design process and the criteria to judge a solution idea as ‘creative’ are still undefined (Dorst and Cross, 2001). Nevertheless most of the focus, exploring the area of design process, is addressed on investigating the methods for a creative design

process. Idea generation techniques, such as brainstorming and ‘synectics’, are designed to encourage people to create solutions. Although it is hard to prove that those methods are effective in generating novelties (Christiaans, 1992a).

2.3.2 creativity in idea-generation teams: the case of the brainstorming technique It is believed as a popular thought that more ideas are generated in group work (Paulus, 2000). This mindset may partly be caused by the increasing popularity of the brainstorming techniques (Rowatt, Nesselroade, Beggan and Allison, 1997). The brainstorming method is a common technique for generating ideas in teams that was developed by Osborn during 1950s (1953). Its aim mainly consists of maximizing the number of ideas by minimizing the possibility of premature judgments.

The actual purpose, therefore, is to generate as much as ideas as possible in a defined short time. The members of a brainstorming group are asked to accomplish this purpose by following same simple rules: 1) knowing that 17

2 ice-breaking, design teamwork and creative ideas

the wilder the idea is, the better it is; 2) evaluation is not allowed during the phase of generation; 3) the idea sorting task should be performed later on. The technique was designed especially for teams, since Osborn assumed that the diversity in the backgrounds of the group members would lead to more unique ideas than would happen in individual setting. This assumption was supported by the study of Parnes and Meadow that demonstrated the effective superiority in number of ideas generated by brainstorming groups that followed Osborn’s rules over those groups that did not (1959). Unfortunately the results of controlled group studies did not support the same hypothesis. Researches have demonstrated that both in terms of quantity and quality of the ideas the group brainstorming interaction lead to a lower level of productivity and creativity than does individual brainstorming.

Literature in the field of psychology and organizational behavior concluded that the brainstorming technique is not an effective method to promote creative thinking (Mullen, Johnson and Salas, 1991; Somonton, 1988). This conclusion can be arguable by outlined the reasons of the low creativity in 18

group brainstorming. The main factors of this failure can be clustered to ‘cognitive interference’ and ‘social inhibition’ (Paulus, 2000). The cognitive interference includes the production blocking, task-irrelevant behaviors and cognitive load. The production blocking occurs whenever the group discussion ‘falls into a rut’. Sharing ideas in a group is not an easy task; in fact if someone is speaking technically there is not space and time to share your own ideas. Therefore the group easily tends to follow the track of someone’s idea direction. Moreover due to the time limitation sometimes it might happen to forget the ideas that someone is thinking while somebody else is explaining his/ her own one (Diehl and Stroebe, 1981; 1987). Group discussions can be interfered by irrelevant stories and comments. The cognitive load, instead, refers to the amount of attention that the members of the groups need to pay while someone else is expressing the ideas. This factor can easily leads to a low level of individual productivity.

The second main factor involves those aspect related to the social sphere.

Those are: social anxiety, social loafing (or free riding), illusion of productivity,

matching and downward comparison.

Individuals who score a high level of social interaction anxiety are affected by the fear of freely express their ideas due to the possible reactions of others (Diehl and Stroebe, 1987). The social anxiety factor might strongly inhibit the group members from sincerely participating in the brainstorming activity.

The social loafing plays another important role. Participants may tend to loaf or be less motivated when individual contributions are combined as a group product (Diehl and Stroebe, 1987; Paulus, 200). In addition the possible high performance of one of the group members may free ride the overall discussion leading the other individual to exert less effort (Kerr and Bruun, 1983). The matching factor occurs when individual converge their ideas to a single rate and typology generated by comparing their individual performance with that of the other group members (Camacho and Paulus, 1995; Larey and Paulus, 1999; Paulus and Dzindolet, 1993; Roy, Gauvin and Limayen, 1996).

Furthermore the overall performance appears to be affected by the lowest performers inducing downward comparison (Larey and Paulus, 1999;

2 Ice-breaking, design teamwork and creative ideas

Paulus and Dzindolet, 1993). Lastly another factor that might be important is the illusion of productivity. Individuals tend to believe in the adequacy of their performance within the group work; in fact their perception of their productivity is higher once they are working in teams (Paulus, et al., 1996).

This sense of presumed productivity may further prevent the team members from exerting an appropriate level of effort.

The presented factors focus on the negative effect of the production loss of the idea-generation techniques, in this case the brainstorming one.

Studies in the organizational field emphasized the need to move the attention on other variables rather than the solely productivity. Criteria as client and user satisfaction, enhancement of organizational functioning and the growth and well-being of the participants are alternative criteria that might be considered to evaluate the effectiveness of a group work. The study cited by Sutton and Hargadon showed the results of a group brainstorming used by a product design firm (1996).

Even though performance and creativity

were not taken into account as objective data, observations stressed the personal benefits gained by both users and client.

Positive feeling about the brainstorming and the understanding of how to earn peer respect, impress clients and provide income for the organization were facilitated by the idea-generation technique. Therefore as supported by Paulus, Larey and Ortega the idea of participants enjoying and ranking the brainstorming group session positively should be the focus of incoming researches (1996).

Brainstorming technique should be developed in order to create a more effective tool for idea generation in groups’ discussion.

Implementation should be investigated trying to explore new ways to make the brainstorming method a mean for creative potential. The factors illustrated before should be taken in consideration trying to balance the productivity and creativity issue with the satisfaction and appreciation awareness.

effectiveness of productivity and creativity of a design team, the power of the social activity of a game-type icebreaker is considered as a starting point. Referring to the positive aspects that the icebreaker has among a group of people in terms of collaborative and creative atmosphere, the game activity could be a mediator also of a de-sign process. The results studies will give insights on the possibility of affecting the design ideation process of a team by adopting a human behavioral activity.

Starting from these considerations, this research study investigates the technique of brainstorming in a design team under a different point of view. In fact in order to explore the possibility of enhancing 19

3 RESEARCH STUDY: SETTING AND ANAlYSIS’S CRITERIA

©edoardoCoSTa

21

3 research study: setting and analysis’s criteria

3.1 the aim The study aims to investigate the effects of the application of a game, with the role of ice-breaking activity, on the idea generation process of a design team.

The exploration of the icebreaker’s impact will be carried out by comparing 1) the team-working atmosphere, 2) the groups dynamics during the idea creation and 3) the design solutions of six design workshops designed with different setting conditions.

3.2 the experiment The research consists of a set of workshops that involve brainstorming on an assigned simple design task solved by a newly formed teamwork.

The workshops were designed with three different set-up conditions depending on the application of the icebreaker. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses were carried out.

A protocol analysis, supported by qualitative reflections, was performed to analyze the dynamics of the teams, 22

the perceived work atmosphere and the personal evaluation of the design task achievement. An additional qualitative analysis was conducted to investigate the characteristics of the outcomes produced on the level of quantity and creativity quality. The results were crossed and elaborated to draw a conclusive discussion.

3.2.1 the methodology The experiment purposes on capturing the effect of an icebreaker, which is selected among the game typology, on the design process of a newly formed multidisciplinary design team. Being an icebreaker a potential facilitator of the requirements for an effective creative atmosphere (Elwyn, Greenhalgh and MacFarlane 2001), the focus is addressed towards the concept ideation phase of the design process. In fact, the idea generation is considered to be the core of the creative process of a group (Fisher and Fisher, 1998; Kayser, 1994). The methodology [of what] selected, therefore, falls into the area of idea generating techniques.

The group brainstorming is the most

suitable method that allows creating the scenario in which a group is driven into the production of ideas to a problemsolving task. It is one of the most popular techniques for idea generation in organizations (Rowatt, Nesselroade, Beggan and Allison, 1997) and also the commonly believed to be the more effective in terms of productivity and creativity of teamwork (Paulus, 2000).

The workshops performed by students were adopted as scenario of the experimental group brainstorming.

3.2.2 the condition In order to identify the impact of using an icebreaker as starter of a conceptideation design process, the experiment was carried out by running three typologies of design workshops, which differ on the level of setting conditions.

The designed study compares the differences among design processes and ideas outcomes of 1) brainstorming workshops that do not start with any type of ice-breaking activity, 2) workshops that do start with an icebreaker and 3) workshops that start with a personal introduction activity.

3 RESEARCH STUDY: SETTING AND ANAlYSIS’S CRITERIA

as shown in figure 3-1, the design sessions are characterized by the presence of an icebreaker, of a personal introduction or of none of the previous ones. The first workshop setting, called ‘control condition’, did not provide any guide for how to start the workshop.

The second one, called ‘icebreaker condition’, instead, presented the usage of an icebreaker as pre-starter of the design-tasked session. lastly the third workshop called ‘introduction condition’ represented the setting that reflects much more the real life social situation for group work that involves the team members who meet each other for the first time.

the design session and 2) not using any pre-defined starter. The second condition was characterized by a ‘nonconventional’ stimulus since the design session did not have any instructions for how to start it. in this way participants were free to decide their own strategy on how to incipit the idea-generation process. The intent was to maximize the effect of the icebreaker activity. The third work-shop setting was added after a rough analysis of the pilot experiment.

Participants who were exposed to the ice-breaking activity introduced themselves after generating the design concepts. Due to the difficulty to validate that the game-type icebreaker was the direct cause of that behavior, an ‘introduction’ activity was taken into consideration. introducing yourself to a stranger is a social ritual that occurs in everyday life (Christian and Tubesing,

The choice of the three conditions was made after a pilot test run only with two different workshop setting: 1) using an icebreaker as starter of

CONTROL CONDITION Ice breaker Personal Introduction

ICE BREAKER CONDITION Ice breaker Personal Introduction

2004). This activity can be viewed as a form of ‘conventional icebreaker’. The introduction technique has been found to be one of the key stages, as well the icebreaker, for helping group forming (elwyn, greenhalgh and macfarlane 2001).

The possibility of performing the experiment under a fourth condition, including both the ice-breaking and the personal introduction activities was rejected due to the load of tasks and time requested to the participants and also to the overlapping of the stimuli’s characteristics. .

INTRODUCTION CONDITION Ice breaker Personal Introduction

Figure 3-1 The schemata of the workshop conditions.

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3 RESEARCH STUDY: SETTING AND ANAlYSIS’S CRITERIA

3.2.3 The pARTiCipAnTs each of the workshops requires a design team (T) composed by four members. a total of six groups (T1, T2, T3, T4, T5, T6) were studied for the three typologies of workshop [figure 3-2]. heterogeneous groups were recruited both on the level of background and on the gender composition. each team included two participants with a design-based background and two with an engineering-based background.

This dual composition was due to the intention of simulating the work of a multidisciplinary teamwork, having diversity in skills and knowledge within

CONTROL CONDITION

ICE BREAKER CONDITION

TEAM 1

TEAM 2

TEAM 4

TEAM 5

(8 participants)

(8 participants)

Figure 3-2 The schemata of the tested teams.

24

the group, which becomes much more often for design teamwork nowadays.

The choice of a four members-based team is supported by the work of Steiner suggesting that the maximum number of participants in an effective working group is four (Steiner, 1972). The gender was normally distributed as well having two female and two male members in a single group. Twenty-four participants were selected among students of the university of korean advanced institute of Science and Technology (kaiST), belonging to Bachelor, master and doctoral programs. another key requirement led the team forming; each team was build ex novo: the four members did not know each other

before, so they were meeting for the first time to work together as a group.

3.2.4 The TAsk

The designed task that was assigned to the three workshops was identical between the three conditions. it consisted in conducting a brainstorming session in order to generate as much as ideas as possible to a given design brief. The scenario represented four participants who were asked to join the workshop as if they were called to work for one-hour session for the company ikea. The company was not actually involved in the study but just used as a hypothetical industry for this study. The choice of the company INTRODUCTION brand was weighted CONDITION in order to propose a tangible and feasible example. in fact TEAM 3 ikea is a world wide Scandinavian company that is very successful TEAM 6 and well known. its brand identity reflects (8 participants) the vision of ‘To create

3 research study: setting and analysis’s criteria

a better everyday life for many people’.

The IKEA product range is defined within the home furnishing area by means of high quality, low price and high functionality. The IKEA products’ requirements respect the concept of simplicity, high technological characteristics and environmental and social working condition friendly.

Moreover the company is focused on sharing the Scandinavian heritage; for this reason each store is designed in order to provide also Scandinavian cuisine.

Other services, such as Internet stations, children playground and so on, are promoted offering a wide range of opportunities to the customers emphasizing the company’s concern for its clients. Those aspects gives to the task appropriate features that allow anyone with a basic knowledge in the field of design to solve the design task; and also they offer a high degree of freedom in the product solutions especially considering the company’s effort

towards the variety of service promoted to customers.

The design task was formulated as a request from IKEA company of new ideas for products or services to be launched shortly in the market. The brainstorming group is asked to generate ideas for a possible innovation addressed to future IKEA products. Another limitation for the workshop was setup. A company innovation vision was illustrated as the brief, in which the expected solutions should represent and impersonate. The

brief was expressed by the combination of two contrasting words: ‘Fresh Chaos’.

This ambiguous abstract concept was assigned as starting point for the ideation process. The choice of its usage was taken in order to have a common starting feature among the three workshop conditions facilitating the comparison of their design process. Also it assists the process of the design group playing the role of the missing facilitator, whose presence is an important factor for the efficiency of a work group.

Figure 3-3 ‘The Clothing Beast’, an example of IKEA advertising campaign of 2009 (© DDB Germany).

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3 RESEARCH STUDY: SETTING AND ANAlYSIS’S CRITERIA

the actual in-laboratory workshop is shown in figure 3-5.

3.2.5 The pRoCeduRe all the workshops were run in the same environment for the experiment. a room was set-up with a table, four chairs placed in a specular patter (two chairs per side of the table) and a video camera for video taping positioned in a strategic way in order to record the whole scene [figure 3-4].

all the three experiment conditions lasted 1 hour. it included the 15 minutes of brief explanation of the task, followed by the 30 minutes of group discussion, and ended with 10 minutes of concept proposal communication terminating with 5 minutes dedicated to fill up a survey [figure 3-6].

Facilitator

Participants Instructions &materials

Video camera Figure 3-4 The schemata of the workshop setting.

materials, such as blank a4 papersheets, markers, pencils, rubbers and sharpeners were available on the desk as physical tools supporting regular design ideation sessions. The set up of 26

Figure 3-5 The real setting of the conducted workshop.

Participants were greeted in the room at the same time. a facilitator, playing the role of the ikea responsible, mingled the participants, introduced the aim of the workshop and clarified the brief from which the brainstorming should have started. The verbal explanation was supported by written instructions that were distributed to each group member. a sample of the instructions can be seen in appendix 3.1. Subjects were given

3 research study: setting and analysis’s criteria

W I

BRIEF

-

W II

BRIEF

ICE BREAKER

W III

BRIEF

PERSONAL INTRODUCTION

1 h

15 min

BRAINSTORMING - CONCEPT IDEATION

CONCEPTS PROPOSAL

SURVEY

-

BRAINSTORMING - CONCEPT IDEATION

CONCEPTS PROPOSAL

SURVEY

-

BRAINSTORMING - CONCEPT IDEATION

CONCEPTS PROPOSAL

SURVEY

10 min

5 min

30 min

Figure 3-6 The scheduled timeline of the workshop conditions.

time to read the brief and they were also given the opportunity to ask questions about additional comments. Moreover they were made aware of the fact that the whole workshop would have been recorded. After clarifying the brief, the facilitator left the participants alone to start the idea-generation discussion.

During the half an hour group discussion, the group members worked on brainstorming on the given brief – i.e. ‘fresh chaos’ and concretization of concept solutions. In this section of the workshop the initial activity

differed between the conditions due to the set-up specification based on the icebreaker usage. After these 30 minutes, the facilitator returned to gather the design solutions generated and have a short explanation given by the team, regarding the characteristic of the ideas proposed. As conclusive task each participants was asked to fill in a survey.

27

3 research study: setting and analysis’s criteria

Some screen-shots of the workshop are reported in this page in order to show the visual framework of the setting and the dynamics of the teams’ activities.

Only pictures of the team 2 and team 5’s sessions are presented since represent the two workshops which include the ice-breaking activity. In this way it is possible to have a visual idea of how the game-icebreaker was performed ad starter of the brainstorming session.

Figure 3-7 Some screen-shots of team 2 (top) and team 5 (bottom)’s workshops.

BRIEF 28

ICEBREAKER

-

BRAINSTORMING

-

-

3 research study: setting and analysis’s criteria

CONCEPT IDEATION

CONCEPTS PROPOSAL

SURVEY 29

3 RESEARCH STUDY: SETTING AND ANAlYSIS’S CRITERIA

3.2.6 The iCebReAkeR: A GAme Type The icebreaker selected for the experiment was a social game type. This choice was driven by the bene-fits of increasing competition and focus on the group dynamic (elwyn, greenhalgh and macfarlane 2001). The broadly known board game ‘Taboo’, published by hasbro in 1989, is the original version from where the designed icebreaker comes from [figure 3-8].

The game is played in teams and it involves a board with a path to be completed, a dash of cards, a buzz and a timer. The cards presents a key word written on the top level and a list or related words. for example a card might be: ‘baseball’ followed by the words ‘sport’, ‘game’, ‘pastime’, ‘hitter’ and ‘pitcher’. The objective of the game is for a player to have his/her partner guess the card’s main word, in the example ‘baseball’, without using the word itself or the five additional bellowed listed

words. This board game, therefore, needs to be played in with at list four people in order to form to couples that can compete against each other. for this experiment the Taboo game was slightly manipulated both for technical limitations and for the necessity to overcome the negative effect that a game could have impacting the group work interaction. The modification involved the elimination of the board path and the teams’ rule, consisting of creating at least two teams to compete against each other.

The four members of each workshop were given one card per person and asked to explain one by one the word on top of their individual card. The aim of the game would be to try to make all the members guess the word on

Figure 3-8 The board game ‘Taboo’ (© hasbro).

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Figure 3-9 The cards-game used as icebreaker.

3 research study: setting and analysis’s criteria

survey format used for the experiment can be found in Appendix 3.2.

The scale could rate from a minimum of -3, as index of highly disagreement, to a maximum of +3, as index of highly agreement [Figure 3-10]. The survey format included also the request of demographic information such as gender, age, type of major and year of study. A space for open comments was available at the bottom of the form.

each card. The four top words used for the experiment were: ‘kimchi’, ‘bride’, ‘Paris’ and ‘the Pope’ [Figure 3-9]. In this way even though participants play individually they can sense the feeling of teamwork since they need to achieve together the game’s goal (Paulus, 2000).

The modified setting of the game made it very fast and simple.

This type of game was also chosen because it is based only on verbal expression. By using only the speech channel to communicate, uncomfortable and embarrassing situation can be avoided (Elwyn, Greenhalgh and MacFarlane 2001).

3.2.7 the survey A 7-points Likert scale survey was designed as ending task to be accomplished by each of the participants in the group (Trochim, 2009). The survey presented eight questions: five of them regarded the personal perception of the atmosphere perceived during the group work, and three of them about the personal evaluation and satisfaction of the team performance. A sample of the

Figure 3-10 The designed survey.

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3 research study: setting and analysis’s criteria

3.3 the analysis The raw materials of the whole experiment included the videotapes of the six ideas’ generation processes and the participants’ presentation of their results, sketches produced in the workshops and the evaluation surveys completed at the end of the sessions. The data collected from the six workshops were analyzed using both

quantitative and qualitative techniques.

Following the structure of the design team sessions, different criteria were applied in order to cluster the results and allowing a more effective analysis of the information. Specifically, regarding the phase of brainstorming, where the team discussed and elaborated ideas, two aspects were considered: 1) the level and type of collaboration by investigating the quantity of verbal interactions and how they were distributed among the team members, and 2) the strategy of

A N A LYS I S

protocol

quantitiative & qualitative

content

survey

LEVEL&TYPE OF COLLABORATION

Quantity of Discourse

STRATEGY OF PROCESS

Cognitive activities

A

IDEAS PROPOSAL

Nature of the Proposals

B

Level of Creativity

C

PARTICIPANT’S EVALUATION

Figure 3-11 The graphic schemata of the analysis’s criteria applied to interpret the data collected.

32

the design process by exploring the contents of the conversations and their patterns. Additionally, the creativity level of the ideas produced by the teams was qualitatively analyzed comparing the solutions’ characteristics. The audio tracks of the video records were transcribed and utilized as a source of data for both the protocol analysis of the verbal communication processes and the evaluation of the concepts generated alone with the sketches produced. Lastly the atmosphere level

Pattern of Silent Moments

5 Q’s - Working atmosphere 3 Q’s - Team performance

3 research study: setting and analysis’s criteria

and personal satisfaction were analyzed based on the results of the survey.

3.3.1 the level and type of collaboration After transcribing the audio of the video recording, the flow of verbal communication was outlined 1) by collecting the quantity of discourse and 2) by analyzing the patterns of silent moments. Both features were initially Cognitive * Design Process

by Stempfle and Badke-Schaub

Divergent ** thinking

by Guilford

statistically analyzed in order to find any significant differences among the three workshop conditions. Lately they were qualitative investigated to support the statistical results and to identify possible repeated patterns.

3.3.1.1 Quantity of Discourse

The frequencies of utterances produced by each subject in each workshop were both statistically analyzed and qualitatively visualized in order to

PROCESS * A

CONTENT* NOT-WORK RELATED

B

TYEPE KEY CHARACTERISTICS DESCRIPTION

C

FLUENCY ** FLEXIBILITY ** ORIGINALITY ** EVALABORATION **

Goal Clarification * Solution generation *

understand how the interactions among the team members were verbally distributed. Insights regarding how collaborative the team was could be outlined through this analysis.

3.3.1.2 Pattern of Silent Moments

By using the written audio transcriptions, all the silent moments were initially identified in order to understand the trend of verbal communication. The ‘silent time’, which was considered for the analysis, indicated the time when the sharing idea interaction was null (i.e. none of the participants expressed any words). The total duration of the silent time produced in each workshop was statistically analyzed among the three workshop conditions Moreover the sequences of silent moments ware visualized to understand the trend of the productivity of dialogue across the conditions. Insights on the quality of the working climate could be gained through this analysis.

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3.3.2 strategy of design process The patterns of the design process chosen by the different teams depending on the workshop condition were investigated by determining the design steps taken during the discussion. To better understand the schemata of the design strategy, codes of protocol to identify the types of utterances were established. The frame-work of protocol codes was designed on the base of the work of Stempfle and Badke-Schaub.

They proposed four basic cognitive operations necessary for dealing with a design problem solving: exploration, generation, comparison and selection (2002). The first two operations are the focus of this study, which are the most relevant ones for the brainstorming activity. Among the design team dynamics those cognitive activities can be distinguished between two main focuses of action: content and process.

Utterances that are classified as con-tentrelated express communicative actions related to the design task sphere and its accomplishment. Instead the cognitive activities categorized as processrelated represent the verbal actions, 34

which aim to organize and structure the work among the team’s members.

Being a team a group of individuals who cooperate, dealing with activities such as structuring and organizing, the teamwork’s organizational issue becomes and additional aspects that should be taken into consideration.

The distinction between content and process cognitive operations is similarly expressed by the differentiation of group activities in task-work and team-work activities (Morgan, et al., 1986). For this analysis the two clusters of actions related to content (C) and process (P) were determined by identifying the corresponding protocols. An additional typology of protocols was added to

the previous two. Among the verbal interaction process some sentences concerned miscellaneous comments not related to the discussion or irrelevant to the accomplishment of the task.

The third protocol code was classified as not-work-related (NWR). To better understand how the protocols were classified Table 3-1 give an example of the experiment transcript with the three typologies coded.

A statistical analysis investigates the possible significant differences of the frequencies of types of utterances across the three workshop conditions. Each type of cognitive activity was analyzed separately. The analysis aims to

Examples of utterances codes of cognitive activities

C-P-NWR

“So I think we have two choices, first one his idea: all different but in an organized way and second one mine: children furniture”

C

“Fresh is nature, I do not know, like trees or something”

C

“It is 10.30 so we have 15 minutes to make ideas”

P

“Should we pick a leader?”

P

“I am a bad artist!”

NWR

“How can you spell Starck?”

NWR

Table 3-1 A sample of coding system of the cognitive activities of the team’s design process.

Color code

3 research study: setting and analysis’s criteria

understand the focus of the conversation of the design processes among the experiment conditions giving insights of the effectiveness and synergy of the team members’ collaborations.

An additional qualitative visualization of the occurrences of each variable (type of cognitive activities) was drawn.

Moreover reflections on the content of the dialogue are reported in order to better understand the quality of the conversations. A color code was designed to better visualize the occurrences of the content, process and not-work-related segments during the whole duration of the workshops [Table 3-1].

A deeper analysis was conducted regarding the cognitive sphere of content actions.

Those verbal expressions referring to the cognitive activity of design problem-solving were categorized into two different operations: the goal clarification and the solution generation. Stempfle and Badke-Schaub defined six steps under the content related activity of the design process: goal clarification, solution generation, analysis, evaluation and decision (2002). They based this classification referring to different kind of theories in systems engineering, problemsolving theory and design methodology (Haberfellener, Nagel and Becker, 1999; Dunbar, 1995; Ehrlenspiel, 1995;

Examples of utterances codes of content-related cognitive activities

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“So I think in chaos there is no intention to be organized so that is why I think is nature”

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“Actually it is some kinds of controversial concept: it means stable but at the same time it is unstable!”

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“Maybe we can, I mean as a point of IKEA as company, maybe we can give, make some new events and promotion so we can maybe pick some certain customers and the team of IKEA go to that user house and change their room with IKEA products maybe make a new interior so it is a kind of service so it can be use as promotion”

CS

“Like a smartphone application?”

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Color code

Table 3-2 A sample of coding system for the content-related cognitive activities of the team’s design process.

Pahl and Beitz, 1995). However the design processes performed during the six work-shops of this empirical study is limited to the brainstorming technique.

The achievement required at the end of each session is to generate as much as ideas as possible without evaluating them. Therefore for this experiment only the first two operations were adopted as criteria for the analysis of the cognitive design process related to the content activities. Specifically, the first step of goal clarification (G) relates to the communicative acts dealing with the goal space. Utterances that are categorized as content-goal clarification related (CG) concern the discussion about the brief ‘fresh chaos’ and its clarification. On the other end the solution generation (S) relates to the proposals and solution ideas concerning the design task. So, verbal communication strings that are identified as content-solution generation (CS) presents the expressions of feasible design solutions and their possible design representations, such as forms, materials, contexts, target users.

A sample extracted from the transcripts of the workshops is reported in Table 3-2 to better clarify the coding criteria.

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The statistical analysis of the frequencies of both content-goal clarification and content-solution generation types of utterances shows possible significant differences among the three workshop conditions. So the supremacy of the ‘fresh chaos’ discussion over the proposal of tangible solutions, or vice versa, could be out-lined. Furthermore a qualitative visualization of the sequence of both goal clarification and solution generation operations will give more insights on the strategic pattern followed during the process over the three workshop types. For this purpose a color code was established in order to visualize the different segment of cognitive operations [Table 3-2].

3.3.3 ideas proposal The idea solutions proposed at the end of each workshop were qualitatively analyzed. The characteristics of each idea were described and compared trying to understand the levels of their creativity.

Firstly the ideas proposed by the six teams were framed in a table by the 36

criteria of type, key characteristics and description. These categories were adopted in order to quickly distinguish respectively the type of ideas (product, service, concept based) and the area of application (furniture, website, customer oriented) and the general purposes and functions of the solutions.

The sketches presented at the end of the sessions to explain the idea proposals were added to the table to support their descriptions. In this way similarities and differences among the workshop conditions could be effectively determined. The information extracted by the characteristics of the design solutions were crossed and evaluated by referring to the verbal expressions used by the participants during both the sessions and the presentations of the design outcomes to the workshop facilitator.

Secondly, in order to qualitatively compare the levels of creativity among the workshop conditions, some additional criteria were set up to evaluate the design solutions.

The psychologist Guilford in 1950 developed the concept of divergent thinking which he identified as a

major component of creativity formed by four main characteristics (1950): Fluency: producing a large number of ideas to a problem, Flexibility: considering a variety of approaches to a problem simultaneously, Originality: producing ideas different from those of other people (in this case teams), Elaboration: elaborating thoroughly the details of an idea and carry it out.

On the base of these aspects of the design ideas, outcomes of the workshops were compared referring to their creativity level. The categorization based on the listed criteria was outlined by reporting verbal protocols extracted from the video taped transcripts of the workshops’ dialogues.

3.3.4 experimenter bias The study designed faces the problem of objectivity in order to be a valid and

3 research study: setting and analysis’s criteria

reliable research. Based on a strong qualitative analysis, the presented research encounters the possible occurrence of ‘experimenter bias’.

In fact the qualitative selections and interpretations of the data is entirely performed by the experimenter.

In order to avoid as much as possible the subjectivity of the experimenter, some strategies were adopted to analyze the results. Firstly the procedure of the tests was designed in such a way that the facilitator of the workshop, representing also the experimenter, would not be present in the room. In this way biased participants’ behaviors and subjective comments taken during the session were avoided.

Regarding instead the analysis of the quality of verbal communications, all the utterances that were transcribed after each workshop, were coded twice: the first time right after the actual performance of the workshop and the second time approximately after one month and half.

Instead, for the interpretation of the design solutions, not only the sketches

and the dialogue produced during the workshop were utilized as data. Teams’ members gave the explanation of each design concept at the end of each session to the facilitator. In this way the experimenter could ask clarifications and details about the solutions in order to have a more objective picture avoiding personal judgment.

The design ideas were reported by writing their descriptions, identifying their characteristics and framing them using the matrix of creativity, designed on Guilford’s work (1950). Finally the solutions were compared to evaluate their relevance. Those procedures of evaluations were also doubled performed in different times.

workshop conditions. The average scores reached by each team members over the eight-questions survey were calculated in order to identify the overall personal evaluation of the workshops. Subsequently the scores of each question were determined to distinguish differences directly related to the content of the queries.

The quantitative results of the survey’s scores were supported by a qualitative analysis of the team members’ opinions and comments expressed during and after the workshops. The recorded videotapes were skimmed in order to extrapolate the relevant utterances related to both the personal expressions of feelings and the satisfaction of the teamwork.

3.3.5 participants’ evaluation The individual perceptions of the workshops atmosphere and the satisfaction of the team performance were investigated by analyzing the results of the conclusive survey filled up by all the participants. The answers were collected and clustered by 37

4 FINDINGS: COMMUNICATION, DESIGN PROCESS AND DESIGN SOlUTIONS

©edoardoCoSTa

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4.1 TeAm CommuniCATion 4.1.1 diFFeRenCes in The FRequenCy oF uTTeRAnCes In order to verify any significant differences on the level of quantity of discourse among the three workshop conditions, the non-parametric statistical analysis kruskal-wallis h Test between

Mean Number of Utterances

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subjects was performed. This choice was due to the number of variables involved, the small size of the samples and the non-distributed data collected.

usage of the icebreaker or the personal introduction, the average of quantity of discourse spoken by the participants does not significantly differ.

There was found not a statistically significant difference of the frequency of utterances among the three workshop conditions (h(2) = 3.615, P = 0.164) with a mean rank of 14.31 for control condition, 14.56 for the icebreaker condition and 8.62 for introduction condition [figure 4-1]. even the post-hoc tests run with the nonparametric statistical mann-whitney Test did not presented any statistically significant differences (p >.05).

in order to better understand the trend of discourse that the four participants generated in each of the design teams, a graphic representation of their utterances’ scores was drawn [figure 4-2]. The teams in the control condition presented 28 utterances as smallest score and 86 as highest. for the icebreaker condition, instead, 52 and 94 were respectively the smallest and the highest numbers of verbal strings among the eight participants of the two teams (T2; T5). The introduction condition presents the biggest gap between the smallest and highest scores, respectively 11 and 124. This visualization shows that in the ice breaker condition the difference between the smallest and highest score is 42 which is the smallest gap comparing with the other two workshop conditions (56 for the control condition and 113 for the introduction one). This graphic representation gives an hint of a more balanced communication among the teams’ members exposed to the icebreaking activity.

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Figure 4-1 The bar chart of the mean score of utterances depicted in the three workshop conditions.

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differences between the three workshop conditions did not result in a significant difference in the quantity of discourse depicted in the video recording during the design processes. This outcome indicates that regardless the

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did not indicate any significant differences.

Therefore even though an icebreaker or a namely introduction is used at the beginning of the brainstorming, people tend to be silent similarly without having an overall impact on the discussion.

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4.1.1 diFFeRenCes oF siLenT momenTs also in this case a kruskal-wallis h Test was adopted to determine any significant differences among the three workshops conditions on the level of total duration of silent moments. There was found not a statistically significant difference among the three workshop settings (h(2) = 1.143, P = 0.565) with a mean rank of 4.50 for the control condition, 2.50 for the ice breaking condition and 3.50 for introduction condition.

Post-hoc tests between pairs of workshop conditions were performed.

The results from mann-whitney test showed

no statistically significant differences (p >.05). The mean scores reached 00:09:29, 00:08:03 and 00:14:11 respectively for the control, icebreaker and introduction groups [figure 4-3]. differences of the amount of time, while participants did not discuss during the design process, did not result statistically significant. in all the three workshop conditions the time spent not talking among the participants

Mean Duration of Silent Moments

Figure 4-2 The graphic chart of the utterances’ scores of each participant (indicated with a black dot) in all the six teams.

an additional statistical analysis was performed using kruskal-wallis h Test in order to verify the presence of any significant differences of the average duration of a silent moment among the

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Figure 4-3 The bar chart of the mean duration of total silent time among the three workshop conditions.

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4 FINDINGS: COMMUNICATION, DESIGN PROCESS AND DESIGN SOlUTIONS

three workshop conditions.

A statistically significant difference of the average duration of a silent moment among the three workshop conditions (h(2) = 0.074, P = 0.964) was not found [figure 4-4]. even the posthoc tests run with the non-parametric statistical mann-whitney Test did not presented any statistically significant differences (p >.05) between the four pairs combination of the workshop conditions. The results suggest that

despite the type of workshop discussions stopped frequently in a similar way.

Mean Duration of a Silent Moment

However, these findings do not give any insights regarding how the silent moments occurred during the design processes. it is not possible to identify in which part of the process they took place. in order to investigate the overall pattern of these moments, a qualitative analysis was performed. The sequence of silent segments occurred over the 30 minutes discussions are visualized in a graphic timeline. as shown in figure 4-5 all the six teams present different trends of silent moments. although some observations 00.00.15 can be extracted.

Both team processes of the icebreaker condition did not start the discussion with a silent time contrary to what 00.00.10 happened in the other conditions.

Control condition Icebreaker condition Introduction condition Type of Workshop Moreover in the first Figure 4-4 The bar chart of the mean duration of a silent moment among couple of minutes the three workshop conditions.

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in both the control and introduction conditions the silent moments were either more intense in duration and in frequency comparing with the icebreaker conditions. This is probably due to the fact that the icebreaker condition had the restricted task to perform the actual icebreaker. however the third condition also had the instruction to perform the personal introduction activity.

Comparing these two patterns, icebreaking and introduction activity, the introduction typology produced more frequent and longer silent moments.

This observation confirms that in the icebreaker workshops participants spoke more frequently during the game activity then during the personal introduction phase. looking at the patterns during the first 5 minutes the same observation can be drawn. in fact the icebreaker condition-teams were verbally more active then the other teams due to the game task. during the following 15 minutes, between the fifth and the twentieth minutes, both team 3 and team 6 showed the presence of more silent times.

Therefore their dialogues were not fluent

4 findings: communication, design process and design solution

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Figure 4-5 The graphic visualization of the sequences of silent moments in all the six workshops.

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and consistent in the structure. Both the control and icebreaker conditions present a similar pattern of silent moments. The discussions were more flowing especially between the eighth and the thirteenth minutes, considering the small frequency of silent times.

The last 10 minutes were very diverse among all the teams. Not similar patterns can be identified. However, both the teams in the ice-breaking condition did not present silent moments in the last

few minutes. instead the other teams, in both the control and introduction condition, ended their discussion before. in fact at the end of the workshop two long silent moments were found in both Team 1 and Team 3, respectively for the control and the introduction conditions; Team 4 and Team 6, instead, presented more frequent and short silent times. Therefore participants exposed to the ice-breaking activity carried on their conversation until the end of the workshop without having strong pauses.

4.2.1 diFFeRenCes oF CoNTENT, PRoCESS And NoT-WoRKRElaTED CoGniTive ACTions The three types of cognitive actions (content, process and not-work-related) were analyzed by coding all the utterances expressed by the all twenty-

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4.2 TeAm desiGn pRoCess

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Figure 4-6 The bar chart of the mean scores of the control and process types (left and right) of utterances among the three workshop conditions.

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4 findings: communication, design process and design solution

four participants over all the workshops.

Frequencies were calculated. A nonparametric Kruskal-Wallis H Test was performed to determine any significant differences among the three workshops conditions on the level of frequency of coded utterances.

The differences of both the content and the process frequencies of type of utterances did not result statistically significant (p > .05) among the workshop conditions. This suggests that regardless the type of work-shop both content and process related cognitive actions are not significantly different.

All the six groups had a similar quantity of dialogue focused on the design task of problem solving indicated by the amount of verbal strings coded as content-related. Interesting are the mean scores gained in the three workshop types [Figure 4-6]. In the icebreaker condition, in fact, the mean score is 25,13 and is the low-est score comparing to the means in other two conditions, respectively 32,63 for the control one and 32,88 for the introduction one. On the other hand, analyzing the means score of the process-related cognitive

actions, the lowest mean score was reached in the introduction condition.

The mean scores are 9,5 for the control workshop-type, 14,5 for the icebreaker one and 6,63 for the introduction one.

The icebreaker workshops condition, instead, presented the highest mean score of utterances coded as processrelated. This result invites to reflect to the possibility that those teams spoke more about how to divide the tasks among the group and about which steps to follow during the design process.

The results of post hoc tests executed using the non-parametric statistical Mann-Whitney Test between the combinations of pairs of workshop conditions supported these last reflections. The frequency of process related utterances differed significantly between the icebreaker condition and the introduction condition with U= 12.00, z= -2.108 and p= .035.

In order to have a bigger picture of how those content and process activities occurred, a visual representation of the sequence of their segments among the all six workshops was outlined [Figure 4-7]. The iteration of content and process

operations appears to be more balanced in both the team 2 and 5 belonging to the ice-breaking condition. The dialogue started with a conversation related to the process of the group; utterances like ‘Oh so, let’s do it together! Who wants to start?’ and ‘It is required to think about these two words fresh chaos […] how about to brainstorming together?’ were expressed. The design processes followed steps characterized firstly by decision-making about the group procedure and then by the proven solving tasks.

As shown by Figure 4-7, segments of process-related actions regularly iterated with big blocks of con-tent actions, respectively the orange and light blue colors. Example of utterances were ‘What about thinking first about some experiences related to this fresh chaos’ and ‘well what about to write down any forms of idea and then we can come up with the best one’ related to how to start and proceed the brainstorming phase; than concerning the time managing it was said ‘oh yeah…it is 30 so we have 15 minutes to make ideas’; afterwards during the ideas generation phase sentences like ‘Maybe for 5 minutes we 45

4 findings: communication, design process and design solutions

Content Process

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Those observations suggest that the group discussions in the icebreaker condition were more structured and equally focused on both the content and process operations. instead the other design teams operated in a not organized way.

There was found, instead, a statistically significant difference only of the notwork-related type of cognitive actions among the three workshop conditions (h(2) = 13.697, P = 0.001) with a mean rank of 13.25 for the control condition, 18.62 for the icebreaker condition and 5.62 for the introduction condition

{figure 4-8]. These findings suggest that in the introduction condition considerably less dialogue not related to the design task was produced than the other two workshop conditions. Therefore participants in the third condition resulted to be more focused on the other cognitive activities.

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Mean of not-work-related utterances

generate ideas and then we talk again’ and ‘so shall we pick up one?’ were depicted; finally as conclusive dialogue of the process a discussion about how to present the ideas was made; for example it was proposed ‘so how we are going to explain our brainstorming to the facilitator?’. linked to what said before, both the icebreaker-type of workshops reported ending cognitive activities related to the process type.

The other two conditions did not showed any regular patterns of content or process cognitive actions’ iterations.

Their sequences were very diverse.

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Since there was a 0 Control condition Icebreaker condition Introduction condition significant difference Type of Workshop of the not-work-related utterances among Figure4-8 The bar chart of the mean scores of not-work-related type of the conditions, it was utterances among the three workshop conditions. interesting crossing interferences after the fifth minute and this result with a qualitative analysis until the twenty-fifth minute. In addition of the not-work-related protocols. we their dialogues end with a conversation should, in fact, have a look to the that did not concern the design task. in distribution of the occurrences of the fact utterances such as ‘All you guys are verbal activities and their topics of from Id?’, ‘so what is your name?’ or discussion. in fact as visualized in ‘so were you from?’ were pronounced the figure 4.9, in the ice-breaking by the team members. Therefore their condition there are big initial not-workending conversations concerned sharing related protocol segments that represent personal information. The pattern the performance of the card game. The of frequencies of not-work-related design processes of both team 2 and activities during the control condition team 5 present few not-work-related 47

4 findings: communication, design process and design solutions

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Figure 4-9 The graphic visualization of the sequences of not-work-related cognitive actions in all the six workshops.

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workshops resulted to be more intense between the fifteenth minute and the twenty-fifth minute. Team 1 and 4’s design processes were interrupted frequently during the last phase. Within the design task operations random conversation occurred.

Questions and comments related to spelling and language problems were expressed: ‘His name is ‘Peck Nam Jim’, not ‘Nam Su ‘ or ‘How do you spell his name? S T A R C K?’. Moreover irrelevant comments were made such as ‘The Cheetahs eat monkeys’, ‘I love alcohol’ and ‘I kind of party tomorrow’. Those types of utterances’ occurrences represented elements of strong interferences making the flow of the conversation not balanced and focused on the main topic of the workshop.

The third condition workshops run with a short initial personal introduction show, in the graphic visualization in Figure 4-9, very few segments of notwork-related cognitive activities. Team members of group 3 and 6 mandatorily spent few minutes at the beginning of the sessions to introduce themselves to each other. Despite this common pattern, the not-work-related sequences

of cognitive actions do not share any other similar traits between the introduction condition’s team. These observations reported that introductionstructure of workshop led a conversation more focused on the design task assigned. No personal information was shared unless the initial individual presentation and not miscellaneous comments were expressed. Even thought the team 2 and 5, belonging to the icebreaker condition, presented an higher frequency of not-work-related operations, their graphic sequences show that the core of the conversation was concentrated in the central part of the 30 minutes discussion. The starting and ending topics of the conversation were respectively concerning the social game and the sharing of personal information. The control condition did not report any regular patterns regarding the frequency of the notwork-related cognitive activities. Their high frequency, in fact, was spread irregularly during the whole 30 minutes sessions leading to a not uniform flow of the conversation.

4.2.2 Differences of content-goal clarification and contentsolution generation cognitive actions The content-type of utterances was deeper analyzed by identifying two different categorizations: the goal clarification and solution generation.

The frequencies of both groups of content related activities were calculated among the three workshop conditions.

Performing a non-parametric statistical Kruskal-Wallis H Test, not statistically significant differences of the goal clarification and solution generation frequencies of utterances were found among the control, ice-breaking and introduction workshop settings (p> .05).

These results imply that regardless the type of workshops there is not statistically significant evidence that either the goal clarification or the solution generation utterances predominate among the three workshop conditions.

Regarding the protocols related to the goal clarifications, the mean scores reached were 18, 13 for the control condition, 14 for the ice-breaking 49

4 FINDINGS: COMMUNICATION, DESIGN PROCESS AND DESIGN SOlUTIONS

one and 14,38 for the introduction one [figure 4-10]. on the other side, the introduction condition ranked the highest mean score (18,5) of frequency of solution generation-type of utterances comparing with the 14, 5 and 11, 13 mean scores obtained by respectively the control and the icebreaker settings.

Despite these findings it is important to reflect on the proportion of frequencies of goal clarification and solution

generation activities in the workshop conditions [figure 4-11]. in fact both the first and second settings reached equal ratios of the solution generation’s frequencies to the goal clarification’s one; instead, the introduction condition reported a higher ratio. Therefore the discussions in both the control and icebreaker workshop conditions were similarly proportional between the goal and the solution space of the content related discourse. in these two types

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of workshops participants emphasized their conversations on the clarification of the ‘fresh chaos’ brief rather then on generating ideas. Contrary, in the introduction condition the opposite was verified.

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Figure 4-10 The bar chart of the mean scores of the control and process types (left and right) of utterances among the three workshop conditions.

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100% 90% 80% 70%

Utterances Frequencies

visualization of the protocol segments was drawn [figure 4-12]. The main observation that clearly emerged is the regular pattern recalled in the teams related to the ice-breaking condition. distinct groups of segments of contentgoal clarification category were followed by other groups of segments of content-solution generation one. in the other two conditions, the control and the introduction one, the sequences of the two typologies of content-related actions were neither uniform nor regularly iterating during the 30 minutes workshop sessions. Therefore the design processes of team 2 and 5 followed a regular pattern of steps: the goal clarification phase was widely discussed and than the solution generation phase succeeded it. This combination of steps was also few times iterated as the figure 4-12 shows in the graphs of teams 2 and 5. The visualization also suggests that the two design-process steps were repeated by carrying on a solid discussion in each phase. in fact the colored bars are clearly clustered between the two categories of content cognitive actions.

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Figure 4-11 The stacked column chart of the frequencies’ mean scores of content-goal clarification and content-solution generation related types of utterances in the three workshop conditions..

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4.3 Comparison of ideas generated 4.2.1 Outcomes of the control condition teams The ideas presented by both teams related to the control condition reported both one type of product and two types of services. The product solutions proposed by both Team 1 and Team 4 were a special edition of IKEA line products. Team 1 pointed on the idea of promoting design furniture made by famous de-signers for IKEA with the theme of ‘chaos’, as reported on the paper sheet [Table 4-1]. Participant #1 of Team 1, in fact, explained the idea as ‘[…] some famous furniture designers or something but for normal people and because then it does have not to be very like practical, it can be chaotic weird chairs or something or...mmm... and that is fresh and chaos because it is not focused on, you know, been practical’. Instead Team 4 proposed the creation of a new line of appliances for the home environment. Those products

are designed to have an esthetical chaotic style made by different colors and textures and at the same time fresh for the novelty of the product. In fact participant # 4 of Team 4 asserted during the presentation of the final solutions: ‘We were thinking about home and change the appearances of washing machines with crazy colors’. Regarding the service type outcomes, the ‘special edition’ aspect characterizes both Team 1 and Team 4 ideas. The services suggested by Team 1 are both related to the interior design of customers’ houses.

They differ in terms of applications.

The first one involves the make-over of house interior made by famous designers using the theme ‘chaos’; participant #1 of Team 1 explained this ideas by saying: ‘They make your house all makeover only with IKEA stuff made by a designer’; and he added: ‘[…] you give the key of the house, the apartment and then when you come back it is like totally new […]’. The second service, instead, represents a new application for the game ‘Sims’. On the site they can enter in the warehouse and get inspirations by the already built 3d houses furniture with IKEA products.

These multimedia representations are

designed under the concept of being chaotic. Moreover by playing the game IKEA customers can create their own virtual interior and eventually buy the items online. Again participant #1 declared: ‘I am it is virtually but you can see through the walls […] you can go and maybe in the bathroom section or kitchen section and you have the stuff you can actually buy and build yourself there in the computer to see what you can have for yourself’.

On the other end Team 4 focused more on the realization of two services that offered new special IKEA line of products which both have the same characteristics of ‘customization’ and ‘DIY’ (Do-It-Yourself). Participant #1 asserted, regarding the first service: ‘Sometimes I want to transform, like “I do not like it, it is just let’s transform”.

It will be more like service! […] by using raw materials […]’. The main purpose is to give to the customers the opportunity to transform the items they buy with additional raw materials that IKEA offers to them. In this way ‘freshness’ will be represented by the natural material and ‘chaos’ by the act of modifying the products by yourself.

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4 findings: communication, design process and design solutions

CONTROL CONDITION

TYPE

KEY CHARACTERISTICS

DESCRIPTION

TEAM 1 (T1)

PRODUCT

- Furniture - Special Edition

Limited IKEA furniture line made by de-signers with focus on the theme ‘chaos’.

SERVICE

- Interior Design - Special Edition

Interior design IKEA edition offered as a service with the focus on the theme ‘chaos’.

SERVICE

- Special Edition - Interior Design - Online application - Customizing

Online application for the game ‘The Sims’ where IKEA offers design interior inspiration of built houses on the theme ‘chaos’ and the possibility to virtually create and buy and the possibility to virtually create some interior and eventually buy the products.

Table 4-1 Summary of the final ideas proposal of the control condition teams (T1,T4).

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4 findings: communication, design process and design solution

TYPE

KEY CHARACTERISTICS

DESCRIPTION

CONTROL CONDITION

TEAM 4 (T4)

PRODUCT

- Appliances - Home environment - Special Edition

Home appliances, such as washing ma-chine, with a crazy colored style.

SERVICE

- Customizing - DIY (Do-It-Yourself) - Special Edition

Products are provided with raw materials to be added in order to customize them by the buyers.

SERVICE

- Special Edition - Art - DIY (Do-It-Yourself) - Customizing

Give the possibility to build artistic IKEA reproductions of famous pieces in a chaotic way. Mixing and combining unusual parts.

Table 4-1 Summary of the final ideas proposal of the control condition teams (T1,T4).

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4 findings: communication, design process and design solutions

The other proposed service embeds an artistic aspect. Customers will have the possibility to buy reproductions of famous art pieces made by IKEA but they can be assembled in diverse ways, combining different parts belonging to different items. The concept of ‘fresh chaos’ reflected in this idea was explained by participant #3 during the outcomes presentation. He said: ‘[…] you will have a fresh feeling when you see the art-object but the way to assembly is chaotic […]’.

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4.3.2 Outcomes of the icebreaker condition teams Team 2 and Team 5, who were tested under the icebreaker condition, elaborated a set of final ideas strongly different both among each other and among all the teams on the level of descriptive characteristics. Firstly Team 2’s solutions are all concept ideas. In fact during the presentation of the proposal to the facilitator, member #4 of Team 2 explained: ‘From the combination of the two words ‘fresh’ and ‘chaos’ we got some ideas, some conceptual ideas’. Team 2 ended in a final paper sheet [Table 4-2] with a summery of their final concepts. All of them do not express a tangible product or service but clarify the context and the purpose of the product or service that should be designed for. The concepts suggested were: living in a city, student learning process, meeting a new person, visiting a new place, getting married and discovering new things. Their meaning and implications regarding the ‘fresh chaos’ vision were explained during the workshop session and also briefly presented to the facilitator. For example

the concept of ‘getting married’ was proposed for the duality of the feelings perceived by both the marring couple and their guests. Subject #1 declared: ‘For the guests staying, when there are many, it is very crowded’; and then he continued: ‘But for bride and groom they are every fresh and very delighted’.

Also suggestions of possible products that could be designed on the base of these concepts were ex-pressed.

Participant #4, for example, while explaining the concept of ‘living in a city’ as a representation of ‘fresh chaos’, outlined the feature of an hypothetical product. She said: ‘Maybe it can be, I do not know, which product it would be, but it can be like there is an image of Seoul or Paris and another complexity.

It looks dynamic probably mostly at night and then when it comes in the afternoon or morning the picture goes away or the other side has bluish the nature of picture’.

Team 5, instead, proposed four distinctive product-ideas. All the solutions share common characteristics like being furniture type focused on organizing toys for children. In fact

4 findings: communication, design process and design solution

the Team, after a brainstorming on the brief ‘fresh chaos’ decided to work on a single target group and theme. Member #2 proposed: ‘Why don’t we start from defining the theme! Like we can, we might think like this fresh chaos thing like topics so when we discuss about that on what is fresh chaos […]’. Therefore the chosen theme was furniture for children.

The ‘fresh chaos’ concept was involved by considering the nature of the users, children, as a controversial duality: the freshness of beauty and happiness of the youth combined with their chaotic and frenetic behaviors to know, discover and play. Participant #1 commented: ‘[…] In my chase in my home there is a dog and he wants to play with his many toys and he makes our living room very dirty with these toys but it looks really cute for me, it seems very fresh chaos for me so it can be toys or furniture for children’.

Moreover two ideas concern about the safety of the children. The first solution is a set of a desk with two chairs made by fabric to prevent the children to get hurt. The table functions also as game table. Once toys and other items are all over the table, they can easily clean

by using the flying bag attached to the desk. They can learn to have fun and be organized at the same time. Subject #2 explained: ‘[…] they (children) want to play with the toys and they want to be... they play with toys and it gets dirty, but the parents do not want to get dirty so give them some funny thing to help them organize them so they can…there is a fly and a kind of table and a, how can I say it, a large bag like Santa Claus’s one, so they can just put their things […]’.

The fourth idea can be categorized as home furniture that considers the safety issue. It consists of a children bed. It has a peculiar shape and it is made by soft material in order to assure their safety. It is also provided by shelves and hidden drawers to allow cleaning easily the mess after playing with toys.

The second idea instead was described by participant #1 as: ‘[…] just attach some magnets to toys like balls or dolls in same parts and then when mom want to clean the room just use one big magnet that will catch all the toys very quickly’. Lastly, the remaining idea was conceived to be a set of furniture for the IKEA playroom to allow organizing and cleaning the space in a subtle way.

Subject #3 proposed: ‘I was thinking at the places in IKEA, this is a playroom.

I was focusing on organize the chaos which children can make. These paly rooms are all messy so we need some light covers of plastic materials that can prove some aesthetics part and then after they play all toys get together in this part and then we can organize all things underneath the floor, here there is a toy box and then […]’.

4.3.3 Outcomes of the introduction condition teams The third workshop condition produced different outcomes between the two teams, which performed the workshop under this setting. Team 3 proposed one product-oriented idea, instead Team 6 focused more on servicetype of solutions [Table 4-3]. Despite the nature diversity, both proposals have some similar aspect, such as the customization, special edition and DIY features. Team 3 aimed to design a set of IKEA furniture, which was totally customizable by giving choices of products’ parts that can be assembled.

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4 findings: communication, design process and design solutions

ICEBREAKER CONDITION

TYPE

TEAM 5 (T5)

KEY CHARACTERISTICS

DESCRIPTION

PRODUCT

- Furniture - Safety - Organizing

- Toys - Children

A special desk that has attached a flying bag in order to clean ta messy table.

PRODUCT

- Furniture - Organizing

- Toys - Children

A new device that works as a big magnet to collect the toys marked with small magnets that are spread around the house.

PRODUCT

- Furniture - IKEA store - Organizing

- Toys - Children

A new system that involves a hidden box in the floor. It looks like a carpet but it can be opened and toys can be mopped into. The system is designed for the playground rooms of IKEA stores.

PRODUCT

- Furniture - Safety - Organizing

- Toys - Children

A special bed for children designed with a particular shape and materials to increase the safety. It is also equipped with special shelves and drawers to keep the room organized.

Table 4-2 Summary of the final ideas proposal of the icebreaker condition teams (T2, T5).

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4 findings: communication, design process and design solution

TYPE

KEY CHARACTERISTICS

DESCRIPTION

CONCEPT

- City context - Living behaviors

Product/service focused on the context of the city and expressing the action of living in that environment.

CONCEPT

- Classroom context - Learning behaviors

Product/service focused on the context of the classroom and expressing the action of learning process.

CONCEPT

- Social interaction context - Socializing behaviors

Product/service focused on the context of social interaction for the purpose of ‘meeting a new person’.

CONCEPT

- Travel context - Discovering behaviors

Product/service focused for travellers to be able to discover new places.

CONCEPT

- Wedding context

Product/service for couples who are about to get married.

CONCEPT

- Discovering - Ideation

Product/service focused on the concept of discovering new products or new functions.

ICEBREAKER CONDITION

TEAM 2 (T2)

Table 4-2 Summary of the final ideas proposal of the icebreaker condition teams (T2, T5).

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4 findings: communication, design process and design solutions

INTRO CONDITION

TYPE

4.1.1 KEY CHARACTERISTICS

DESCRIPTION

TEAM 6 (T6)

PRODUCT

- Event - Special Edition - IKEA store context

Promotion event in the IKEA store that gives the possibility to the customers to reorganize the structure of the store.

PRODUCT

- Event/contest - Customization - DIY (Do-It-Yourself) - Re-use

Contest event to design new products by the customers reusing existing IKEA products of parts.

PRODUCT

- Event - Interior design - Special Edition

Promotional event giving the possibility to redecorate the interior of customers’ houses by famous designers.

Table 4-3 Summary of the final ideas proposal of the introduction condition teams (T3, T6).

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4 findings: communication, design process and design solution

TYPE

KEY CHARACTERISTICS

DESCRIPTION

INTRO CONDITION

TEAM 3 (T3)

PRODUCT

- Furniture - Art - Special Edition - Customization - DIY (Do-It-Yourself)

Limited IKEA furniture line made by customi-zable products that are reproduction of art pieces.

Table 4-3 Summary of the final ideas proposal of the introduction condition teams (T3, T6).

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4 findings: communication, design process and design solutions

The key of this special edition furniture is the artistic nature since the products represents famous reproductions of art/design objects. A list of possible combination was drawn in the final paper sheet proposal [Table 4-3]. On the other end the service proposed by Team 6 reflected more the event style of service. The first one represents a sit-in in the IKEA store promoting the brand in a fresh and chaotic way. Member #1 explained: ‘I like the re-organization of the store, I think is cool! So it would give a fresh thing because it is new and there is a ‘chaos’, it is chaotic because it is disorganized but kind of fool sometimes’. Customers, in fact, will be allowed to change the organization of the products in the store. This event was labeled as ‘IKEA jungle’. The second service solution is also a promotional event where customers can attend to a contest. IKEA products are offered to create a new product by combining or using parts of the old ones. Fresh chaos expresses the way people make things: from a big amount of products shape a new object. The idea was explained by subject #4: ‘it is another promotional idea, I said IKEA ‘hacker’ so the users, the customers are already doing those 62

kind of things, bringing and re making, so why we can not make some contests so customers can join the contest and use IKEA products to turn into one so the users’ winner product will be actually sell in IKEA like special edition!’. The last proposal concerns a promotional event where some customers are randomly picked up to have the free opportunity to renew their home interiors by some famous designers. Those will use IKEA products to fully refurnish the customers’ houses. Participants #2 suggested: ‘Maybe we can, I mean as a point of IKEA as company, maybe we can give, make some new events and promotion so we can maybe pick some certain customers and the team of IKEA go to that user house and change their room with IKEA products maybe make a new interior so it is a kind of service so it can be use as promotion’.

4.3.4 Evaluation of the creativity level of workshops’ outcomes According to the criteria frame of creativity explained in Chapter 3 section 3.2.3 a qualitative table was outlined

[Table 4-4]. Each aspect was investigated analyzing both the characteristics of the design solutions and the design process applied to generate the ideas.

Regarding the fluency aspect, both teams 2 and 5 involved in the icebreaking workshop setting generated the most number of ideas to the given design problem. In total the design outcomes were 10, 6 for team 2 and 4 for team 5. The other teams created 6 total ideas, 3 for team 1 and 3 for team 4 considering the control condition and 4 total outcomes, 1 for team 3 and 3 for team 6 among the introduction condition. This last workshop setting produced the smallest amount of final design proposals.

The flexibility criteria, instead, was accomplished only by one of the team belonging again to the ice-breaking condition. Team 2, in fact, proposed 6 concept-type of outcomes that reflected different approaches to solve the design problem. The concepts were developed considering different contexts, such as a wedding, a classroom and a trip. Instead the other teams had similar approaches among their final

4 findings: communication, design process and design solution

Control Condition

TEAM 1

3

TEAM 4

3

Icebreaker Condition

TEAM 2

6

TEAM 5

4

Introduction Condition

FLUENCY

TEAM 3

1

TEAM 6

3

FLEXIBILITY

ORIGINALITY

ELABORATION

( when not achieved, when achieved) Table 4-4 Creativity table of the design solutions of the six teams.

solutions. Team 1 and 4 focused their design solution on creating ‘special editions’ and ‘client customization’.

The company interests and strategy on one side and the customer satisfaction were the main features driven all the design solutions. Participant #3 of team 1 explained: ‘[…] kind of serious of furniture, interior products that allows people to make it massy but, still looks good’; and than she added: ‘So it is chaotic to the company but fresh for the customers’. Subject #4 of team 4 also commented: ‘yeah…ok…let’s say, they provide like interior set, so we can make interior that transform!’; participant #1

of the same team also proposed: ‘A kind of advertisement promoting something that you would never expected!’. The introduction condition’s teams also followed the same path approaching to the design solutions. Members #4 and #1 of group three declared respectively: ‘or maybe it is like customer DIY?’ and ‘I think it can be furniture that you can paint’ regarding maintaining the IKEA identity of let the customers building the items and the possibility to make the products be personalized by the customers them self. Team 5, instead, focused the ideas proposal on specific points: furniture for children thought

to be placed in the home environment helping to organize and prevent the safety. It has to be mentioned, however, that the design team choose specifically this approach after investigating diverse possibilities. In fact participant #2 proposed: ‘Why don’t we start from defining the theme! Like we can, we might think like this fresh chaos thing like topics […]’. Afterward subject #1 suggested: ‘shall we just pick one topic? […] I think we have two choices’.

The ice-breaking condition resulted to produce also the most original design outcomes. The six concepts of team 2, in fact, did not come up by association to any other already existing products and they do not have any features in common with the other teams’ solutions.

No one of the other teams proposed a concept-type of ideas. Moreover team 2’s outcomes were developed by simply combining the mind maps of words that were produced during the brainstorming to clarify the ‘fresh chaos’ brief [Figure 4-13]. Participants #4 of group 2 suggested: ‘Actually when I see this [pointing to the mind maps] some are linked and some are opposite like’.

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4 findings: communication, design process and design solutions

Figure 4-13 Mind maps generated by team 2 (icebreaker condition).

The ideas proposed by team 5 also are categorized as original since they were not similar to any other solutions created by the other teams. In addition the idea generation phase was based on concretize in a feasible product the selected topic and features (home furniture, children, organization, safety).

The design outcomes were therefore individually developed in order to have as much as choices as possible to create eventually combinations with the singular proposals. In fact member #1 of team 5 suggested: ‘So we generate ideas each and then we join them?’.

Among the groups of both the control 64

and introduction workshop settings lots of similar ideas can be found. The customizable-edition IKEA line of art products was thought both by team 4 and team 3, respectively involving the control and the introduction condition.

Moreover the special IKEA edition of interior design customers’ housesmakeover made by famous designers was developed by team 1, for the first condition, and team 6 for the third one. The same solution can be seen also comparing two ideas of group 4 (control condition) and one outcome of group 6 (interaction condition). The first ones involve the IEKA special edition of

transforming home appliances and IKEA special edition of service providing raw material for customers’ personalization.

Instead the second one concerns the IKEA’s contest to create new design product by using already existing IKEA items. The similar characteristic of transformation and customization of IKEA existing products. Therefore these listed design solution were not evaluated as original. In addition the remaining ideas of team 1, the IKEA special edition of line of furniture on the theme ‘chaos’ and the IKEA special edition line for the game ‘The Sims’, and team 6, the promotional IKEA’s event to re-organize

4 findings: communication, design process and design solution

the store also cannot be considered as unique. Team’s 1 solutions are both inspirations from already launched similar service/products. The designers IKEA limited edition recalls limited lines such as ‘Versace for H&M’, ‘Roberto Cavalli for H&M’ or ‘Stella McCartney for H&M’. Participant #1 of group 1, in fact, asserted: ‘[…] like SMC for H&M, you know, famous designer […] so IKEA can do something similar, like, they have the limited line or you know some famous furniture designers or something but for normal people […]’. Instead the idea of the online application for the game ‘The Sims’, it is already been launched by IKEA as a software called ‘IKEA planner’. Similarly the idea of team 6 is very closed to the concept of promotional events in loco, in this case the IKEA stores. Each IKEA store has already a weekly schedule full of new pro-motional activities such as the ‘IKEA Family’ where you can get free kitchen planning appointment in the store.

Figure 4-14 Sketches representing one of the team’s 5 ideas (bottom) and the solely team’s 3 solution (top).

Lastly the elaboration aspect of the creativity criteria was identified in the outcomes of both group 5 (ice-breaking condition) and group 3 (introduction condition). The four design solutions

elaborated by team 5 were defined as feasible products and described in a clear way while showing their functions and characteristics. Also the team’s 3 idea was concise and detailed; since it was developed only one solution the team had the possibility to outlined the main features. Supporting these observations are the sketches that were drawn to explain the design proposals [Figure 4-14]. The other teams either did not go further then a general definition of the ideas or did not produced any representative sketches.

By evaluating the design outcomes of the six workshops the ice-breaking condition’s teams (T2 and T5) covered more creativity aspects comparing with the other teams. Both groups gained three aspects out of five.

More specifically both the teams accomplished the fluency and the originality qualities; instead the flexibility and the elaboration were respected alternatively by the team 2 and the team 5.

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4 FINDINGS: COMMUNICATION, DESIGN PROCESS AND DESIGN SOlUTIONS

4.4 CompARison oF pARTiCipAnTs’ evALuATion an initial statistical analysis was run in order to verify the existence of any significant differences of the total scores of the survey among the three

workshop conditions. The total score was considered as a index of the overall evaluation of the workshop by each participants. Both the non parametrical kruskal-wallis h Test between subjects and the post hoc paired tests mann-whitney Test results with no statistically significant differences of the survey’s total score among the control, icebreaker and introduction

Mean ‘Are you satisfied with the overall performance of the teamwork?’

Mean sum of the total score over 8 questions per each participant

20

15

10

5

0

Control condition

Icebreaker condition

Introduction condition

Type of Workshop

Figure 4-15 Bar chart of the mean of the survey total scores of each participant among the three workshop conditions.

66

conditions and also be-tween their paired combinations (p> .05). [figure 4-15] Statistically significances were found, instead, performing the kruskal-wallis h Test of the scores gained by two questions concerning the personal satisfaction among the workshops settings. The questions were:

2.5

2

1.5

1

0.5

0

Control condition

Icebreaker condition

Introduction condition

Type of Workshop

Figure 4-16 Bar chart of the mean scores for the question ‘Are you satisfied with the overall performance of the teamwork?’ among the three workshop conditions.

4 FINDINGS: COMMUNICATION, DESIGN PROCESS AND DESIGN SOlUTION

- ‘Are you satisfied with the overall performance of the teamwork?’

-‘ Are you satisfied with the reached outcomes?’

= 9.236 and P = 0.10. The mean score reached by the ice-breaking condition was the highest value implying that participants of team 2 and 5 consistently were satisfied about the performance of their teamwork [figure 16].

Therefore the ice-breaking condition was evaluated as consistently satisfying by its participants both for the overall teamwork performance and the resulted ideas.

The statistical analysis’ results of the first question reported h(2) = 5.860 and P = 0.048. instead the statistical values of the second query’s analysis were h(2)

Mean ‘Are you satisfied with the reached outcomes?’

regarding, instead, the satisfaction of the design solutions proposed the mean scores of both the ice-breaking and introduction condition are equal 2.5 [figure 4-17]. This finding suggests that both the second 2 and third workshop conditions were perceived stronger 1.5 satisfying by their participants 1 regarding the design solutions proposed. members of the team 0.5 that were involved in the control condition did not reached final 0 Control condition Icebreaker condition Introduction condition design proposals not Type of Workshop as much as satisfying as those participants Figure 4-17 Bar chart of the mean scores for the question ‘are you satisfied with the reached outcomes?’ among the three workshop conditions. performing the other workshop types.

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5 DISCUSSION AND CONClUSION

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69

5 discussion and conclusion

5.1 discussion

dynamics of the design process and the teamwork’s productivity of creative ideas.

The study has shown how the activity of a game-type of icebreaker affects the design ideation process of a newly formed multidisciplinary teamwork.

Different effects have been identified as playing a relevant role over diverse aspects characterizing the teamwork.

The main findings took place in the teams-working atmosphere, the

Teamwork Dynamics Design Outcomes Perception and Satisfaction

The results of the various quantitative analyses were not as marked as expected due to the small scale of the experiment. However, the qualitative COLLABORATIVE ENVIRONMENT

DISCUSSION

A N A LYS I S

Team-Working Atmosphere

In following, each area of implications is discussed by remarking the effects of the game type of the icebreaker on the teams’ design ideation activities.

MORE EFFECTIVE and COLLABORATIVE TEAMWORK DESIGN STRATEGIES CREATIVE DESIGN THINKING OF TEAMWORK SUITABLE CREATIVE ATMOSPHERE and EFFECTIVE PERFORMANCE

5

Figure 5-1 The structure of the discussion and its key points.

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analyses allowed determining more effectively the differences among the workshop conditions in terms of the patterns of collaboration and the levels of creative ideas.

5.1.1 Teams-working atmosphere: Collaborative Environment Considering the teamwork atmosphere, the icebreaker condition recalls to the effect of reducing tensions and enhancing communication.

The POSITIVE EFFECTS ENHANCING the VERBAL COMMUNICATION REDUCING TENSIONS INDUCING to organize STRUCTURED COGNITIVE ACTIONS EMPOWERING the POTENTIAL of TEAM’S CREATIVE THINKING

5 Discussion and conclusion

interaction among participants and their communication are considered to be important for the creation of a creative work environment (Kleinman, Siegal and Eckstein, 2002).

Performing the game as the starter of the design teamwork played the role of an activator for the brainstorming discussion. A more active verbal communication took place right after the ice-breaking activity. In fact, the frequency of silent moments decreased during the 5 minutes that followed the game activity.

Moreover It can be argued that the icebreaker reduces the tensions among team members by referring to the quantity of discoursed produced during the session. Even though the statistical analysis did not result to have any significant differences among the studied conditions, the teams who were exposed to the game activity reported a more homogenous distribution of participants’ total scores of utterances depicted among the workshop conditions (highest score 94, smallest 52 for T2 & T5).

Another key finding of this experiment suggests the increase of team conversation regarding not-work-related topics during the ice-breaking workshop condition. The assumption is supported by the statistically significance of the quantity of not-work-related utterances among the three workshop settings (p=.001). The game activity prompted the team members to share more information not concerning the design process. This implication, conveying the positive impact of the application of an icebreaker, concords with the finding of another study regarding the interaction and information sharing of a group (Almeth-hib, 2009). However field of research was not concerning the issue of design teamwork. Therefore the positive effect on the interaction and communication aspects of a design group needs a correlation to the design ideation process. The qualitative analysis has shown how the pattern and content of the not-work-related conversation affect the design process.

The ice-breaking condition resulted to be the more effective and productive in terms of structuring this type of conversation. The game activity led to an initial not-work-relevant discussion

due to the nature of the game itself and to an ending process dialogue based on sharing personal information. The ice-breaking condition promoted social interaction among the participants without interfering during the ideation process. In this way external distraction and loss of attention on the design task, negative factors for the achievement of the teams’ production of creative solutions (Paulus, 2000), are reduced. A similar effect is commonly expected by the introduction workshop condition.

On the contrary, this workshop condition produced the smallest amount of not-work-related discourse.

This outcome argues the common mind-set of identifying the personal introduction activity as a ‘conventional icebreaker’ that occurs as a ritual in every day-life when meeting a stranger (Christian and Tubesing, 2004). This result of the current study, also, argues the positive impact that might have on the design team process. Reducing the external distractions, the sharing of knowledge can be in-creased enhancing the effectiveness of creative solutions (Paulus, 2000). Despite the evidence of few external distractions during the ideation process, the 71

5 discussion and conclusion

introduction condition did not produce an effective collaborative process due to the fragmentation of the sequence of cognitive activities as mentioned before.

5.1.2 Dynamics of the design process: More Effective and Collaborative Teamwork Design Strategies Regarding instead the dynamics of the design process the ice-breaking working condition led to a structured pattern of design cognitive activities.

As remarked by the study of Stempfle and Badke-Schaub about design teams communication the problem of structuring the design process is an important issue to be considered while dealing with design problems (2002).

The design process can be described collectively as a proportional sequence of content-oriented and processoriented operations. The group activities related to content and process iterate regularly during the ideation process.

The design process was structured in an organized way alternating teamwork process discussion (i.e. process) and task operation discussion (i.e. content).

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Hence it can be argued that the icebreaking condition induced to a more collaborative and effective teamwork.

Participants, in fact, proceeded for each step of the process firstly deciding how to structure the teamwork for the next task and secondly discussing the content of the task itself. The task independence, indicating how closely team members work together, is a factor of success and effectiveness of a group (Shea and Guzzo, 1987).

The effect of the game activity on the team dynamic of the ideation process was remarked by the statistically significant difference of the processrelated activities between the icebreaking and introduction condition (p=.035). The workshop involving the ‘introduction’ phase unexpectedly induced the development of contentoriented teamwork. At first look might appear that the focus on task-work operations can lead to more effective design teamwork. However the teams’ process was lacking of information sharing the collaborative issues of the groups conveying to an inconstant interweaving of the teamwork’s cognitive activities. In addition the

structured pattern of the ideation process is enhanced in the ice-breaking condition by the regular sequence of content-related activities between the goal-clarification and solutiongeneration types. The teams’ processes were clearly divided proportionally by steps oriented on the goal space and steps oriented on the solution space.

Almost ½ of the content discussion was dedicated to clarify the goal of the design task and the other half to generate ideas for the case of both the control and the ice-breaking conditions.

This may imply that the participants for the control condition and icebreaker condition concerned achieving the goal by clarifying it and agreeing it with each other comparing to the case of the introduction condition. Even though the control group gained the same ratio, the icebreaker presented a better consistency in the regularity of the steps sequence. It also should be added that the introduction condition acquired a much higher percent-age of solution space discussion, but also a high inconsistency of the segments iterations.

This finding can argue the supremacy of the game activity-workshop as a promoter of a structured collaboration

5 Discussion and conclusion

of the design team.

5.1.3 Teamwork’s productivity of creative ideas: Creative Design Thinking of Teamwork The brainstorming process of the ice-breaking workshop condition enhanced more the creative thinking of the teamwork rather then the other workshop settings. This conclusion can be argued referring to previous studies in the psychology field that asserts the low creativity and productivity generated by the brainstorming technique (Mullen, Johnson and Salas, 1991; Somonton, 1988). However the creativity level of the team performance was mainly evaluated by comparing the quantity and quality of ideas produced.

This choice is sup-ported by the work of Parnes and Meadow that validated the supremacy of the creative productivity of group brainstorming over those who did not use the same technique of idea generation (1959). The creativity effectiveness of the ice-breaking workshop condition resulted from the predominance of the factors of fluency,

flexibility, originality and elaboration.

These criteria find their ground on the work of psychologist Guilford (Guilford, 1950). The creative design is related to the product-creativity. Evaluation of a design proposal is an arguable issue. Studies have demonstrated that the reliability of creativity’s evidence in design proposals can be assessed at least by peer groups (Amabile, 1982; Christiaans, 1992b). However the creativity level of the teamwork judged only on the based of products’ characteristics can not be considered as a universal value; therefore the creative valuation of the design solutions is a support to the creative thinking factors that emerged from the analysis of the teams’ design process.

The studies support the creativity supremacy of the ideas produced by the teams who where exposed to the game activity in terms of the number of ideas proposed, the different approaches explored for the idea generation, the idea uniqueness and the level of details development. Specifically the quantity of design solutions was higher then the other team’ numbers of the outcomes.

This value cannot be generalized as

absolute since there is no evidence that the same teamwork condition would generate more creative ideas than the work of individuals. Literature reviews, in fact, demonstrated that individual brainstorming produced more creative ideas. Moreover the design proposals varied to different design concepts, regarding diverse contexts, from innovative detailed design products.

It should be noticed that none of the two teams that have been exposed to the ice-breaking activity reached the same score in terms of creative factors.

They both accomplished the fluency and the originality but alternatively the flexibility and the elaboration. Arguable can be the implication of their creative potential. However comparing with the other teams, they both gained 3 aspects over four per each contrary to the 2 factors reached as higher score by the other ideas proposals.

The creative design thinking of tested teams that did not experiment the ice-breaking activity revealed the occurrences of negative factors that decreased their productivity and creativity. Among the factors of creativity failure outlined by Paulus (2000) 73

5 discussion and conclusion

concerning the cognitive interferences, the task-irrelevant behaviors and production blocking were observed in the design processes of the control condition and the introduction one.

The task-irrelevant behaviors found is evidence in the heavy frequency of not-related-design comments depicted during the design process of the control group; instead the production blocking is revealed where the solutions proposed are developed with the same approach and result to be very similar in term of types and characteristics.

The high productivity and creativity of the ice-breaking workshop condition is supported by the results of participants’ personal evaluation. In fact team members who performed the game activity perceived both the overall of the team performance and the satisfaction of the outcomes proposed more positively then the other teams’ members. The statistically significant difference of both aspects among the three workshop conditions remarked the effectiveness of the ice-breaking application over the idea generation process (p = .048 and p = .010). However the production illusion could have played a role in the 74

evaluation of the workshop. Individuals tend to perceive their performance more effective when they are working in teams (Paulus, et al., 1996). Therefore they might have overweighed also the overall performance and productivity of their team. In fact the rank score of both the ice-breaking condition and the introduction one were equal regarding the satisfaction of the design solutions proposed by their teams. The illusion of productivity might have been aroused from the participants who introduced themselves at the beginning of the workshop. The everyday-life icebreaker might have enhanced this factor. In fact comparing with the experiments findings the introduction workshop condition did not results to be either the most productive or the most creative.

The participants’ satisfaction of the brainstorming process and outcomes is an important variable to be considered as additional to the effective productivity and it should be the focus of feature research in the brainstorming technique area (Paulus, Larey and Ortega, 1996).

5.2 conclusion The aim of this research was to investigate the possible impacts of a game-type of icebreaker on the design ideation process of a newly formed design team. The focus was addressed to the exploration of the icebreaker effect on the dynamics of the teamwork, the working atmosphere and the design outcomes. Importance was given to the level of effectiveness, productivity and creativity of both the design process and the related design proposals. On the base of these variables the analysis was converged towards the collection and discussion of data concerning group interactions, cognitive activities of the design process and typology of idea proposals with focus on the level of creativity. The positive impact of the game activity on the design process of the teamwork stood out from the findings. The icebreaker performance enhanced the verbal communication, reduced the tensions among team members and induced to an organized structure of the cognitive activities of the design process. Evidences of effective teamwork atmosphere and

5 Discussion and conclusion

CO N C LU S I O N

DISCUSSION

performance were identified leading to the evaluation of the creative thinking of the design teamwork. The analysis of the design solutions demonstrated the supremacy of the production of creative ideations while the game icebreaking was involved in the design process. The found positive effects can be summarized based on the area in which they operate. In fact the game activity contributed to the generation of 1) a collaborative atmosphere, 2)

Starting Point

effective and collaborative teamwork’s design strategies and 3) to empowering the creative thinking of the teamwork.

The results given in this study have implications not only in the design methodology sphere but also in the education and practice in design.

The idea generation process in design methodology is a fundamental design activity due to implication with the creative issue. The brainstorming

NEW DESIGN TECHNIQUES OF METHODOLOGIES

involving SOCIAL ACTIVITIES

technique, as idea generation strategy, was the empirical environment where this research achieved the presented results. The findings sup-ported and argued both positive and negative aspects of the brainstorming in design groups. The implementation of a social behavioral activity, such as the icebreaker, to the design process is a tentative of approaching the design methodology from a different point of view. Traditionally studies in design

for MAXIMAZING

DESIGN TEAMS’ PRODUCTIVITY & CREATIVITY

6

Figure 5-2 The structure of the conclusion and its key points.

75

5 discussion and conclusion

CO N C LU S I O N

methodology have investigated the design process and design thinking not only from a viewpoint of a scientific perspective.

There is the necessity to create design methods and techniques that start from the viewpoint of practitioners taking into account the circumstances and situations that they deal with in the every day life. Teamwork is the commonplace of design practitioners and also third parties involved in industry works.

This research tried to found relevant

implication between a commonly used team-up technique and the complexity of the team design process. The tentative was aiming to benefit the team process and its outcomes from a social activity not related to the design task. The finding can be the starting point of developing new technique of team process involving social activities that could lead to the maximization of design team productivity and creativity.

TYPE OF ICEBREAKER SIZE OF THE SAMPLE LIMITATION and FURTHER STUDY

PARTICIPANTS (students) EXCLUSION OF PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS

6

Figure 5-2 The summary of the limitations of the study.

76

5.3 limitations and further studies The presented studies brought relevant observations regarding the application of an ice-breaking activity to a design ideation process of a team. However the resulted findings should not be considered as absolute variable to be generalized. The study, in fact, is restricted by limitations. Firstly the exploratory analysis was conducted by selecting a game style of icebreaker among a huge variety that differ in type, aim and factors involved in their performances. It is believed that using another kind of icebreaker, for example an exercise or a simulation (Jones, 1995), the outcomes of the analysis would be very diverse. Perhaps new variables could be discovered affecting the design process of a newly formed teamwork. The size of the tested sample was relatively small but still acceptable considering social science the area of investigation. Moreover the participants recruited were selected all among; therefore their behaviors reflected only their academic experiences that are way far from the real working

5 Discussion and conclusion

environment. Lastly, but not of less relevance, the exclusion of factors related to the personal sphere, such as individual personality, culture and language, as variables influencing the effect of the icebreaker represent an additional limitation of the research.

Further studies are suggested to investigate, as mentioned before, the differences of the application of different types of ice-breaking activities.

Moreover it could be discussed the possibility of designing ad hoc icebreaking directly correlated with the specific design task involved. In addition to a future larger research, recruiting professionals, the dynamic of a diverse composition of team could be explored.

The multidisciplinary teamwork could be formed by members who master not only in design or engineering but considering also management, psychology, philosophy and so on.

Also the possibility of considering cooperative groups involving designers and end users might bring new insights to enrich the design field’s benefits.

77

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Appendix

appendix 3.1

Generative session (control condition): IKEA Company is currently researching inspiring directions and concepts for developing new products/service to be lunched in the market.

You and the other people around this table have been selected to form an external teamwork to support and suggest the IKEA Creative Design Centre.

This is your first session where you meet your team members and it is asked to perform a short generative session to present some quick and rough suggestions of possible concepts.

The Company is currently working on a specific brief that will be your guideline for the generation of ideas.

At the end of the session a short discussion will be carry out to present the concepts to the IKEA responsible (Palma Fontana) and to shortly evaluate the team performance.

Schedule: This session will last around 1 hour and will be run following this schedule: 18.00 Introduction Brief explanation

18.15 Starting session Brainstorming Concepts ideation 18.45 Closing session Survey Short discussion 19.00 End Brief: The guideline for the concept ideation is represented by the expression

Fresh chaos

The combination of these two words will be your starting point for this session and all the ideas that you will generate should be inspired by it.

83

Appendix

Brainstorming & Concept ideation: No specific techniques are requested to be performed by the teamwork. The ideas should be rough and quick and expressed on an initial level. Try to create as much as idea as possible. Do not worry about details, tangibility and quality. The ideas are meant to be only a source of inspiration.

Survey & Short Discussion In this section the teamwork outcomes will be briefly presented to the IKEA responsible.

Afterwards you will be asked to fill up a quick survey about the teamwork experience and a short open discussion will follow concerning the evaluation of the group performance.

Generative session (Ice-breaking condition): IKEA Company is currently researching inspiring directions and concepts for developing new products/service to be lunched in the market.

You and the other people around this table have been selected to form an external teamwork to support and suggest the IKEA Creative Design Centre.

This is your first session where you meet your team members and it is asked to perform a short generative session to present some quick and rough suggestions of possible concepts.

The Company is currently working on a specific brief that will be your guideline for the generation of ideas.

At the end of the session a short discussion will be carry out to present the concepts to the IKEA responsible (Palma Fontana) and to shortly evaluate the team performance.

Schedule: This session will last around 1 hour and will be run following this schedule: 10.30 Introduction Brief explanation

10.45 Starting session 84

Appendix

Icebreaker-game Brainstorming Concepts ideation 11.15 Closing session Survey Short discussion 11.30 End Brief: The guideline for the concept ideation is represented by the expression

Fresh chaos

The combination of these two words will be your starting point for this session and all the ideas that you will generate should be inspired by it.

Icebreaker-game: Before starting the actual teamwork you are asked to perform a quick game.

A small version of TABOO is suggested. On the table there are 4 cards. Each of you should pick one and not show to the other members. On top of each card there is a key word followed by a list of related words. The key word must be explained to the other members without using gestures or drawings. The related words cannot be pronounced otherwise you will fail. One by one the team members should try to make the others guess his/her key word. The time for each turn is 2 minutes. Enjoy!

Brainstorming & Concept ideation: No specific techniques are requested to be performed by the teamwork. The ideas should be rough and quick and expressed on an initial level. Try to create as much as idea as possible. Do not worry about details, tangibility and quality. The ideas are meant to be only a source of inspiration.

Survey & Short Discussion In this section the teamwork outcomes will be briefly presented to the IKEA responsible.

Afterwards you will be asked to fill up a quick survey about the teamwork experience 85

Appendix

and a short open discussion will follow concerning the evaluation of the group performance.

Generative session (introduction condition): IKEA Company is currently researching inspiring directions and concepts for developing new products/service to be lunched in the market.

You and the other people around this table have been selected to form an external teamwork to support and suggest the IKEA Creative Design Centre.

This is your first session where you meet your team members and it is asked to perform a short generative session to present some quick and rough suggestions of possible concepts.

The Company is currently working on a specific brief that will be your guideline for the generation of ideas.

At the end of the session a short discussion will be carry out to present the concepts to the IKEA responsible (Palma Fontana) and to shortly evaluate the team performance.

Schedule: This session will last around 1 hour and will be run following this schedule: 10.30 Introduction Brief explanation

10.45 Starting session Personal introduction Brainstorming Concepts ideation 11.15 Closing session Survey Short discussion 11.30 End 86

Appendix

Brief: The guideline for the concept ideation is represented by the expression

Fresh chaos

The combination of these two words will be your starting point for this session and all the ideas that you will generate should be inspired by it.

Personal introduction: All the member of the session should shortly introduce them self one by one.

Brainstorming & Concept ideation: No specific techniques are requested to be performed by the teamwork. The ideas should be rough and quick and expressed on an initial level. Try to create as much as idea as possible. Do not worry about details, tangibility and quality. The ideas are meant to be only a source of inspiration.

Survey & Short Discussion In this section the teamwork outcomes will be briefly presented to the IKEA responsible.

Afterwards you will be asked to fill up a quick survey about the teamwork experience and a short open discussion will follow concerning the evaluation of the group performance.

87

Appendix

Appendix 3.2

suRvey Gender: f/m Age: _____

major: ____________________ year of study: ____ Bs/ms

Did you find easy and natural work with people who you did not know before? disagree

agree

did you quickly feel relaxed and eager to work with the other members? disagree

agree

did you easily feel comfortable to start the brainstorming section? disagree

agree

did you easily feel comfortable to carry on and create ideas? disagree

agree

did you feel free to express your own opinions and thoughts? disagree

88

agree

Appendix

Are you satisfied with the overall performance of the teamwork? disagree

agree

Are you satisfied with the reached outcomes? disagree

agree

would you like to do another teamwork with the same kind of set up? disagree

agree

Comments and suggestions:

89

Acknowledgment

I am heartily thankful to my supervisor, professor Youn-Kyung Lim, whose encouragement, guidance and support from the initial to the final level enabled me to develop the presented work.

I am also grateful for the valuable comments and advice of professor Tek-Jin Nam and professor Ki-Young Nam. A special thanks is added to professor HyeonJeong Suk, from whom I kindly received comments about the statistical strategies applied in the work.

I sincerely thank my chair of supervisor, professor Walter Aprile, and mentor, professor Pieter Jan Sappers, whose comments and advices allowed me to refine the level of my work.

Lastly, I offer my regards and blessings to all of those who supported me in any respect during the completion of the project, especially to my lab colleagues and the Korean Institute of Science and Technology’s students who participated to this experiment.

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Delft University of Technology Industrial Design Engeneering 2011-2012