Teamwork in Crossdisciplinarity

Abstract

The École Polytechnique de Montréal has integrated an approach of teamwork in its twelve engineering programs, in the bachelor's degree program since 2005. Students must take a compulsory 45 hour course on teamwork and are then accompanied with team coaching throughout the four years program, in all the engineering integration projects. These integration projects are generally ones in which, over a session, the students work in teams to conceive an engineering project. Within the framework of these projects (1 per year), a group communication specialist meets every team for approximately 60minutes. This process promotes the transfer of the accumulated knowledge acquired in the teamwork course to their projects and helps identify the group processes at play in their teamwork dynamics. The objective pursued by this conference is to present the innovative formula used by the École Polytechnique de Montréal and to demonstrate by clear examples how it allows the development of skills in teamwork in all the scientific disciplines.