Dawn of Collaborative Innovation: Embracing Interdisciplinary Teams with Robots in the Digital Era
Hardly any other topic is currently being discussed as intensively as digital innovation. One of the most important questions is why an interdisciplinary team, including AI and a robot, is so important for creating an innovation today.
Data glasses and Robots
Thanks to fast and efficient data generation and data processing digitalization makes it possible to create individual offers, i.e. personalized offers. This is the decisive step and the significant difference to the analog and previous models and approaches. This offers a multitude of opportunities to create innovations, as the timely generation of current and valid user data will provide us with ever more precise information about our users in their individual areas of life and enable us to discover previously unfulfilled customer needs. The integration of bots and the consideration of voice-controlled systems will be a decisive factor for innovative products in the future. Mobile devices that require us to look down when using them will in future be supplemented by data glasses or data lenses that project information directly onto our retinas when we look upright.
In the future, robots will support people in all areas of life and learn to perform tasks even better every day. Robots will make it easier for us to carry out everyday tasks, be it in healthcare, caring for people, transporting goods, communicating with people, delivering goods or in the area of security. The integration of robots is constantly enabling new products and services. In the future, robots will shape the innovation process as customers, suppliers, employees and as products themselves. They will be decisive for the entire innovation process of a product in the areas of procurement, production, quality management, trade, distribution, consumption and recycling.
And how can humans deal with it in order to be successful in the digitalized world?
The digital education in schools and universities and the creation of optimal framework conditions for founders and start-ups are crucial in order to be able to maintain and expand the level of prosperity achieved to date, for example in Europe, with new products and services. With a negative attitude towards everything new, it will not be possible to play a decisive role in global competition. If the optimal framework conditions for innovation are not created, future high unemployment in many industries cannot be offset by new activities. A high unemployment rate creates space for social unrest and political instability. The creation of innovations is therefore a global task of society as a whole and not of individual founders who are often treated as freaks and do not receive the necessary attention for their new ideas. Established companies in many industries often reproduce the sluggishness and the old way of thinking from the last few centuries. Strongly hierarchical thinking prevents creativity and deprives employees of the freedom to develop creatively.
Even after productive training measures, entire departments fall back into entrenched rituals, as the attitudes established over decades in the minds of employees do not change and managers, fearing for their own jobs, do not even want this change. Every member of society, every employee of a company can change. The only question is, how willing each and every one of us really is to change? We can take the first steps on the path to innovation through a high degree of self-reflection, appreciative feedback from outside, personal initiative and the design of a creative life and work. Digital applications and robots will help us to realize our new ideas.
The interdisciplinary team
To make change possible, companies, whether start-ups or large corporations, need interdisciplinary teams. The daily tasks as a startup are complex and challenge you in different ways. It is therefore very helpful not to work alone, but as a team. Since we want to find a new idea and develop a new product, we want to work in teams whose members come from different disciplines and schools of thought.
We leave our comfort zone, open ourselves up to new and different thoughts, other than our own thoughts or the thoughts of those who have a similar background to our own. Cross-departmental teams are often formed in established companies for precisely this reason and fail due to the existing igloo mentality and often due to the rejection of other points of view. If, on the other hand, we include and accept different points of view, we look at the problem from different perspectives and think holistically. Through iteration, we get closer and closer to the real demands and needs of the customer. All team members are jointly responsible for the result.
And AI, whether installed on an end device or in a robot, must be integrated as a team member in interdisciplinary teams in the future. AI will work faster and more efficiently than humans in all business areas. However, humans are crucial for controlling and monitoring all processes in the company. The successful companies of the future will be those that work together with AI and robots on all tasks in the company. Rules for working together as a team must therefore be applied to the innovation process.
Rule 1: Being stupid is allowed
If we don't ask the stupid and often considered absurd questions, we stick to existing solutions and don't find any new approaches. We ask a lot of stupid questions as a team and question all boundaries. On the path to innovation we have to think the impossible and talk about what seems so silly to us today.
Rule 2: Trust
We leave our social or hierarchical roles behind and accept every opinion expressed by another team member. We treat all statements and behaviors of other team members with respect. Listening, letting others express themselves and allowing others to contribute their expert knowledge are behaviors that promote trust. Interdisciplinary teamwork can succeed in an atmosphere of trust.
Rule 3: Make mistakes
We make mistakes every day. We will also make mistakes when searching for and developing new ideas. Mistakes that we make before the market launch are even sensible, as they would have cost us a lot more money and time after the product has been launched on the market. Our goal is not to fail, but it is also not desirable to celebrate perfection in our work. It is precisely by working in interdisciplinary teams that we learn from the other team members on a daily basis and find mistakes in our thinking and actions.
Rule 4: Structure work processes
We agree on a common division of who does what, when and how on the seven days of the week in the team. The shared schedule in our joint calendar creates trust between us and leads to an agreement on deadlines and dates that are important for our project. Short morning meetings in which we discuss the current status of our work as a team in ten minutes are helpful. An evening meeting helps to summarize the team's work in ten minutes, and each team member can share the relevant content developed during the day with everyone.
Rule 5: Establish a team culture
Over time, the team will get to know each other better. Each expert can contribute their specialist knowledge and show their strengths. A high degree of mindfulness means that we also get to know the weaknesses of the other team members and to name these in team meetings. We understand the other person better and better in their special language in their area of expertise and the entire process process will run more and more harmoniously over time. Disruptions to the process of any kind are discussed in the team and a solution is sought together.
Joint team events and joint appointments with suppliers and customers strengthen team cohesion. Any training and coaching that aims to bring a team even closer together with team exercises is only as good as what is learned is implemented in a shared culture and lived on a daily basis. The formulation of a mission statement, the common overarching goal and the recurring question of whether the team is also pursuing this goal ensure even stronger team cohesion and efficient goal achievement.
How do you work as a start-up team or as an employee? How successful is your team and how well does interdisciplinary work with AI work in your company?
We look forward to your feedback!