Teamwork inhibits creativity. This is the opinion of doctoral candidate Brian Lystgaard Due at the University of Copenhagen, who is running a research project about idea development in teams. There are several factors that prevent a working group from succeeding, for example, laziness, power plays, sloppiness and performance anxiety.

It is easy to agree with Brian’s opinion. Because it is hard work and frustrating with teamwork that doesn’t work. Some will remember group work from school where some worked hard while others did nothing and got a free ride. It can be very tempting to always want to work on your own.

But still. Teamwork is essential for a B2B agency like Sandberg Trygg to be successful. Each person has their specialist competence – anything from writing texts to doing animation for a web ad. It means that everybody has to be able to work together to produce. So, how do we organise our teamwork?

Let’s take an easy example – the creative process. It starts with the art director, copywriter and strategic project leader going through the creative brief for the assignment. Then there is a quantative process based on everybody thinking freely and trying to come up with as many ideas as possible in a couple of hours. After that everyone leaves to work on other assignments for the rest of the day.

Next day, the group meets again. Now it’s time to do a qualitative evaluation of all the suggestions from the day before. Everybody has had time to think and sleep on it. This makes it easier to weed out the weaker suggestions and focus on the tracks, maybe two to three, which are worth pursuing.

Time for the next session with wild ideas, and now it’s quantity again. Create as many ideas as possible within the framework of the two-three tracks that have passed through the eye of the needle. One or two hours later the group disperses to get on with other work.

New day, new qualitative analysis. Which suggestion(s) are good enough to show the client? Everybody has had time to do more thinking and let their sub-conscience process the suggestions overnight. Heated discussions can follow but then agreement is reached.

By alternating between quantity and quality, teamwork is kept going without causing boredom or tiredness. The trick is to separate the generation and evaluation of ideas. It’s difficult to be creative if one or two in the group keep on saying ”no”. It’s just as difficult to make progress if no rational decisions are made.

In all fairness we should say Brian Lystgaard Due hasn’t studied advertising agencies and other typical creative operations where the main task is to create ideas. But we think that our approach of alternating quantity and quality could produce better teamwork in most organizations. Why not give it a go in your next project?

You can find a comprehensive article on Brian Lystgaard Due in Ny Teknik, issue no. 39, 23 September 2009. The article is also available on the web but only in Swedish:
http://www.nyteknik.se/nyheter/karriarartiklar/article641228.ece