Decomposition and recomposition strategies of professional engineering design teams

International audienceAbstract Designers faced with complex design problems use decomposition strategies to tackle manageable sub-problems. Recomposition strategies aims at synthesizing sub-solutions into a unique design proposal. Design theory describes the design process as a combination of decomposition and recomposition strategies. In this paper, we explore dynamic patterns of decomposition and recomposition strategies of design teams. Data were collected from 9 teams of professional engineers. Using protocol analysis, we examined the dominance of decomposition and recomposition strategies over time and the correlations between each strategy and design processes such as analysis, synthesis, evaluation. We expected decomposition strategies to peak early in the design process and decay overtime. Instead, teams maintain decomposition and recomposition strategies consistently during the design process. We observed fast iteration of both strategies over a one hour-long design session. The research presented provides an empirical foundation to model the behaviour of professional engineering teams, and first insights to refine theoretical understanding of the use decomposition and recomposition strategies in design practice