Facilitating Knowledge Sharing

Abstract

What is a good choice? Ideally it is a choice made deliberately and consciously based upon a full spectrum of reliable information, sound reasoning and with a firm commitment to action by all interested stakeholders. However, years of studies in group communication and performance, from a wide range of academic disciplines, have shown that groups of people working together often do not realize their potential to perform better than individuals.One critical aspect of why these deficiencies occur was highlighted by Stasser &Titus in 1985. They demonstrated that meeting participants have a bias toward sharing information that is held in common rather than the unique knowledge that each individual holds. Meeting participants also showed a preference for only sharing information that supported their preexisting preferences. When a group is discussing and sharing data that they already all know, opportunities for innovation, new ideas for products, services or experiences are lost. Group participantsare making decisions on incomplete and potentially inaccurate information thus leading to a sub-optimal group performance. For a designer, how a group performs, especially in the information gathering stage is integral to the success of the final product, whether it be a business or service plan or a product. As Kees Dorst mentions in his book, Understanding Design, he says that design is now a “social process” because designers rarely design alone. As the Design profession continues the trend toward user-centered, participatory design, all the way to co-creating and co-design, the role of the designer has expanded to include the role of facilitator. The designer (as facilitator) now has a “need to facilitate conversations across broad groups to grapple with the questions of desirability, possibility and viability. The answers to these questions do not exist in one mind.” (64) The designer as facilitator is “the broker of an extended conversation.” (Body)This research explores the intersection of social and psychological factors related to information sharing and the new role of designer as facilitator. By understanding how individual thought processes can lead to biases such as the shared information bias and preference bias in group meetings, the designer, who brings their own unique skills to the facilitation role can use this knowledge to help mitigate these dysfunctional tendencies in group interactions. While there have been repeated studies that prove the existence of dysfunctional group performances, there are also numerous studies that show groups, when nudged with the right structure and tools, can outperform individuals. Through combining these three areas of knowledge, this research study proposes a new framework for group meeting structures that future designers as facilitators can use to enhance communication and thus enable good choices.