I had my first multi-disciplinary meeting today. Although I’ve been with the company that I work for for about seven months. With all of the advertising that they do, and promotion to potential and existing clients about multi-disciplinary teams, I hadn’t seen much evidence of this so far. After todays meeting I am not too sure what to make of the teams. There is definitely still boundaries between structures and building services within this engineering company.
It was a great chance for me though, as a designer but not an engineer. I effectively got taught the basics of structural and building services design while listening to each side of the conversation as if it was directed to the other end of the discipline. So i got a basic level of information communicated at a sufficient level of intellectual understanding.
For once people were speaking while I was present in a way in which they would not normally. They seem to presume that because I am not an engineer that I won’t understand some of the “complex� systems they have in their buildings. Actually when they do explain it in a relatively simple way, I kind of wish they would elaborate and not talk to me as though I am an eight year old.
But more to the point. This meeting was a great way for me to understand building design in terms of multi-disciplinary designing. I prepare presentation illustrations, 3D Models and presentation posters for both structural and building services engineers. I kind of feel like a mediator between the two sides sometimes, taking their work and putting it together in a similar style with similar brand formatting trying to make some sense to it and hopefully present it to a client as one combined force. There will always be a little divide between what I do for each side, but it’s getting closer.
I think also, that there is still a little tension between the two sides. As Tom Kelley describes in his book on “The Art of Innovation”, brainstorming should be an open informal event, and so should this meeting (quite early on in the design process), in theory!! The worst part of the brainstorming can be the person who plays “devils advocateâ€?. This was clearly visible in this little meeting, and although I don’t think it was meant to be there, it’s clear what happens when the devils advocate appears. They don’t always know best, try and take a hold of the situation and guide the meeting as though the look like they know all of the answers.
I think this is the first time that I have experienced the devil’s advocate in an open meeting session. The multi-disciplinary angle was great and worked well although the tension can lead to control and then lead to one person swaying the meeting. I don’t think that’s what it should be about at all.
