entertainmentengineering.com: Richard C. Klein from NASTEC is a designer and manufacturer of specialty transmissions and bearings. NASTEC designs, fabricates, and manufactures traction drives, roller-gear drives, and wave bearings.
He says that without teamwork in our organization, his company would have little to show. “The ideas would remain as ideas only,” he explains. “Each of our projects has taken work and input from everyone who draws a paycheck. My guys are all part timers and the number involved varies with the project.”
4 comments:
As technical designers for theater we fall into a groupthink mentaility a lot. This occurs when a design task is assigned to one person, they tinker away at it for awhile, run into an obstacle, and bring it back to the group. We go to the whiteboard, sketch some solutions, come to a consensus on the best solution, and the individual returns to their work. Repeat until the show is done. The team is involved in the process but it is not entirely a team process. I never really gave this any thought until reading testimonies for these design and engineering departments on how team design is essential to their process. I wonder what a team designed show would look like and what kind of resources would take to accomplish that process. What makes groupthink so appealing to theaters is that oftentimes we may find ourselves where time and personnel are the limiting factors. A shop may not have the time to go to the whiteboard first because they have one or two people hired to draw the show. It might be a good experiment to look at show overall, spend a couple of nights on the white board sketching the show, roughing a tech design with a team of detailers outlining the basis for the show. It might add time to front end of the design process but I wonder once everyone is on the same page would it balance out on the back end. Perhaps we wouldn't waste as much time and energy spinning our wheels we run into obstacles or questions in the design because we've already hammered them out. Thinking about it, there is some appeal to it. Not only could it be more efficient than breaking the show down in a to do list based on elements but it might increase morale and interest in the whole show. Groupthink would still occur and those consensus detail decisions would happen but individual detailers wouldn't feel like they've failed or can't think of the answer, it wouldn't be a burden of the assignment but rather something in which the group can help and support the individual.
I'm still thinking about it. What the article doesn't say is how much time spent prototyping do these industries do. Teamwork as a technical design makes a lot of sense when prototyping. The stakes are not as high because the team is not trying to create the part or product manifested in all its potential and free from flaws or imperfections. But they are designing by trying to eliminate things that don't work. Isn't this how collective decision making works? Consensus is determined by eliminating decisions that don't move the agenda or group interests forward. When everyone agrees in what creates progress only then can the project move forward. This may not work in theater. We often lack the resources to prototype and instead go with something we know has worked before or what we are familiar with. When particulars of the project change the base design we make changes accordingly. Teamwork design may be a waste of the collective's time and energy - the foundation has already been develop why distract other team members from their tasks? If the flat needs an extra rail, then add one - don't include the team. If the motor needs a different gearbox, determine the ratio - don't take it to the whiteboard. So now I'm torn. Because we never do anything the same twice (though we always run home to momma on certain things) perhaps teamwork design can't work for theatrical tech design.
I am glad that team work is being seen as a more and more positive and necessary facet of design. As the article states, it is incredibly important for people as designers to come up with their own ideas, but it's critical that those ideas are looked at by a team and used to brainstorm bigger and better versions of each idea. I agree with Matt that this may not work for theatrical technical design because of time constraints and a lack of resources. Perhaps it just depends on the circumstances and varies.
Matt is torn on the subject and the concept of team design in our field and whether or not it really works and is beneficial or a hinderance to the process...
Well Matt, I think that's because the answer is both. And in that case you are right to feel torn.
I think that the idea of a collective approach initially to nail down the approaches to tasks is a strong one, and from there the elements of the show are disbursed to the details are needed and details come back to the collective when something doesn't work the way originally envisioned, that is if it's a major design flaw. For small matters such as an extra rail or different gearbox, I think those detailed decisions remain with the individual. And really this is approach isn't uncommon, it just depends on your definition of the collective's size; 2 people, 4 people, 6 people?
in all, I feel that it depends on the complexity of the task, scope/scale and time allotted for completion. If it's R&D or prototyping based I can see more teamwork and collective input, especially on high priced, ticket corporate items, and the like. But for smaller applications I think most of the responsibility falls to one person who can then seek input from his peers...
Maybe, I don't know. I suppose it depends.
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