The Impact of Facilitation During Idea Generation in Engineering Design

Abstract

Abstract During the engineering design process, group idea generation is often used to search the solution space before committing resources to the development of new products and services. The study presented investigates how trained facilitation using a brainstorming approach impacts the idea generation process. Three conditions are presented: a facilitated condition, unfacilitated condition, and nominal condition. Participants in these experimental conditions were tasked with generating ideas to a design problem leveraging a morphological matrix to record and organize their ideas. Specifically, the quantity of generated ideas, perceived task load, and psychological safety are measured when a trained facilitator is present or not present during the idea generation process. Results suggest that a trained facilitator has a positive impact on the quantity of generated ideas in an engineering context but is not as effective as nominal groups (individuals working independently), which is consistent with prior literature. However, results suggest that trained facilitation may have other benefits during idea generation such as reduced perceived task load and increased psychological safety of group members. This study shows the significant impact of trained facilitation on idea generation during engineering design and provides a foundation for future work that expands these results into how facilitation may impact other stages of the engineering design process.