91ÇàÇà²Ý

Short description

In this approach, teams are formed randomly. Random formation is a quick and efficient method that allows teams to be formed even before the start of the course once all participants have enrolled. In addition, this method requires no input from your students. There are many ways to perform random formation in practice, such as a count-off during the first lecture or utilising the rand()-formula in Excel if you want to form teams outside the lecture room.

How to justify the method to students:

• You are more likely to get know new people, which expands one’s network and sharpens social skills.
• This method mimics a real-world situation, as you seldom have control of who you end up working with. 

Potential challenges and how to avoid them:

• Random formation is not particularly suitable for forming multidisciplinary teams. If that is the goal, this approach should be avoided or complemented with other methods.
• Random formation can lead to imbalances in terms of motivation and skills between teams. These issues can be mitigated by providing explicit opportunities for teams to discuss their goals (inc. grade, allocated worktime etc.) at the start of the project as simple awareness of differences tends to help in these situations. Furthermore, one can consider a closer observation of the progress of teams with developing skills in the beginning of the course and provide support if needed. 

Especially suitable if:

• Your course is at an early phase of studies, as random formation encourages students to get to know their peers.
• You want teams to start working before the first actual lecture, since you can form the teams as soon as all participants have registered to the course.
• You are looking for a quick and simple method.

Short description

In this approach, student teams are formed based on students’ skills and personality. Based on the knowledge of each student’s profile, teacher assigns students in teams with the idea of each team having a suitable balance of required skills and personalities that fits the project at hand. For this approach to work, it is essential that the teacher has received additional information about the students, for example, a motivation letter, a resume, study records, or Myers-Briggs type test results. 

How to justify the method to students:

• Having the right set of skills and personalities in team increases the likelihood of good results.
• This allows you to learn from peers with different types of perspectives, problem-solving approaches and expertise.

Potential challenges and how to avoid them:

• Students must submit additional information, and teachers must process it, requiring more effort from both actors. If you follow this approach, please reserve enough time for it.
• Students might question the accuracy and relevance of personality tests. Easiest way to combat this is to use several data points, such as forming teams not only based on personality, but also skills.

Especially suitable if:

• Teams are working on project topics originating from companies or other external organisations. Skills-based grouping can be very effective, as it allows to match students with challenges that fit them the best, increasing the likelihood of good project results.
• You are teaching an advanced or specialised course where projects require a specific set of skills (e.g., a mix of coding, design, research) or personalities (courses focused on learning). 

Short description

In the student-selected team formation strategy, students have the autonomy to form their own groups. This method empowers students to choose their teammates based on personal preferences, existing relationships, or mutual interests in a topic. This approach presumes that students are best positioned to know with whom they work well together. This strategy can be complemented with team composition requirements. For example, in multidisciplinary courses, one could require teams to have a maximum of X members from discipline A, a maximum of Y members from discipline B, and so on. 

How to justify the method to students:

• The method encourages students to take ownership and responsibility for their learning experiences and outcomes.
• Student-selected team formation allows students to leverage existing relationships or form new ones based on shared interests or complementary skills.
• The method fosters an environment where students can work with the people they feel most compatible with, potentially increasing motivation and enjoyment.

Potential challenges and how to avoid them:

• There may be a tendency for friends to group together, which could lead to a lack of diversity in skills and perspectives. Encourage students to consider the course as an opportunity to get to know new people.
• Some students may feel excluded or have difficulties in finding a suitable group. Set up a system to ensure everyone is included, such as actively helping struggling participants to find a team or having a 'free agent' list that can be used to recruit students still looking for a group.

Especially suitable if:

• The course has face-to-face sessions, as forming student-selected teams in an online setting can be a challenge, especially for those with less extended network.
• The class has a strong community where students have prior knowledge of each other's skills and work habits, which can be leveraged to form effective teams. Please note that this strategy tends to work better at later stages of studies.
• The objective of the course is to develop entrepreneurial or leadership skills.

This example describes a relatively sophisticated implementation of student-selected team formation that included preparatory exercises and teacher moderation. While it might be unfeasible for some courses, it is an inspiring example of incorporating realism to team formation.  

Course details

• Name and Code: Startup Experience, TU-E4100
• Credits: 9 cr
• Length: 2 periods
• Class size: roughly 100 participants per implementation
• Team size: 5–8 members
• Level: MSc, BSc accepted as well
• Status: Mandatory for roughly 50% of participants
• Implementation: Fall 2023
• Course in brief: Multidisciplinary, cross-cultural project teams generate a viable business concept, incl. mapping of customer needs, prototyping, business viability analysis, and business model definition.
• Key topics: Product and service development, entrepreneurship, creative practices
• Other notable features: Open-ended development challenge where teams define their own project topic. This leads to high level of initial uncertainty. In general, this approach and teaching methods are new to most participants. The name and code of the course have now changed.

Rationale for method selection

Startup teams tend to form through personal connections, networking and organic collaboration rather than enforced grouping, the norm in corporate settings. Practicing this kind of organic team formation is a key skill for those interested in entrepreneurial ventures, and this is why simulating it during the course was prioritised. 

With this in mind, the course utilised a teacher-moderated student-selected team formation method. The practical team formation was organised as a face-to-face networking event. 

However, prior to the group formation, participants learned basic product development and entrepreneurship skills through individual exercises and workshops. The individual and group exercises were conducted to ensure that, by the time group formation event took place, most participants had already interacted with each other in some capacity.

Method description

Preparatory steps

While the main focus during the first few weeks was learning the theoretical fundamentals and practising entrepreneurship and innovation, many exercises were conducted to support project team formation that took place later. 

Individual assignments: Participants completed exercises, including a personal strength and interest analysis, during which they mapped their personal competencies and interests. This helped them to increase their understanding of their own developer profile and how it could align with potential teammates. 

Group Exercises: During lectures on entrepreneurship and innovation, participants workshopped in ad-hoc groups. These exercises often included collective brainstorming, giving participants a chance to network and experience working with other people.

With this structure, participants were more prepared for the actual team formation, as they knew both themselves and their classmates better. 

Right before the team formation event, the participants were informed about a call for ‘team founders’. These facilitators would not become project leaders. Instead, they were described as ‘company founders’ rather than ‘bosses’, emphasising that their role was not to take on permanent leadership or direct others indefinitely. Furthermore, participants had the option to accept this role in pairs, reflecting how team formation often happens in real-life scenarios. 

Team Formation Event

The team formation event lasted roughly two hours and consisted of two parts. The first hour focused on defining the project topics for each team collectively. During the second hour, the actual team formation took place. 

Part 1: Project definition

To start the first part, each founder – or founder pair - was assigned a separate table where they defined thematic starting points for their team, such as their interests, a specific technology, a user group, or a compelling trend. These starting points materialised as large Post-it notes that people coming to visit the table could see effortlessly. 

 During the first hour of the event, course participants circulated around the tables, talking with the founders and other table visitors to see if their interests aligned and discussing potential directions the project theme could take. However, the founders had the authority to decide whether to include the discussed suggestions. 

 By the end of this initial phase, the project themes for each team were defined further, and all course participants were able to find a project they could relate to. 

Part 2: Team formation

During the second hour of the event, participants were tasked to tour and visit the tables again and to examine the results of the first hour in terms of which teams were focusing on what kind of topics. The end goal for everybody was to find a team that suited them the best. In practice, this meant free discussion with the founders and other potential team members about people’s interests and skills. 

 While team formation was very freeform and students were expected to figure things out themselves, a few rules for forming the teams were put in place. Teams had a maximum size. If a team was nearing its limit, the table facilitator ensured that decisions regarding the final team composition were made collectively, with a strong recommendation to prioritise compatibility in team members’ schedules.

Furthermore, from the perspective of the course, the goal was to create as diverse teams as possible, as team diversity fosters both innovation and learning. With this in mind, by default, teams were not allowed to have several people studying the same major in the same programme. Teachers were aware that this rule needed to be relaxed at some point, because strictly following it combined with the participant profile distribution of the course would mean that some individuals are unable to find a team in the end. However, the relaxation of the rule was allowed only at a later stage of the process when issues started to emerge to ensure that teams became as diverse as possible. 

Tips and instructor reflection

The teacher-mediated, student-selected team formation method can be quite challenging from a social perspective. Based on student feedback, this method worked exceptionally well for individuals with great inherent networking skills, and they found the process thoroughly enjoyable. However, the method posed a challenge for more introverted students, especially if they were curious about a broad variety of development topics, trends and technologies, and struggled to clearly define their interests. Nevertheless, these issues can be addressed with preparatory exercises. For example, to make mingling with others in the team formation event a bit easier, simple interview or discussion exercises where participants are required to talk to unfamiliar people can help students to be more prepared and confident. 

 It is also important to note that teachers can and should play an important role through observing and supporting students as well. Since this highly interactive method can feel uncomfortable for some students, especially for those less confident in their social skills, additional guidance should be offered to help them find a suitable team.

While this is a relatively complex method with certain challenges from the perspective of students, it fits the course particularly well. It enables meaningful simulation of a real startup team formation process and prepares our graduates for such situations. While socially demanding – requiring students to engage and actively participate in conversation –this challenge aligns with the course’s learning objectives. It provides an opportunity for students to develop essential entrepreneurial skills, such as networking and pitching their ideas to others.

Course details

• Name and Code: Design Thinking for Electronic Prototyping, ELEC-C9801
• Credits: 5 cr
• Length: 2 periods
• Class size: 60
• Team size: 3 members
• Level: BSc
• Status: Mandatory in ELEC Digital Systems & Designs BSc major
• Implementation: Spring 2024
• Course in brief: Student teams develop and prototype simple electronic devices based on design thinking principles
• Key topics: Electronics prototyping, open-ended problem solving 

Rationale for method selection

Students participating in this course portray considerable variance in existing skills. Some have extensive experience in building electronics and can create intricate designs, whereas for others this is their first foray into these topics. 

The goal of the student teams is to develop and prototype an electronic device in collaboration. In this kind of a course setup where the key task for students is to create a technological artefact together, it is vital for all team members have an equal level of skills. Otherwise, in a team of two highly skilled members and one with lower skill level, the one with less skills is going to struggle to contribute to the project irrespective of their level of motivation. Furthermore, equal skill levels foster opportunities for peer learning as well. While it is true that more skilled teams will be able to generate more intricate designs, fair grading can be ensured without issues if it emphasises the development process and learning over the technological output of the project. 

Method description

In the first contact session of the course, students were asked to stand up and form a line based on their existing knowledge and skills related to building electronics, with one end representing those with very advanced skills and another those who are less familiar with the topic at current time. Following the formation of the line, students were asked to select two individuals close to them to form the team, creating the team the students will be conducting the project in. 

Tips and instructor reflection

On an occasion, some participants reflect on their skillset and conclude that it is broader or weaker than they initially thought and wish to switch teams after the teams have started working on their projects. This is natural because it can be difficult to assess one’s capabilities and compare them to others on such a short notice. While it causes additional work, it is recommended to adjust the teams to accommodate this observation. 

Another potential issue is that if students know each other, they tend to strive to form teams with their friends. Especially in teams that consist of two friends and one ‘outsider’, issues with team dynamic can arise. Same issues are likely to occur in situations with many international students: those with similar cultural backgrounds prefer teaming up together. Thus, it is advisable to encourage students to team up with new people and representatives of different nationalities or cultures.