Investigation of team dynamics and group performance in the product engineering process

Abstract

The cultural traits of a project engineering team can strongly influence the performance of its members and the quality of the product. The 2.009 Product Engineering Processes class provides an opportunity for investigating the relationships between group dynamics and performance as the student groups work with customers and advisors on brainstorming, designing, testing and construction a fully-functional mechanical prototype over the course of a semester. Performance was measured as a function of time using information from the class ranking system while each team's cultural traits were measured using two surveys that all students were required to complete. Results of this study revealed that the most influential traits on group performance were task understanding, organization and creativity. Analysis of the survey data showed that feedback and professional communication increased while flexibility decreased as the student groups matured from their initial formative stages into fully defined teams. A comparison of teams with sections that reported polar opposite team dynamics revealed that sections with negative group dynamics performed worse than their positive counterparts, though this trend did not hold in the context of the entire class.

(cont.) Investigation of the dynamic profiles of these teams revealed that organization, task understanding, creativity and efficient use of resources had the greatest influence on performance. The results of a direct comparison of high and low performing teams for each assignment confirmed this trend.