Essay: Exploring Shared Mental Models Variations in Timeline / Conclusions

 Exploring Shared Mental Models Variations in Timeline 
 LITERATURE REVIEW 
 METHOD 
 FINDINGS 
 CONCLUSIONS 
 ACKNOWLEDGMENT & REFERENCES 

CONCLUSIONS

We began by noting that prior studies drawing on SMM had focus on short-term projects performed by teams, there was a little understanding of how the accumulated experiences of working together will influence the sharedness between the team members, that actually is the general condition every team who runs in real-life need to face. By selecting design studio cases that are creative- oriented who achieve complex problems solving and require highly interdependence SMM, our study allowed for exploring the team sharedness variations in timeline. Our results provide insights about how teams deal with the different states of shared understandings to drive them accomplish permanent achievements.

Emotional-oriented sub-mental models tend to varies more in timeline

Prior research suggested that the SMM between team members consists of different aspects of sub-mental models, this refers to the task, process, team member and competence models we discussed previously. However, Badke-Schaub et al. (2007) also identified some of the sub-mental models as the soft factors such as culture of interaction that affect how they deal with gaps and manage information, which seemed to have a high impact on content-related mental models.

These soft factors are also recognized in this research as the feelings and reflection labels appear more in the competence and team member models. This may due to the motivation of achieving better design outcomes and the interaction culture among team members are more emotional- oriented. As we compare the sharedness variations between the ‘begin’ and ‘now’, we found that these two sub-mental models tend to have more similarities and differences in timeline, which means they varies more than the task and process models that often consist more facts labels and contributed to consistent pattern.

For instance, in the competence model of the Toer case, both of the members shared the understanding in the beginning that they have the same passions in moves and interactive things, and each one of them has different qualities that complement to each other. As the timeline moves to now, the shared understandings transfered to having fun during the projects, keeping open minded to different possibilities. The sharedness differences between them also appeared as one of the member starts to mention more in noting the growing of the studio’s business and the enjoyment of approaching different kinds of clients.

By contrast, the ‘now’ stage of process model of Toer remain more consistent with the ‘beginning’ stage. They all the time shared the same routine design process, the idea of communicating closely together but working without specific roles, and the reflection that working together drives better outcomes.

It could be assumed that the competence and team member models requires more sharedness in the emotional aspect, and these emotional interactions leads to deeper self conscious changes in time than routine actions. Therefore we discuss more about the contents variations and its implications in the competence and team member models in the following paragraphs.

The shared feelings in the competence model exist all the time to push the team to go further

Some prior studies drawing on the competence sub-mental model assumed that the sharedness in the feeling of competence has the motivative effect on the team. Teams who lack of this feeling tend to lose the driving force to build the share understandings that better facilitates the performance (Badke-Schaub et al., 2007).

By exploring the competence model in timeline, although the teams might have different aspects of sharedness or differences in the stages of ‘beginning’ and ‘now’, and the sharedness might varies along the time, it is identified that the pattern of shared feelings in motivation occurs in all of the teams in all stages.

For instance, both of the members in Studio WM mentioned they experienced good in working together in the beginning, and the enjoyment of the full passion of working for oneself in the current moment. The Toer duo raised that they think they shared the same passion in moves and interactive things which is why they started to work together in the beginning, and now they are both feeling having great fun during the projects. And the Formafantasma partners also regarded they enjoyed working together all the time and their sharing of the same passion to design. Overall, these shared feelings commonly contributes to the motivation of driving the team to go further together.

Teams that are able to work together permanently with contented results tend to share feelings in the competence model both in the beginning and the current moment. This could be assumed that owing self-efficacy to engage and distribute to the team is all the time the key sharedness between the team members.

The similarity between team members generally grows in timeline, nevertheless, different ways of inspiration inputs drives them to perform better outcomes.

Referring to the overlapped qualities among the team, the long term relationships are considered as making people sharing excessive similarities. Prior research therefore suggested taking into account to what extent of sharedness is proper between the team members.

Most of the participants mentioned they got more understood to each other and shared more the same tastes as time goes by, while they regard this similarity as the merit that makes their works better rather than barriers. One of the member in Studio WM explained this is because even they shared the same interests, they still have different inspiration inputs according to their different qualities. For instance, the partners of Studio WM are both fascinated in nature, while one of them get inspired by floras, the other get motivated by animals. Furthermore, although they are getting more and more the same in design tastes, one of them gather design inspirations through travel, and the other explores more in movies. In this way, the similarities of the same interests and same tastes tend to enable them to perform the designs that they both fond of, which is seen as a positive growing sharedness between team members.

This pattern is also recognized within the other two teams. One of the member in Toer mentioned they are partly getting equal, while the other partly is still growing in different way. Formafantasma also referred they have different qualities, but they always think in the same way.

This could be assumed that the increasing similarities in the team member models can be regard as supportive sharedness in teamworks. Since the qualities of each team member are organically different, the similarity in the thinking level therefore facilitates the team to achieve tasks that contents each team member.

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