Designing in teams : does personality matter?

Twenty-six multidisciplinary student design teams (n = 128) each built a robot that had to perform a specific task in a design contest. For these teams, an input—process—output framework of team member personality (input), generic and specific design behaviors (process), and contest result and supervisor and team member ratings of the design (output) was researched using correlations. Agreeableness and conscientiousness were positively related to generic design behaviors in both the concept and elaboration phase of the design process. Generic design behaviors were positively related to contest result and team member ratings of the design's technical realization. The conclusions hold implications for design research (multiple process and outcome measures are needed) and practice (attention for personality differences in teams and particular design behaviors in specific design phases foster design outcomes).