Page 145 - The Design Thinking Playbook

2.2 What are the benefits of interdisciplinary teams?

Peter collaborates with different teams in his projects. To be success-
ful, he emphasizes two dimensions: The team members must have
in-depth technical knowledge as well as a broad general knowledge.
For Lilly’s students, it is a wonderful feeling when they have finally ad-
vanced a step with their own question and gotten out of a deadlock.
It often occurs because the participants have asked others for advice.
Regarding the same problem from a different perspective often helps
find a way out of a dead end.
With many problem statements, there are limits to how much your
own skills can contribute to the solution of the problem. The reason
for this is usually a lack of knowhow and experience in a specific
subject area. No later than this point, the design team must consult
an expert to get ahead. Frequently, it so happens that the expert Holistic way of thinking
begins his or her own work way before the actual topic is discussed
and poses critical questions instead of simply tying in to their area of
expertise. As a consequence, the things that were developed so far
assume a new quality because they are suddenly considered using a
holistic approach and not from a limited perspective.
The principle of iteration is, as you will know by now, a crucial ele-
ment in design thinking. Take one step back, do another lap; it helps
you get closer to an ever better product, which corresponds to and
meets customers’ needs. However, the most important thing is that
we learn and iterate at a fast pace. This, in turn, only works when the
questions are asked—and challenged—as early as possible and the
things developed so far are looked at from a different perspective.
The most promising way to achieve this is the exchange with poten-
tial users and on the team, which consists of different experts with
in-depth and broadly based knowledge.

The principle of iteration

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