Conflict in design teams : about how two types of conflict influence the design process

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Master thesis

Conflict in Design Teams

About how two types of conflict influence the design process

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Statement of Originality

This document is written by student Iris Jansen who declares to take full responsibility for the contents of this document.

I declare that the text and the work presented in this document is original and that no sources other than those mentioned in the text and its references have been used in creating it.

The Faculty of Economics and Business is responsible solely for the supervision of completion of the work, not for the contents.

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II

Abstract

In this research the influence two types of conflict are investigated. Cognitive, task related, and affective conflict, related to personal relationships, both have their own influence on innovation processes. This study in particular looks at an innovation process that is based on a methodology called design thinking, in which the human centred way of thinking and doing that designers employ is applied to the broader design process. There was not enough data to clearly state the influence of affective conflict on the design process. Cognitive conflict was found to have either a positive or a negative influence, based on the time it took to be solved. When the conflict was not solved in time, the cognitive conflict started to show affective characteristics and influenced the design process negatively. The opposite was true when cognitive conflict was solved in time. The influence on the design process has been found to go via three variables: motivation, creativity and collaboration, which were increased when cognitive conflict was solved in time, and decreased when it was not.

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Introduction

Conflict is an everyday concept. You will find it in many places, including, or maybe especially, in the workplace; in places where people have to work together, it is likely to find conflict. Every person is likely to have conflict at some point in their career, whether it is small and easy-to-forget, or severe to the point where it has escalated and maybe even lead to an end of a career. People have different opinions and might disagree on matters concerning the working process, or they have problems with another person. This is where most conflicts start. Conflict influences a team process, it can be very destructive and can drive a wedge between team members. Conflicts are usually associated with negativity, but it has both positive and negative influences, due to there being different types of conflict (He, Ding, & Yang, 2014; Pondy, 1967): cognitive and affective conflict. The first is a task-related conflict, while the other is a personal conflict. Conflict arises when people work together and it influences people’s performance (Amason, 1996; Jehn, 1997).

A field in which there is a lot of teamwork is ‘design thinking’. Design thinking is a way of thinking about the innovation process and has a set of tools to find solutions to problems. ‘Design thinkers’ use the way designers think, and apply it to the broader process of innovation. Designers, and thus design thinkers, are end-user-centred and use iterative processes, to learn while doing. Design thinkers do not start by analysing a market or predicting a future, but they start by looking for real

problems with real people. The design process is not a linear one, where one would move from stage to stage, only starting one stage when the previous stage has finished. Quite the opposite, the design process is a messy one, where the designers can work in multiple stages at once and go back and forth between stages until the best solution is found (Brown, 2008; Efeoglu, Moller, Série, & Boer, 2013; Razzouk & Shute, 2012).

These design thinkers don’t work alone most of the time. When working alone, one cannot see different sides of a problem and may focus too much on one solution, which may not be the best. Therefore, design thinkers work in teams. These teams should be multidisciplinary to get the best solutions to the real problem they have found, because when team members have different disciplines, they can complement as well as challenge each other with their different perspectives and knowledge (Razzouk & Shute, 2012; Seidel & Fixson, 2013). Heterogeneous, or multidisciplinary teams, like design teams, attract more conflict, because of the difference in disciplines. Because the people are diverse, their opinions are diverse as well, which can cause friction at some point (Amason, 1996; He et al., 2014).

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2 So design teams need diversity to be successful, but diversity attracts conflict, which can be both negative and positive for the outcome of the innovation process. There is a balance between this positive and negative conflict, or cognitive and affective conflict, which teams and managers try to find. However, everything is not yet clear about these two types of conflict and how they influence the design process.

Objective

This research has the aim to explore the role of conflict in a team, that team being a design team that uses design thinking to come up with solutions to problems. It is an objective to get more insight in if and how the team members and the design process is influenced by conflict, where previous

research has focused more on the outcome of team processes, and has never focused specifically on design thinking. A secondary goal of this research is to provide in practical insights and advice regarding conflict in design teams. Practical insights and advice could be about whether conflict should be stimulated or prevented in certain stages of the process, or how employee happiness is affected by conflict.

Relevance

There have been numerous researches that focus on conflict and team performance. What comes before team performance, the process of working in a team, has gotten less attention (Amason, 1996; Jehn, 1997; Pondy, 1967). It is relevant to address this matter, to get a more complete understanding of conflict in teams. There has not been any research on team conflict yet that has focused on teams that use design thinking. The focus on design teams is relevant because a design process usually involves a diverse range of people, and therefore, there is a bigger chance that there will be conflict. Also for design teams it is important to come up with a lot of diverse solutions. Cognitive conflict could thus be a very useful ‘tool’ to generate a lot of ideas. On the other hand, in later stages it is necessary to have consensus to implement one solution, so there conflict might not be a convenience (Clune & Lockrey, 2014; Jehn, 1997; Seidel & Fixson, 2013). So this research is relevant because it takes a look inside the ‘black box’ of a design team process and conflict. Feasibility

This research is feasible to conduct, because there is a limited amount of cases to be investigated. The data collection will be time consuming, as each respondent will do a one hour interview, but there will be only two or three cases, so there is a balance. There is contact with one organization already, therefore it will be easy to start on time with gathering the data. Analysing the data, will be quite hard, because there is partly an open stance towards the data, so it may take some time to find

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3 constructs in the data. Still it is feasible to do in the time constraints, because some direction is already given to it on the basis of the literature.

Literature review

In the review of the core literature, the basis for this research will be explained. Research that has been done on conflict and team performance and innovation are described below. Here, the grand theory of Amason (1996) on conflict will be used, alongside other research that has been conducted in this field. Furthermore, the process of design thinking is explained and some insights on conflict and design thinking will be shown.

Organizational conflict

Where there are people working together, there are conflicts. Conflict, as a social phenomenon is the event in which there are one or more antecedent conditions, which are the underlying sources of conflict: affective states of the individuals who are involved, awareness of the conflict, and conflictual behaviour. Conflictual behaviour can be aggression or fighting, but can also be passive aggressive behaviour, such as discussing. Conflicts can arise between two people, but can also exist in a whole group of people. In teams in organisations, conflicts can happen as well, and are common (Pondy, 1967). De Dreu and Weingart (2003) define team conflict as ‘the process resulting from the tension between team members because of real or perceived differences.’ (p.741).

Conflict is a broad term and will produce ambiguous results when investigated as one phenomenon. Research has found that there are different types of conflict that have their own effects on people and teams. There are many different types of conflict, but when talking about organisational

conflict, research generally speaks of two types: cognitive and affective conflict. Multiple researchers have come to the conclusion that these types are the main types of organisational conflict (Amason, 1996; De Dreu & Weingart, 2003; Jehn, 1997; Shaw et al., 2011). Although researchers use different terms for these conflict types, such as task- and relationship conflict, goal oriented- and emotional conflict, or functional and dysfunctional conflict, these all mean the same thing: cognitive conflict is related to the task and affective conflict is related to personal relationships. These two types of conflict are based on the fact that team members contribute to the team process by inputs that are social and inputs that are focused on the task. The difference between the two types is that cognitive conflict has the ability to affect team performance positively, while affective conflict is negatively associated with team performance (Amason, 1996; De Dreu & Weingart, 2003; Eisenhardt, Kahwajy, & Bourgeois, 1997; Jehn, 1997).

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4 Jehn (1997) also identified a third type of conflict: process conflict. This is a type of conflict that focuses more on the organisation itself and how the working conditions are arranged. Examples mentioned by Jehn (1997) are disagreements about a reorganisation, and conflict about how resources should be divided and how responsibilities are divided. Researchers are divided by

whether process conflict is substantially different from task conflict and whether it is a relevant type of conflict. Shaw (2011) mentions that process conflict will not be investigated separately because there is too much overlap with task conflict, but Seidel and Fixson (2013) state that they think process conflict deserves more attention.

Pondy (1969) defines yet different types of conflict. He distinguishes between bargaining conflicts, which occur when two parties have conflicting thoughts on how resources should be divided, vertical conflicts, which arise when subordinates resist the control their superiors want to have or have over them, and lateral conflicts, which are conflicts between parties that are interdependent, but have conflicting goals. Both bargaining and lateral conflict are intergroup conflict, and are not likely to occur within groups themselves. Additionally, vertical conflict is not likely to occur within a group, but it would be possible, if the superior is taking part in the team. However, when looking at intergroup conflict, which is conflict within a team, most researchers focus only on task and relationship conflict (Amason, 1996; De Dreu & Weingart, 2003; Rahim, 1983; Shaw et al., 2011).

Types of conflict Definition Research

Cognitive Task related conflict (Amason, 1996; De Dreu &

Weingart, 2003; Jehn, 1997)

Affective Conflict related to personal

relationships

(Amason, 1996; De Dreu & Weingart, 2003; Jehn, 1997)

Process Conflict related to

responsibilities and the organization

(Jehn, 1997)

Bargaining Conflict related to competition for resources

(Pondy, 1967) Vertical Conflict related to resistance of

control

(Pondy, 1967)

Lateral Conflict related to differences

in goals

(Pondy, 1967) Table 1: Types of conflict

Cognitive conflict

The first type of conflict, cognitive conflict, which is also called functional conflict, is based on the fact that individuals have different ideas and views about the task that the team is involved with, and how to achieve the objectives the team has set out to reach. Amason (1996) defines cognitive conflict as follows: ‘it is generally task oriented and focused on judgmental differences about how best to achieve common objectives’ (p. 127). Jehn (1997) proposes a similar, yet simpler, definition:

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5 ‘conflict involving the group's task’ (p. 531). This kind of conflict involves very low levels of personal feelings in the discussion. An example of a cognitive conflict is disagreement about the best way to approach a potential customer. This conflict is related to the task, for example, to reach a new customer segment, and does not, to a great extent, involve personal values or feelings of the individuals involved (Amason, 1996; Eisenhardt, Kahwajy, & Bourgeois, 1997). This kind of conflict is inevitable, and there is a higher chance of it occurring in a more diverse team, because different people see the task differently.

There has been debate about whether cognitive conflict has a positive or a negative influence on team performance, which has led researchers to follow two views. The first is the negative relationship view, which holds that cognitive conflict has a negative relationship with team

performance as it causes stress, discomfort and distracts team members from their task. This view is supported by empirical evidence, which showed that team performance was reduced after cognitive conflict (De Dreu & Weingart, 2003; Shaw et al., 2011). Other theorists claimed that there might be evidence for a situation in which cognitive conflict could have a positive influence on the team performance. They believed that when there was a low level of cognitive conflict, people were put in the position where they had to compare different perspectives and be creative (Amason, 1996; De Dreu & Weingart, 2003; Levine, Resnick, & Higgins, 1993). This helped build towards a theory of the inverted-U-shaped relationship between cognitive conflict and team performance. In this view, low cognitive conflict leads to a lack of active participation, overlooking of opportunities and a lack of creativity. High conflict in contrast leads to tension and distraction of the task. When there is moderate conflict however, the team members compare and integrate different views and ideas, which leads to more creativity and better performance. Carnevale and Probst (1998) have found empirical evidence for this view. In their research, participants became more open to other perspectives and became more creative when faced with low levels of conflict. Also, Shaw et al. (2011) found that teams which faced moderate cognitive conflict performed better than teams that faced low or high levels of cognitive conflict.

Moderators of cognitive conflict

Next to finding evidence for the inverted-U-shaped theory, researchers also have found that it is a complex process, with a lot of possible moderators. One of these moderators is the complexity of the task. When a task is more complex, the positive influence of cognitive conflict will be greater. A complex task is usually hard to accomplish, and there is no one right solution, let alone that that answer is easy to find. Therefore, it needs the extensive consideration of a team. Under the influence of cognitive conflict, team members will challenge each other more, and will compare and defend different perspectives, leading to better decisions. A simple, routine task does not need the extensive

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6 scrutinising of different opinions, because this would only lead to inefficiency. Therefore, cognitive conflict is likely to have a negative influence, because of the increase in debating and discussing different perspectives (Amason, 1996; De Dreu & Weingart, 2003; Jehn, 1997; Shaw et al., 2011). Some other factors that are regarded as moderators by different researches are task type, group type, importance and trust. Because research focuses on many different moderators, there is usually limited empirical evidence for individual moderators. To this day, more and more moderators are being suggested and investigated, proving the complexity of the phenomenon of conflict (De Dreu & Weingart, 2003; He et al., 2014; Jehn, 1997; Shaw et al., 2011).

Focusing on the inverted-U-shaped relationship between cognitive conflict and team performance, it can be said that cognitive conflict can have a positive influence on team performance. By integrating and contesting the different ideas and views, decisions of higher quality are made that are often superior to the individual ideas. Cognitive conflict also benefits the team because it increases commitment and understanding, the evaluation of alternative possibilities and when all the input of the different team members is considered, cognitive conflict can increase positive affection. So cognitive conflict, when moderate, can be functional in a team and can bring benefits to the team and the decisions it makes (Amason, 1996; De Dreu & Weingart, 2003; Jehn, 1997).

Affective conflict

Another type of conflict is affective conflict. Affective conflict is conflict on a different level, it is dysfunctional conflict that involves emotion and personal disagreement or dispute, as defined by Amason (1996). An example would be when team members insult each other or when they fight because they think the other is incapable for the work. These kinds of conflicts are personal, can be very emotional and can hurt people (Amason, 1996; Jehn, 1997). According to Pondy (1967), conflicts can turn from perceived conflict, where one is aware of a disagreement, but is not necessarily

anxious or hurt because of it, to a felt conflict. In this type of conflict, the individuals involved are tense and anxious and their affection towards on another is lowered. This felt conflict is similar to affective conflict as described by Amason (1996) and Jehn (1997). Another perspective that

corresponds to this view is that of attentional resource perspective. When there is affective conflict in a team, team members have to focus some of their attention on this conflict, which causes them to have less attention for the task at hand, which is then negatively influenced by this neglect (Shaw et al., 2011). Affective conflict is thus found to always affect the team negatively. Affective conflict can cause team members to be distracted from the goal, to not communicate or collaborate with each other, or even sabotage each other (Amason, 1996; Jehn, 1997; Pondy, 1967).

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7 Affective conflict is found to be a moderator of cognitive conflict. When there is moderate cognitive conflict, which is beneficial to team performance, its positive effects can be erased by affective conflict, because team members collaborate and communicate less. Affective conflict in this sense overrules cognitive conflict (Shaw et al., 2011). It is also possible that affective conflict evolves from cognitive conflict. When cognitive conflict is taken personally or escalates, people can feel criticised and put down and the conflict will get more emotional and personal. This way, cognitive conflict turns into affective conflict. This kind of conflict can cause people to ignore each other, be less productive and work against each other. This could undermine the team’s performance. So cognitive conflict can cause affective conflict when it is taken the wrong way. By consciously engaging in cognitive conflict, to promote idea generation for example, one risks giving rise to affective conflict, which can be very damaging for a team and its performance (Amason, 1996).

In summary of the two types of conflict that were described, cognitive conflict thus positively effects decision making when moderate and affective conflict negatively affects decision making. Teams that have moderate cognitive conflict come up with better, more integrated decisions and solutions. Therefore, managers have to try to stimulate this kind of conflict, to get the best out of the team (Eisenhardt et al., 1997). However, affective conflict makes people turn against each other and damages team performance. Cognitive conflict can also turn into affective conflict, for example when a comment that is task-related is taken personally. Therefore, there is also a risk in consciously promoting cognitive conflict and managers should find a balance where cognitive conflict is moderate (Amason, 1996; Shaw et al., 2011).

Conflict and innovation

To be innovative can be very important to organisations, it helps them take or stay at the lead of a changing market, or can help them enter new markets. Firms can use teams to come up with innovative products and services. These innovation teams can be homogeneous, for example a separate division in the organisation whose only job it is to innovate and which is comprised of people that are specialised in that field, but it can also be heterogeneous, for example a team that is a combination of different people from different divisions in the organisation. In these teams, whether homogeneous or heterogeneous, it is likely that there will be conflict at some point in time (He et al., 2014).

We have already seen that cognitive and affective conflict can influence the performance of a team. This influence also exists for the innovativeness of a team. Cognitive conflict influences innovation in a positive way. According to He et al. (2014), this occurs in three different ways. First, team

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8 different views and the synthesis of different views that comes forth from team members

challenging each other is of a high quality. Second, in a team with cognitive conflict, there are more people with differing views that can correct each other. This way, errors are avoided more easily. This may slow the process down, but it does generate a higher quality decision. Last, by having people with different views, more alternative solutions to a problem will be generated and evaluated. Also, team members might come up with alternative ideas when they can’t reach an agreement on previous ideas. This will result in choosing the best possible and most innovative solution, instead of choosing the one that the team came up with first (He et al., 2014).

But not all teams benefit from conflict. When a team is heterogeneous, it is also possible that these team members have a differing views about conflict resolution. Because of this, conflicts cannot easily be resolved and potentially do not get resolved at all and drag on. In this way, cognitive conflicts can easily turn into affective conflict, which is destructive for a team’s innovativeness. So there are advantages and disadvantages to conflict, and it is the manager’s task to make sure that conflict is used in the best way possible (Eisenhardt et al., 1997; Jin & Sun, 2010)

Design thinking

There are different methods for innovation. One of them is design thinking. While design is a known concept, design thinking is not and therefore it needs to be defined. Brown (2008), the CEO of leading design thinking firm IDEO defines design thinking as follows: ‘A methodology that imbues the full spectrum of innovation activities with a human-centred design ethos.’ (p. 86). According to Brown (2008), design thinking is a way of thinking, combined with a set of tools that shape the innovation process. The human-centred ethos that is leading the design thinking process, is typical of the way of thinking that designers employ. It is a way of thinking that puts the end-user as a central focus point. Designers understand consumer needs and try to come up with a solution that best fits these needs. Some people see designers as just a small part of the innovation process, they just have to design a nice look for the new product that was produced by others in the company who are responsible for innovation. This is not the case, designers are more involved in the innovation process, especially in the beginning, where they are involved in thinking of solutions to a problem that was identified. In a design thinking process, this is taken further, designers take the lead and are present throughout the whole innovation process, sometimes even in the implementation phase, making sure that the product fits the end-user needs very precisely (Brown, 2008; Liedtka & Ogilvie, 2011; Seidel & Fixson, 2013).

The following definition is similar to Brown’s (2008), but sheds more light on how design thinking is more than only product design:

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9 ‘Design thinking can be described as a discipline that uses the designer’s sensibility and methods to match people’s needs with what is technologically feasible and what a viable business strategy can convert into customer value and market opportunity’ (Thoring & Müller, 2011, p.1).

In this definition, it becomes clear that design thinking is about using a designer’s perspective and applying it to the whole innovation process. The designers’ way of looking at the end-user and their needs is applied to processes that are usually seen as beyond the field of design, such as recognising business opportunities, choosing a strategy and implementing a new product or service in the market (Liedtka & Ogilvie, 2011; Thoring & Müller, 2011).

These definitions show that design thinking differs from more ‘traditional’ innovation processes. In these traditional processes, managers rely on market analysis, needed resources and expected returns (Clune & Lockrey, 2014; Seidel & Fixson, 2013). Design thinkers do not abandon analysis, as they, for example, analyse customer journeys and structure the problem through mind maps and other structuring tools. To this analysis, design thinkers add creativity and intuition. By fully

understanding an end-user and the problems they face or the needs they have, design thinkers can creatively come up with innovative ideas that solve these problems (Brown, 2008; Razzouk & Shute, 2012).

A design thinking process is successful when the design team offers a complete solution of a problem or a way to satisfy a need that was reached by fully understanding the end-user. But how does one get there? Different researchers have found factors for the success of a design thinking process. They are summarised in the table below.

The process

Understanding and involving the end-user (Efeoglu et al., 2013; Thoring & Müller, 2011) Prototyping & testing (Brown, 2008; Efeoglu et al., 2013; Thoring &

Müller, 2011)

Iteration (Efeoglu et al., 2013; Razzouk & Shute, 2012)

Diverging and converging (Brown, 2008; Efeoglu et al., 2013; Seidel & Fixson, 2013)

Other factors

A multidisciplinary team (Brown, 2008; Efeoglu et al., 2013; Seidel & Fixson, 2013; Thoring & Müller, 2011) The work environment and available equipment (Thoring & Müller, 2011)

Culture (Thoring & Müller, 2011)

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10 The importance of understanding the end-user has already been discussed. Prototyping is also very important, as it can reveal flaws in the idea and it gives the design team insight into how the product or service would work. It can also inspire the designers to come up with more, different ideas. In addition to that, iteration is very important to designers. The design thinking process is a messy process, but allows designers to go back to earlier steps when the process reveals or requires new insights, and allows designers to refine their ideas. The design process usually consists of multiple iterations and eventually this leads to the best solution. Diverging and converging are very important to a design process. It means that in every step in the process, the designers start by diverging, this causes them to have many insights, many ideas and it makes sure they don’t miss anything. After that, when the process has a very broad scope, converging is important. By converging, the designers filter out what the most important and relevant insights are and what the best idea or ideas are that they will take to the next step (Brown, 2008; Efeoglu et al., 2013; Razzouk & Shute, 2012; Thoring & Müller, 2011). Other factors that can make a design process successful are multidisciplinary teams, the work environment and culture. Thoring and Müller (2011) state that multidisciplinary teams are necessary for a successful design process because it avoids monocultures in which there are limited insights and ideas because team members don’t challenge each other and don’t produce different perspectives. Other research has confirmed the benefit of multidisciplinary teams for the design process (Brown, 2008; Efeoglu et al., 2013; Seidel & Fixson, 2013). The work environment and available equipment is also important according to Thoring and Müller (2011), as designers need to have rooms in which the team can work together and need tools to visualise ideas and insights. Also there needs to be an open, creative culture to stimulate designers in their creative process (Efeoglu et al., 2013; Thoring & Müller, 2011).

Design thinking can be defined as an innovation process where the perspective of designers is used, which is expressed in a human- or user-centred approach to problem solving. This process can entail the whole innovation process, instead of just one part of it. Design thinking provides a set of tools which can help to understand the problem and create a solution. This design thinking process, or design process can be better understood by explaining the different stages at which the process can be divided.

Design teams

As the definition explains, design thinking is a methodology, and it does not necessarily have to be carried out only by people who were educated as designers and it can also be mastered and used by others. Hence, alongside designers, a design team can also consist of people from other disciplines. In fact, the design process benefits from multidisciplinary teams. Team members of multidisciplinary teams are found to challenge each other, to discuss and integrate different ideas and stimulate each

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11 other’s creativity. These teams come up with higher quality solutions and come up with more

creative ideas. However, multidisciplinarity can also be a cause for difficulties in communication. When team members are too different from each other, they will find it harder to communicate with each other. Therefore, research recommends having t-shaped people in design teams (Efeoglu et al., 2013; Liedtka & Ogilvie, 2011; Seidel & Fixson, 2013; Thoring & Müller, 2011). ‘T-shaped people are experts in one specific field, are very open-minded and have strong communications skills, and also possess some basic knowledge in adjacent fields.’ (Thoring & Müller, 2011, p.6). This makes sure that team members are multidisciplinary, and therefore able to contest and integrate different

perspectives, yet they are still able to communicate with each other. There is a lack of empirical evidence that design teams actually consist of these t-shaped people, but it is true that design teams are usually multidisciplinary (Seidel & Fixson, 2013; Thoring & Müller, 2011).

As explained, being t-shaped is a desirable characteristic for design thinkers. Another characteristic that is beneficial for the design process are flexibility, so that design thinkers are able to step into the shoes of the end user and are able to comprehend and accept different perspectives of team

members. Flexibility also helps when it is necessary to iterate and go back a few steps in the process (Razzouk & Shute, 2012). Additionally, the ability to define problems is very important because after diverging and gaining a broad insight into the end user, the main problem needs to be defined so that the team can focus on this (Brown, 2008; Efeoglu et al., 2013; Razzouk & Shute, 2012; Thoring & Müller, 2011). Empathy is also very important, because central to a design process is the end user, so designers should be able to empathise with them in order to come up with the best solution for the problem this end user faces. Last is collaboration. Because designers work in teams, it is necessary that they are able collaborate with one another successfully, otherwise the project will most likely fail (Brown, 2008; Efeoglu et al., 2013; Seidel & Fixson, 2013).

Success factors of individual design thinker

Flexible (Razzouk & Shute, 2012)

Able to define problem (Brown, 2008; Efeoglu et al., 2013; Razzouk & Shute, 2012; Thoring & Müller, 2011)

Empathetic (Brown, 2008; Efeoglu et al., 2013; Seidel &

Fixson, 2013)

T-shaped person (Efeoglu et al., 2013; Thoring & Müller, 2011) Collaborative (Brown, 2008; Efeoglu et al., 2013; Seidel &

Fixson, 2013) Table 3: Success factors of individual design thinkers

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Stages

The design process is messy and definitely not linear. Research has focused on determining different steps or stages that design thinkers take or go through. Some empirical research has shown that designers in practice usually don’t follow the methodologies that one will find in theory (Günther & Ehrlenspiel, 1999; Stempfle & Badke-Schaub, 2002). Research does agree on the idea that there are different stages to a design process, albeit they do not follow each other in a linear way and

designers often work in different stages at the same time. However, there are different views on what these stages are and what they look like. Generally, theory distinguishes three or four different stages (Efeoglu et al., 2013; Liedtka & Ogilvie, 2011; Thoring & Müller, 2011).

The first stage is agreed upon by different researchers and is characterised by the exploration and identification of problems that end users face. Brown (2008) calls this stage the inspiration stage. Stempfle and Badke-Schaub (2002) call it the exploration stage, but the meaning is similar to Brown (2008). Liedtka and Ogilvie (2011) also employ a similar stage: the ‘what-is’ stage. Efeoglu et al. (2013) mentions the stages used by the Stanford design school, where they have three different stages that together are the same in meaning as the exploration stage. They call it the understand, observe, and point of view stage, where the focus is on understanding the challenge, observation is used to better understand the problem and the end user is investigated. The only difference is that Brown (2008) already incorporates market opportunities in the inspiration stage, but furthermore, these different terms all embody the same sort of stage, one where the designer explores and clarifies the end user and the problem or needs he has. Designers go outside the company and try to connect with end users, to identify the problems they are facing. They interview and observe end users and get an understanding of their problems and needs. There are many different tools that can help understand the end-user and researchers agree that there is not one which is the best.

Designers usually use multiple tools in one project and often come back to the exploration stage later and use more, different tools to add to the understanding of the end user (Brown, 2008; Liedtka & Ogilvie, 2011; Stempfle & Badke-Schaub, 2002).

Once the problems are fully understood, the designers go to the next stage, which is about generating ideas, which is usually done through brainstorming (Brown, 2008). It is important that designers are creative in this stage and come up with many ideas, so that the best idea can be found. Once many ideas have been formed, some ideas are picked and are conceptualised. All research mentions a stage that is about idea generation. Different terms are used, such as ideation, idea generation and the ‘what-if’ stage (Brown, 2008; Efeoglu et al., 2013; Liedtka & Ogilvie, 2011). Then it is time to narrow it down to one best option, this is seen by some researchers as a separate stage, the idea selection stage (Seidel & Fixson, 2013; Stempfle & Badke-Schaub, 2002). Other research

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13 incorporates this stage in either the idea generation stage, as a conclusion of that stage, or the implementation stage, as a starting point (Brown, 2008; Efeoglu et al., 2013). In the idea selection stage, the one best solution is selected by testing some ideas, going back to the first stage to refine the ideas about the problem at hand and brainstorming some more. Designers use rapid prototyping to find out whether the solution works and where it needs changing or fine-tuning (Brown, 2008, Seidel & Fixson, 2002). With prototyping, the designers move to the next stage, the implementation stage. This stage is also called the ‘what-works’ stage. In this stage, the product will be brought to the market. Usually, designers don’t or minimally take part in this stage, as it requires other skills, such as those of marketing, strategy and sales (Brown, 2008; Liedtka & Ogilvie, 2011).

Exploration stage Idea generation stage Idea selection & implementation stage

Journey mapping Brainstorming Assumption testing

Value chain analysis Concept development Rapid Prototyping

Mind mapping Prototyping Customer co-creation

Observation Visualization Learning launch

Participatory research Blueprinting

Story telling Visualization

Visualization

Table 4: Tools of design thinking. Source: Efeoglu et al., 2013; Liedtka & Ogilvie, 2011; Seidel & Fixson, 2013.

These are just some examples of tools of design thinking. There are actually numerous tools that can be used in the design thinking process as is shown in a book that describes 100 of them (Martin & Hanington, 2012). It is important that the tools in the exploration stage are aimed towards understanding the end-user and mapping their needs and behaviour. The tools for the idea

generation phase are focused on sparking creativity and generating many possible solutions for the problem at hand. The tools in the last column are tools that help designers test the chosen solution and eventually launch it.

Conflict in design process

Design teams thus have to be human- or end user centred, and it also is important that these teams are diverse (Razzouk & Shute, 2012). Specifically, multidisciplinarity is something that researchers find important (Seidel & Fixson, 2013). Multidisciplinarity, as described, attracts more conflict, because people with different views are likely to disagree on more matters than people who have a

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14 similar stance in life and work. Therefore, it is not impossible to think that there is more conflict in a design team than in a team that employs other ways of innovating. When this is cognitive conflict, this could be a very convenient tool for design thinkers to come up with more and better ideas (Amason, 1996; He et al., 2014). One of the known moderators of cognitive conflict is task

complexity. When tasks are complex, cognitive conflict can be beneficial for the team‘s performance. In design team, tasks are rarely the same. There are no routine tasks, because design teams’ work is project based, every time solving different complex problems or tasks. Therefore, cognitive conflict can be expected to have a positive influence on the design process (De Dreu & Weingart, 2003; Razzouk & Shute, 2012).

Main conclusions literature review

So what is known is that conflict influences the outcome of teamwork, and whether it is positive or negative is due to the nature of the conflict. Moderate levels of cognitive conflict can have a positive influence, and affective conflict has a negative influence on the outcome of teamwork. However, cognitive conflict can change into affective conflict so this is not risk-free. An assumption can be made that conflict in design teams has the same effect. What is unknown, is in what way conflict influences the process itself. Because design teams in principle have to be diverse, there is more risk of conflict. So it is not only interesting to see whether the outcome of the process is influenced, but also how the process itself is affected by conflict. The table below summarises the main conclusions per paragraph.

Organizational conflict Conflict happens in every organization. There are different types of conflict, but research has focused on two main types of conflict: cognitive and affective conflict.

Cognitive conflict Moderate levels of cognitive conflict can positively influence teamwork, because team members will discuss different views and will integrate their ideas, resulting in better outcomes, which could not have been reached by individuals.

Affective conflict Affective conflict influences team processes negatively, because it causes tension, resulting in team members to collaborate and

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15 communicate less and be distracted from the goal.

Conflict and innovation Cognitive conflict can also influence the innovativeness of a team. A team can become more innovative due to conflict because of the reasons mentioned under the heading cognitive conflict, but also because it causes the team to come up with more alternative ideas, because the discussion of different views can inspire the team members, or because team members start looking for other ideas when they can’t agree on previous ideas.

Design thinking Design thinking is a methodology that uses the

human centred way of thinking of designers and applies it to the broader process of innovation, creating a design process. The process consists of different stages: the exploration stage, the idea generation stage, the idea selection stage and the implementation stage. The first two stages is where design thinking is most used. The design process is messy and iterations make sure the designers keep refining their ideas, leading to the best possible solution. Design and conflict Because designers work in teams, conflicts are

likely to happen and influence the design process. The tasks in design processes are never routine tasks, as they are project based. The tasks are usually also complex, making it possible for cognitive conflict to positively influence the process. Cognitive conflict can thus be a useful tool for design thinkers to get the best results.

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Research question

As described, the literature has not focused on the influence that conflict might have on the process of design thinking. Design teams are usually heterogeneous teams and are therefore likely to have more conflict at some point in the process than homogeneous teams (He et al., 2014; Seidel & Fixson, 2013). Because conflict can have both a positive and negative influence, depending on the type of conflict, it is interesting to look at the influence that these conflicts might have on the design process (Amason, 1996; Jehn, 1997). To understand how this works, the following research question is proposed:

To what extent do affective and cognitive conflict in a design team influence the exploration and idea generation stage of a design process?

The exploration and idea generation stage might be differently influenced by conflict because the process is different in these stages. In the exploration stage the understanding of the problem and the end user are key, whereas in the idea generation stage there is a more creative process, where many different ideas have to be generated and there is a lot of debating and brainstorming (Liedtka & Ogilvie, 2011; Stempfle & Badke-Schaub, 2002). The selection and implementation stage are not included in the research question, as these stages are quite complex and usually ask for a different team than in the earlier stages. Also these stages are often not executed by design agencies, but by the customer, the companies who hired the design agency.

To see how the design team, who carry out the design process, is affected by conflict, it is important to investigate their perspective. Therefore, the following sub question is proposed:

How do team members of a design team experience conflict in the exploration and idea generation stage?

Collaboration is very important in the design process, designers need their peers to have different perspectives on a problem or an idea, and challenge each other to be creative (Razzouk & Shute, 2012).To see whether the way designers collaborate in the design process is changed due to conflict, the next sub question is posed:

Does conflict change the way team members of a design team cooperate with each other in the design process?

The outcome of the design process is of course very important and the design team must present a good solution in the end (Brown, 2008; Liedtka & Ogilvie, 2011). How team members feel the team is performing is influenced by conflict (De Dreu & Weingart, 2003; Hoegl & Parboteeah, 2003). To see

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17 how designers experience the influence of conflict on team performance the following sub question is posed:

To what extent do team members perceive an influence of conflict on the group performance in the exploration and idea generation stage?

These questions are integrated in a conceptual model that will be discussed in the next chapter.

Conceptual model

The main concepts in this research are the two types of conflict, cognitive and affective conflict, and the design process and the performance of the team. These concepts will all be looked at from the experience of the team members. The model that will be used to visualise the relationships between the different concepts is the following:

As described in the literature review, conflict has two main dimensions, cognitive and affective conflict. These were separately assessed, because cognitive conflict can have a positive influence on team performance and affective conflict has a negative influence. If conflict would have been investigated as a whole, ambiguous results might be the outcome of this research (Amason, 1996). Cognitive conflict is described as a task related form of conflict and can lead to better team

performance (He et al., 2014). To see whether conflict is cognitive, different types of behaviour and descriptions are interpreted as signals of cognitive conflict. Disagreement on what the task is, how it should be performed and different solutions to a problem will be a signal for cognitive conflict. This relates directly to the definition of cognitive conflict (Jehn, 1997). Affective conflict is a conflict that is personal and involves emotions. To see whether conflict is affective the following are seen as a Cognitive conflict Design process Affective conflict Exploration Idea generation Perceived performance of team

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18 signal: problems with others’ personalities, disagreement on a person’s capabilities, non-work related disagreements (Jehn, 1997).

The model shows a connection between the two types of conflict and the design process. This shows the influence of the two types of conflict, on the design process, that have been investigated in this research. From the literature review, it is expected that this influence will be negative when it is affective conflict and positive when it is moderate cognitive conflict. To see how these dimensions of conflict influence the design process in the exploration and idea generation, the experiences of the team members will be investigated. What will be taken into account is whether these respondents have experienced the conflict as positively or negatively influencing the process and the team, what they think has changed after conflict, people’s views on one another and, the perceived effectivity of the team and the process. By asking these questions, one or more game-changing conflicts can be investigated more in-depth, providing an insight into the influence these conflicts had on the design process.

Cognitive conflict A conflict that is ‘task oriented and focused on judgmental differences on how best to achieve common objectives’ (Amason, 1996, p. 127) Affective conflict ‘A conflict that is ‘dysfunctional’ and ‘tends to

be focused on personal incompatibilities or disputes’ (Amason, 1996, p. 129)

Design process An ‘iterative, exploratory and sometimes a

chaotic process’ which starts ‘from some abstract specifications and terminates with the description of a product’ and ‘design follows cycles of mutual adjustment between

specifications and solutions until a final solution is reached’ (Razzouk & Shute, 2012, p. 336). The process can be divided in an exploration stage, an idea generation stage, an idea selection stage and an implementation stage (Efeoglu et al., 2013; Liedtka & Ogilvie, 2011).

Exploration stage The stage that is about understanding the end user and exploring the situation or problem at hand (Brown, 2008; Liedtka & Ogilvie, 2011).

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19 Idea generation stage The stage that is about generating many

different solutions to the problem at hand (Brown, 2008; Liedtka & Ogilvie, 2011) Perceived performance of team The extent to which team members are

satisfied about the team and its performance (Shaw et al., 2011).

Table 6: Definitions of concepts

The design process will consist of the exploration stage, where designers investigate the end-users and identify the problems these end-users face, and the idea generation face, where the designers come up with many ideas to solve these problems. First, to identify the two stages, respondents were asked to describe the process they usually follow. To see if conflicts have different influences on the different stages, the respondents were asked in what part of the process there was conflict, about what this conflict was and what changed due to the conflict.

The perceived performance of the team is important because this will show if the team members feel that the end-product was influenced by conflict. Team performance can be defined as the extent to which the team has delivered on quality and has met the objectives of time and cost (Hoegl & Parboteeah, 2003). To measure this, next to objective data, it is necessary to incorporate views of different people. Because this is a qualitative research, quantitative data will not be included and because the focus is on the team members and how they perceive the influence of conflict, this research will not focus on team performance, but on perceived team performance, which is based on the definition of Shaw et al. (2011) of team satisfaction: the extent to which the team members are satisfied about the team and the performance.

Research strategy

The research strategy that is used to conduct this research is qualitative. Qualitative research allows the researcher to get a deeper understanding of the subject. While the relationship between the different kinds of conflict and performance of a team has already been quantitatively assessed many times, there is not as much research that dives deeper in how conflict works in a team process. Jehn (1997) applies a qualitative strategy towards conflict. In her research on the types of conflict that appear in teams, she uses a qualitative approach to be able to find out what these different types of conflict are. Likewise, this research is carried out in a qualitative manner.

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Methods

To be able to collect rich data that helps to get a deep understanding of the subject, qualitative methods are necessary. For this research interviews were chosen as the method of collecting data. Interviews

Interviews can deepen the understanding of how the team members experience conflict and its influence on the design process. By interviewing team members, the individual experience of these team members can be recorded. This will help understand how team members experience the influence of conflict on the design process themselves. The interviews were semi structured, which made sure that the important topics were covered while giving the respondents room to discuss things that are important to them, which helped in understanding how they experience conflict in the team and how they perceive the influence of conflict on the process. This approach also gave interesting results that were not expected.

Eight interviews were conducted, of which six were at one larger design agency and two were at the second, smaller agency. The interviews lasted around an hour and took place at the agencies themselves.

The interview questions are in appendix I and correspond to the concepts in the following way: the questions under the topic ‘Process and team’ were questions to start the interview with. The questions are relatively easy and got the interviewees comfortable with the interview. They also contributed to getting an image of the interviewee and the projects he or she worked on. The questions about the backgrounds of the team members and the composition of the team were to check whether the teams were multidisciplinary, which was expected based on the literature on design teams that was described in the literature review. The questions under the topic ´Types of conflicts’ were to investigate what the conflicts the interviewees had were about, and if they could be categorised as cognitive or affective. As described in the section about the conceptual model, for cognitive conflict the following were seen as signals: disagreement on what the task is, how it should be performed and different solutions for a problem. For affective conflict the signals were: problems with others’ personalities, disagreement on a person’s capabilities, non-work related disagreements, and emotional issues.

Type of conflict (cognitive or affective) Did you have conflicts in the team? What frustrated you the most?

What happened when someone started an argument?

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21 In what part of the process did conflicts

happen?

Were there conflicts that got more personal? Why?

Influence of cognitive conflict on design process Was there or were there conflict(s) that changed the process? Can you tell me more about it?

How did it change the way the team worked? How do you find solutions for conflicts? Did the different backgrounds of the team members cause conflicts? Can you explain that? Has the conflict led to new insights or ideas? Do you believe that these insights or ideas would not have emerged without this conflict? Why (not)?

Influence of affective conflict on design process Was there or were there conflict(s) that changed the process? Can you tell me more about it?

How did it change the way the team worked? How do you find solutions for conflicts? Did the different backgrounds of the team members cause conflicts? Can you explain that? Has the conflict damaged or changed the relationships within the team?

Has the conflict damaged the project? Perceived team performance How do you feel about the outcome of the

project?

How do you feel about the collaboration in the team?

How was the end-product/solution

(positively/negatively) influenced by conflict? Table 7: Operationalisation of concepts to interview questions

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22 The questions under the topic ‘influence of conflicts’ regard the influence of conflict on the design process. First, a general overview of the influence of conflict was investigated, so the interviewees were asked if there was anything that changed due to conflict, and how conflicts were solved. After this, there are two topics ‘Affective’ and ‘Cognitive’, in which the influence of these two types of conflict on the design process were investigated in more depth. Because affective conflict is a negative influencer of team performance, the questions in this topic are about conflict harming the team and the process. Under the cognitive topic, questions were asked to see whether the cognitive conflict has led to new ideas and insights. Last, there is a topic about the outcome of the project, where interviewees were asked to give their opinion about the performance of the team and whether this was influenced by conflict.

These questions were asked to every interviewee, but as it was a semi-structured interview, other questions that arose during the interviews could be asked. In this way, it was possible to include insights that were gained through these questions, which can possibly add to answering the research question.

Design agencies

In this research, employees of two different design agencies were interviewed. The first is an

international design agency that has five offices around the world, including an office in Amsterdam. This agency employs around 15 designers in Amsterdam. The agency works together with their customers, going through exploration, idea generation and implementation. At this agency conflict is familiar. Team leaders have to balance cognitive and affective conflict in every project. They want to challenge their team members, but not let conflict escalate to a level at which it would be

unproductive.

The second agency is a design research agency, which mainly focuses on the exploration and idea generation stage of the design process. It is a small agency of six core team members based in Amsterdam and London, and its focus is on service design. The team members work closely together and know each other well.

Respondents

The respondents for this research are designers employed by the two aforementioned design agencies. These respondents have worked in a team and have finished at least one project. These teams are composed of employees of the design agencies who have different backgrounds. There are two design researchers, one interaction designer, three senior and junior visual designers, one developer and a creative director. A description of all the roles can be found in Appendix II.

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23 Analysis strategy

The interviews were recorded and later listened to again. They were then summarised and relevant quotes were taken from the interview recording. This text was read and the concepts explained in the conceptual model were identified in the interview. Also, next to the prior set concepts of the types of conflict, the influence they have on the exploration and idea generation stage and the influence they have on the outcome of the design process, new dimensions were identified in the interviews, which were related to the concepts. These were also taken into account in the analysis. In the analysis, the data of the prior set concepts as well as the other concepts that were identified in the interview were interpreted to see how they were related. In addition, the perceptions of the interviewees were compared to one another when it came to how they experienced the same conflict or the same type of conflict.

Ethical statement

In this research, the companies, design teams and individuals that are involved will all be anonymised, unless they have given explicit consent to include their information. Only function names will be given. There will be no information in this research that could harm any individuals or organisations. The individuals will all be asked for permission to record the interview and be

informed of their right to stop the participation in the research at any time and for any reason. This way, coercion will be eliminated. The result of these measures will be an ethically correct study.

Results

The results of the interviews are described in this section. Firstly, the types of conflict that the team members had are described. Then, the influence of conflict on the design process and in particular the exploration and idea generation stage will be shown, and lastly, the influence of conflict on the outcome of the project will be elucidated. The main results are summarised at the end of this chapter.

There was one major project in which 6 of the 8 respondents collaborated. In this project, they had to work together intensively, so they were able to shed light on conflicts from different angles. This project will return in the results section multiple times. In this project there were conflicts amongst the team members, but the major conflict was actually with the client, who was part of the team as product owner. The product owner was not clear about what she wanted, making it difficult for the designers to understand her and the end user and see what the needs were. In addition to not being clear, the product owner had brought in a representative who would approve some plans, but who was overruled later by the product owner herself, who did not like the idea at all. This caused the

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24 team to do a lot of work for nothing. Last, the product owner also set some impossible deadlines for the team, causing them to quickly finish things that needed more time. Because of these things, there were conflicts with the product owner, but it also caused conflict within the team, people became irritated because of the lack of time and the constant disapproval of the client. They all defended their own discipline in that it was the most important discipline, and all wanted to spend as much time as possible on their own part of the project, resulting in conflicts over time management and blaming each other for delays. This project will be referred to as the large project, as it was a project with six regular team members and a project leader, a client representative and some freelancers who helped along the way. This is a large amount of people compared to most projects. In addition to this project, all the respondents had different projects of their own, on which they had sometimes worked together, and sometimes had worked with other colleagues who were not interviewed. These projects all had their own conflicts, some were regular conflicts that returned in every project, such as different opinions on the design that result in discussions, and some were conflicts that were more unusual. These different conflicts will first be categorised by type. Types of conflict

As previously stated, where there are people working together, there will be conflict of some sort. The team members all reported conflicts during the interview. There were different kinds of conflicts that the team members dealt with during the projects, some were only minor, but some were perceived as more severe.

Conflict Number of interviewees Type of conflict Example of quote Different disciplines made sure that there was discussion about the content and the execution of an idea

7 Cognitive Different backgrounds caused discussions about substantive matters

Assignment was unclear, leading to different ideas about assignment

6 Cognitive There was an enormous discrepancy between what we had thought of and what they wanted

Discussion about which idea is best

6 Cognitive There are moments when you both think you have a better idea

Conflict with client, who turned every idea down

4 Cognitive People got irritated like ‘Shit, I want to move forward, but I feel like I get sabotaged.’

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25 Conflict with project

leader over new way of working

4 Cognitive When the project leader was away, he [a team member] would say: ‘I don’t believe in it at all.’

Team members attacked each other’s discipline, and defended their own

3 Cognitive

and affective

They would say: ‘I have to finish this then, but design is not working right so I can’t do anything.’

Conflict about feasibility of ideas

3 Cognitive Somebody made something, and then the other would say: ‘that’s not possible, that’s too complicated.’

Conflict about time management due to impossible deadlines

3 Cognitive There was friction when someone couldn’t work because your part wasn’t finished

Irritation of creative director towards team members about them being unable to make the right decisions and communicate

2 Cognitive

and affective

At some point I did get really irritated (...) towards the team as well, because they did not communicate. (…) There was a lot of incomprehension from me towards the team, that’s not good of course.

Disagreement about how to handle the project

2 Cognitive The collaboration was difficult, because of different opinions on what the project was going to look like, there was some dispute about that

Conflict about roles of team members

2 Cognitive I thought he was too dominant (...) He was someone I had constant confrontations with about his role

Disagreement on what is important when it comes to the end-user

2 Cognitive During the analysis, we have more discussions, sharp discussions. I think

something is important, but she thinks it isn’t important at all

Fight about work-related matters, which escalated into a fit

1 Cognitive,

then affective

‘We have had a freelancer that threw his work through the room and yelled ‘I never want to work with you again!’

Conflict about copyright and ownership of ideas

1 Cognitive We [developers] share everything (…) for designers that’s different, they say: ‘That’s mine, you can’t use it.’ That’s a difference in culture that you really notice.

Conflict about way of working: one team member wanted to have a loose discussion, but the other team member wanted the other to have concrete questions

1 Cognitive She wants me to ask concrete questions. I never have concrete questions, I just want to discuss my thoughts. She gets a little

irritated then, we clash in that area.

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26 The different conflicts that the team members reported can be put into the categories provided by Amason (1996): cognitive and affective conflict. Cognitive conflict is task related and is defined by Amason (1996) as follows: A conflict that is ‘task oriented and focused on judgmental differences on how best to achieve common objectives’ (Amason, 1996, p. 127). For example, a cognitive conflict is about what team members think is the best way to achieve the goal that was set. An affective conflict is a personal conflict, which is about people, and not the task. The definition set by Amason (1996) is: ‘A conflict that is ‘dysfunctional’ and ‘tends to be focused on personal incompatibilities or disputes’ (Amason, 1996, p. 129). An example of an affective conflict is a fight about the capabilities of a person. These kind of conflicts can become more personal and emotional.

The table above shows the different conflicts that were mentioned in the interviews. As one can see, affective conflict was not mentioned many times. There were two cases where there was cognitive conflict, but it also had affective characteristics. The conflicts were about the task, but there were also personal aspects about it. There was one case where the conflict started as a cognitive conflict, but evolved into affective conflict. This conflict is described further in the section about affective conflict. Overall, affective conflict was not heavily present. Cognitive conflict was the kind of conflict that was perceived most by the interviewees.

Cognitive conflict

All the team members reported conflicts that can be characterised as cognitive conflict. This task-related conflict was experienced by all the team members and by most respondents, was regarded as normal conflicts that return every project.

‘What direction should we follow, what is more important, the functional part or the style, what does the client think is important? Those were things we disagreed on sometimes.’

This was a senior visual designer speaking about a project in which she had to work closely with another designer. They disagreed on these things during this project, but the senior designer

mentioned that those are common things that the designers in her company have conflict about in all projects. Whether disagreements can be seen as a form of conflict, might not be clear in this case, but Amason (1996) and Jehn (1997) both regard disagreement as a form of conflict and both demonstrate that disagreements have the effects that conflicts have. Therefore, disagreement will be treated as conflict in this research. All the other interviewees mentioned conflicts similar to these conflicts the senior visual designer spoke of. Other conflicts mentioned were conflicts about which idea was best, what the assignment actually was and how the designers should proceed in exploring the problem at hand, and generating ideas. The parts the team members disagree on are cognitive conflicts. The subjects of conflict are entirely about the way of working and what the best way is to

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27 get a good result. It is not about the people themselves, it is about different opinions on how to achieve a shared goal.

In the large project, there were many cognitive conflicts. It started at the beginning, when the project leader wanted to introduce a new way of working, which meant that people had to work together more closely than they were used to.

‘Well, in the beginning the team had conflicts with the project leader, who wanted to push through a different way of working. (...) In the beginning that seemed like a hassle to them: ‘is it really

necessary?’

The creative director said this, and three other team members that worked together on the large project mentioned that there was some trouble at first when the project leader introduced a new way of working. The team members did not agree on it being the best way of working, and needed time to get used to it. This is a cognitive conflict because it is about the way of working, on which the team members did not agree with the project leader.

Other cognitive conflicts that team members had in the large project, as well as other projects, were about how much time and importance different disciplines should get, if some designs are possible in the timeframe of the developer, and about people interfering too much with each other’s tasks. All of these conflicts are cognitive conflicts because they are about the way of working. These conflicts do cause some friction and irritation between team members sometimes, but were still regarded as a very normal and part of the job.

Thus, cognitive conflict is a very common type of conflict, which is said to be present in all projects that designers do. It is therefore believed to be normal, and is sometimes not even seen as conflict, but just as everyday business. Contrary to this, affective conflict is not seen as normal.

Affective conflict

Affective conflict was less evident in all the interviews. In a few, it did not come forward at all. In one interview, there was a clear example of affective conflict and in most there was some conflict

mentioned that had some affective characteristics. The example of affective conflict started out as a cognitive conflict, which escalated and eventually turned into affective conflict. The creative director recalled it as follows:

‘We have had a freelancer that threw his work through the room and yelled ‘I never want to work with you again.’ He had so much anger accumulated in him that he exploded. He never worked for us again.’

Conflict in design teams : about how two types of conflict influence the design process

Master thesis