Can collaboration within multidisciplinary teamwork be explained using Belbin? a case study.

Traditional collaboration between the architects and engineers, who always have been partners in a building process, is described as difficult. The reason for the malfunction of the collaboration might be lack of insight into other professions, but also the composition of the teams. The present case study is performed within a project-oriented course offered for students within the civil engineering - and architectural engineering programme. The task of the course is to plan a high-rise office building in multidisciplinary student teams. The course was held by a multidisciplinary team of teachers for 13 multidisciplinary teams of students. Belbin’s theory on teamwork was introduced and the teams were formed according to the theory, in order to optimize the collaboration. Students were given a standard- and course specific questionnaire including the possibility for making individual notes by the end of the course, which is the base of this study. The goal of the present work is to study the effect of the completeness of the teams according to Belbin on collaboration. It is measured how collaboration was perceived in general and for the different Belbin roles. Furthermore, the distribution of roles was investigated
among civil engineering and architectural engineering students.