PI: Dr. Claudia Nicolai, Professor Ulrich Weinberg

Abstract

In the past research years we have gained a deep understanding of how to analyze creative team interaction. Two diagnostic instruments, the Knowledge Handling Notation and the Topic Markup Scheme, have been developed and applied to study design teams at work. We have interlinked these measurements with existing instruments (eg. Interaction Dynamics Notation, Linguistic Inquiry & Word Count - LIWC) to produce a multi-dimensional mapping of creative team performance. In the upcoming research year we want to use this expertise to evaluate design methods that are supposed to enable team-based innovation processes. To this aim we will look at the most common methods of the specific design thinking phases and their interplay with team dynamics and conversational structure. We want to evaluate those methods in terms of effect, timing and adequacy in relation to the phase objectives as well as on the cognitive-behavioral reaction of the team. We want to achieve this by making use of the extensive data already collected by us and our collaborators. In addition we want to collect new, method-specific data in diverse contexts to enable comparability and universal statements.