Contributing to the virtual design team: considerations and requirements

In the modern world, design activity is not alone in feeling pressure from limited resources, rising costs, and competition. Factors including increase of global competition and collaboration as well as the affordability of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) are promoting the role of virtual design teams in preference to traditional co-located design teams. The operational differences which result from using different electronic communication media and its impact on generic design skills have been the basis for the research reported in this paper. The outcome of this research is the development and mapping of generic skills profiles for virtual design teams and the designers who work in them. The research findings also identify changes in generic skills profiles between the traditional mode of team design as well as the different operational states of current and future ICT environments. This paper examines design team activities, processes and skills occurring in co-located environments and links these with those of virtual teams. This is achieved by documenting the results of analyses of video data of designers involved in collaborative design using various ICT technologies, ranging from traditional co-located systems to high bandwidth 3D virtual worlds. The analyses identify that ‘appropriate generic skills’ are necessary when interacting and collaborating using different electronic media and this study presents a case for ongoing research into the area of generic skills within virtual design teams