Development Teams

Short Description

Development Teams is a term used in the industry for self-organising teams that are responsible for undertaking all the tasks that are required to take a product from idea to market, e.g., designing a software. As the team is expected to undertake all the tasks, they are cross-functional. It is an ideal model for active learning as they have the following characteristics;
a. They are self-organising and autonomous
b. They are cross-functional
c. Engage in continuous cycles of researching, designing,
prototyping, self-analysis and improvement
d. The team is accountable rather than the individuals.

In HE teaching, Development Teams could be used to provide students with opportunities to develop a project such as in Engineering or Computing. It could also be used in social science disciplines, for example for creating educational resources and solutions for daily life issues experienced by the community.

Tools

Not specifically but will depend on the type of ‘product’.

Scenario

This method can be used in both smaller and larger classes. Students should be split into groups of six with a range of specialisations and experiences. This could ideally be used in a classroom where students come from different disciplines and/or countries.

Development Teams should be provided autonomy to work on their self-selected or assigned project. It is important that they know that there is distributed leadership and the team rather than the individual will be accountable.

The teaching plan could be:

• Mixed teams created by the teacher or by the students
  themselves (if latter, teacher should monitor the
  composition of the team for diversity of members)
• Project ideas to be discussed in teams
• The teams to meet over a few months to work on the
  project, with regular self-evaluation cycles with the aim of
  refining their ‘product’ over time
• There could be a final “Dragon’s Den’ type event or
  exhibition to display the process and ‘product’.

Ideally, the teacher should provide industry links with project
briefing from the industries as ‘clients’ with the culminating session
being about presenting the ‘product’ to them.

Assessment

Assessment can be done in the form of self-assessment, peer review, teacher review and ‘client’ review. It is important that the assessment is of the team rather than the individual. Therefore, it might be better suited to formative assessment.

Additional Resources

Innolution Development Team Defination

What is a Scrum Development Team?

Connection with other methods

Design Thinking
Experiential Learning
Gamification
Problem-based learning
Project-based Learning
Real-world missions with companies
SCRUM Methodology
Work in Teams