Barriers to hinder collaboration within product development teams from designers' perspective and the development of a method to facilitate the collaboration

Abstract

To be successful in the market, industries have kept trying to increase users’ satisfaction with their new products. Under this circumstance, firms have realized the importance of collaborative environment in which different team members closely work together, to meet rising expectations of the users. Although multi-disciplinary teams have been developed with such great optimism, inevitable conflicts are frequently occurred between different team members. However, it has been hardly studied how well the collaboration within a product development team is being done. Therefore, this study aims to reveal barriers to hinder collaborative environment. To figure out the causes of conflicts within the teams, we interviewed design practitioners in multi-disciplinary product development teams. Through the interview five common causes of conflicts and newly emerging conflicts were identified. The findings led to the development of a collaborative toolkit to facilitate the collaboration within a multi-disciplinary team. The usability of the toolkit was evaluated through an expert interview and a focus group interview. The implications and a further study are discussed as well.