Strategy Jams: using design thinking to charter teams with compelling purpose and sound structure

Area of Science:

• Team science
• Collaborative research
• Interdisciplinary research

Background:

• Facilitating effective team chartering workshops presents challenges in balancing structure, content, and autonomy.
• Traditional methods may not adequately address the complexities of hybrid research teams.
• The need for structured yet flexible approaches in team science facilitation is critical.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of design thinking principles in a team chartering workshop for hybrid research teams.
• To explore how design thinking activities influence chartering outcomes such as purpose, structure, commitment, learning, and cohesion.
• To identify the specific facilitation functions addressed by a design thinking approach.

Main Methods:

• A pilot study was conducted using a design thinking-based workshop (Strategy Jam) with five hybrid research/research support teams.
• A mixed-methods, explanatory, longitudinal study design was employed to track chartering outcomes.
• Data collection included the Team Diagnostic Survey and semi-structured interviews with team leaders.

Main Results:

• Immediately post-workshop, teams showed an average 13% increase in compelling purpose scores.
• Three out of four teams experienced an average 8% increase in sound structure scores; one team saw an 11% decrease.
• Qualitative analysis indicated design thinking, contextual, and generic workshop factors influenced outcomes.

Conclusions:

• Design thinking offers an effective and efficient framework for participatory team chartering workshops in team science.
• The approach positively impacted team purpose, structure, commitment, learning, and cohesion.
• Design thinking successfully fulfilled multiple science facilitation functions, including process structuring and addressing ambiguous challenges.