Team Design: A Practitioner's Guide to Collaborative Innovation [Hardcover]

Peter H. Jones (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 4, 2002

An essential guidebook and toolkit for software development teams and team leaders, Team Design organizes best practices, tried and true methods, and killer tips for team product development. This revised edition has not changed radically since 1998 - In some ways, little has changed in five years – we still find real necessity for effective team facilitation in complex cross-disciplinary development projects. This version of Team Design focuses more on the role of project managers and team leaders, bringing the best of facilitation approaches to the leader’s role.

Editorial Reviews

From the Author

The unique feature of Team Design remains that of its applicability across most types of structured group design and development projects. While most frameworks support design or requirements effectively, no other team organization approach defines tools, details, and applications across the project lifecycle – from scope to deployment. No other framework shows applications in the very different modes of business process and decision making, as well as the expected frameworks for requirements and application development. Although the book includes only some industry sector differences, it also describes the key differences for development in product, business, user, or internal systems projects.

Key tools and approaches from Joint Application Design (JAD), Participatory Design, distributed development, and teambuilding are brought together for the first time in one book. Field tested for five years, the new version has changed very little. Although the business landscape has changed quite a bit, the tools of Team Design are even more relevant now than ever. One change the reader might note – I have dropped the JAD chapter, since finding that JAD has evolved itself between book revisions. Classic JAD books still cover this topic well, but Team Design has been found effective by project leaders and consultants without further relying on the JAD structure.

From the Inside Flap

Team Design is a comprehensive guidebook to team product development practice. Team Design gives consultants, system designers, product managers, facilitators, and project managers a total consulting toolkit in one book. Revising Handbook of Team Design (McGraw-Hill, 1998), this book streamlines some practices and accounts for recent changes in technology and process. Team Design offers a comprehensive collaborative foundation for designing customer-centered products and leading team-focused projects. It offers formats and methods for team workshops, based on your organization, business, project type, desired end result, and lifecycle phase.

A separate chapter is devoted to each of five formats, for simple adaptation of workshop activities to product lifecycles and project phase. Workshop methods (brainstorming, diagrams, scenarios) are recommended for phase deliverables.

Team Design offers a foundation for both proven and current best practices, letting you choose and make the right fit. It will become a formidable tool for everyday project and product management.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 548 pages
• Publisher: Xlibris Corporation (June 4, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0738860875
• ISBN-13: 978-0738860879
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 8.5 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,555,545 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Peter H. Jones, Ph.D.

Peter Jones is an innovation research consultant, having conducted human and organizational research and design for services, software/IT systems, and decision support resources since 1990. An experienced design research and strategy consultant, he founded Redesign Research in 2001, focusing on depth research for human-centered innovation. Peter has designed market-leading Internet-based information resources for legal, medical, business, and scientific applications.

Peter wrote We Tried to Warn You: Innovations in Leadership for the Learning Organization, published in 2009 by Nimble Books.

He published Team Design: A Practitioner's Guide to Collaborative Innovation in 1998, revised 2002.

He is currently writing Designing for Care: Design as a Critical Healthcare Profession, to be published by Rosenfeld in 2010 (http://designforcare.com )

Peter completed a doctorate in Design and Innovation Management at the Union Institute, 2000, and is currently a visiting scholar at The University of Toronto and is advisor and on faculty for the M.Des in Strategic Foresight and Innovation at Ontario College of Art and Design, Toronto.

Articles are available at his blog site at: http://designdialogues.com

Selected Publications

Jones, P.H. (2008). We tried to warn you! Innovations in leadership for the learning organization. Ann Arbor, MI: Nimble Books.

Jones, P.H. (2008). Socialization of practices in a process world: Toward participatory organizations. In Proceedings of Participatory Design 2008. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University.

Jones, P.H. (2008). Socializing a Knowledge Strategy. In E. Abou-Zeid (Ed.) Knowledge Management and Business Strategies: Theoretical Frameworks and Empirical Research. Hershey, PA: Idea Group. (In press).

Jones, P.H. (2005). Information practices and cognitive artifacts in scientific research. Cognition, Technology, and Work, 7, 88-100.

Jones, P.H., Chisalita, C. and van der Veer, G.C. (2005). Special Issue on Collaboration in Context: Cognitive and Organizational Artefacts. Cognition, Technology, and Work, 7, 70-75.

Jones, P.H. and Nemeth, C.P. (2005). Cognitive artifacts in complex work. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, LNAI 3345, 152-183.

Jones, P.H. (2002). When successful products prevent strategic innovation. Design Management Journal, 13 (2), 30.

Jones, P.H. (2002) Team Design: A Practitioner's Guide to Collaborative Innovation. Philadelphia: Xlibris.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A comprehensive and practical guide, February 9, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Handbook of Team Design: A Practitioner's Guide to Team Systems Development (McGraw-Hill Series in Software Development) (Hardcover)

This book is a comprehensive analysis of the points throughout development life cycles where team collaboration is appropriate for creating deliverables. Formats and methods for conducting team workshops are set out in great detail, based on the organizational environment, project type, end result desired, and particular phase of the life cycle.

Jones proposes a "framework" for development which he calls Team Design and which he contrasts with Joint Application Development (JAD) and other group methods. Jones defines five Formats (Business Process Design, Requirements Definition, Application Design, Team Planning, Decision Making) under which almost any development project or part thereof can be placed. He devotes separate chapters to each Format, defining for each Format the life-cycle steps within the Format, the workshop agenda activities that apply to each phase of the life-cycle, and recommended workshop methods (e.g., brainstorming, scoping diagrams, scenario analysis) that can develop the deliverables for the phase.

Team Design comprises a generic set of life-cycle Phases (Initiating, Scoping, Visualizing, Usage, Packaging, Validating) that can be mapped to each of the five Formats. For each Phase, Jones then recommends certain workshop methods that can be used regardless of the Format. This allows flexibility in analyzing all the factors facing a Project Manager and Facilitator (organization type, project type, end result, life-cycle phase) and adapting a workshop plan that will apply best. It also allows for bridging of experience with workshop methods across different Formats.

Jones also deals in depth with a wide variety of topics related to team-based development, including: (1) JAD and Participatory Design: A survey of the history of these two group-based methods, and an assessment of their strengths and weaknesses in various environments; (2) Facilitation: The scope of Facilitation; the technical competencies required of a Facilitator in a development environment; in-depth description of facilitation tools (e.g., conflict resolution, problem solving) and workshop methods (e.g., brainstorming, diagramming, Pareto charts), and their applicability; (3) Requirements: Analysis of the major problems faced by organizations in creating and managing requirements, and how Team Design can address those problems; (4) Team Dynamics: The phases of team development; team-building techniques; special issues involving workgroups comprising members with different functional backgrounds; and (5) Organizational Culture: The impact of organizational dynamics on a company's receptiveness to structured methods and team-based approaches to development.

5.0 out of 5 stars Comprehensive study - & a good practitioner's guidebook, March 5, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Handbook of Team Design: A Practitioner's Guide to Team Systems Development (McGraw-Hill Series in Software Development) (Hardcover)

This book is a comprehensive analysis of the points throughout development life cycles where team collaboration is appropriate for creating deliverables. Formats and methods for conducting team workshops are set out in great detail, based on the organizational environment, project type, end result desired, and particular phase of the life cycle. Jones proposes a "framework" for development which he calls Team Design and which he contrasts with Joint Application Development (JAD) and other group methods. Jones defines five Formats (Business Process Design, Requirements Definition, Application Design, Team Planning, Decision Making) under which almost any development project or part thereof can be placed. He devotes separate chapters to each Format, defining for each Format the life-cycle steps within the Format, the workshop agenda activities that apply to each phase of the life-cycle, and recommended workshop methods (e.g., brainstorming, scoping diagrams, scenario analysis) that can develop the deliverables for the phase. Team Design comprises a generic set of life-cycle Phases (Initiating, Scoping, Visualizing, Usage, Packaging, Validating) that can be mapped to each of the five Formats. For each Phase, Jones then recommends certain workshop methods that can be used regardless of the Format. This allows flexibility in analyzing all the factors facing a Project Manager and Facilitator (organization type, project type, end result, life-cycle phase) and adapting a workshop plan that will apply best. It also allows for bridging of experience with workshop methods across different Formats. Jones also deals in depth with a wide variety of topics related to team-based development, including: · JAD and Participatory Design: A survey of the history of these two group-based methods, and an assessment of their strengths and weaknesses in various environments · Facilitation: The scope of Facilitation; the technical competencies required of a Facilitator in a development environment; in-depth description of facilitation tools (e.g., conflict resolution, problem solving) and workshop methods (e.g., brainstorming, diagramming, Pareto charts), and their applicability · Requirements: Analysis of the major problems faced by organizations in creating and managing requirements, and how Team Design can address those problems · Team Dynamics: The phases of team development; team-building techniques; special issues involving workgroups comprising members with different functional backgrounds · Organizational Culture: The impact of organizational dynamics on a company's receptiveness to structured methods and team-based approaches to development

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A really unique and original work for teaming know-how., April 11, 1998

By 

Dave Wright ([e-mail]) (Virginia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Handbook of Team Design: A Practitioner's Guide to Team Systems Development (McGraw-Hill Series in Software Development) (Hardcover)

A tremendous discussion and reference of the nuts and bolts for all kinds of teaming in the IT world. It's loaded with nuances related to teaming that you won't easily find in one place. It's also a good review, thinker, and is exceptionally well researched and written. I definitely reccomend this book to anyone who is serious about adding to their skills in this often overlooked but necessary specialty.