Collaborative Design and Engineering

In this course, students learn how to collaborate in large multidisciplinary teams on an ill-defined engineering assignment. Each group has to deal with an overload of information that needs to be structured in the design process, in order to identify the underlying engineering problem and present a solution to a client in an effective and efficient way. During the course, students are taught how to identify bad team performance and its effect on the design process, and how to intervene. Students are introduced to the field of Group Dynamics in a series of three workshops (Partnering Charter; Belbin-test; giving and receiving feedback) in the first half of the course. The outcomes of the workshops help students to organize the creation of joint deliverables: Partnering Charter, Project Management Plan, Phase I-report (analysis) and Phase II-report (design-solutions). Overall, students are exposed to an experience of intensive groupwork. Grading is based both on group and individual performance.