Improving heterogenous team collaboration in disaster risk management: lessons from innovation

Abstract

Heterogeneous team collaboration is a fundamental component of Disaster Risk Management (DRM). However, DRM teams face complex-dynamic situations characterised by high disruptions, distributed locations and other factors, which create persistent problems for team collaboration. In these contexts, even the smallest improvement to our understanding has the potential to yield enormous benefits to DRM objectives. Innovation is a highly complementary field to DRM, facing similar complex-dynamic situations, requiring inter-disciplinary team collaboration while under significant pressure. This research proposes that the field of technology-based innovation might offer insights for DRM in how heterogeneous teams collaborate.

Using a combined methods approach, primary and secondary data was generated to compare concepts and practical experiences between DRM and technology-based innovation. The two fields being highly complementary and therefore ideal for comparative analysis. Complexity theory was an essential component in the analysis, to allow for emergent themes across various team-types and contexts. Insights emerged on team themes such as: new team perspectives, management and leadership, and related variety. Related variety was the most challenging finding, as it proposes that not all diversity or heterogeneity is beneficial and therefore it must somehow be managed. Additionally, related variety recognises that dissent and divergence are essential in collaboration; however, no findings were made on how to structure this, leaving the door open for further research in this space.

Popular Abstract

Disaster Risk Management (DRM) exists at the edge of the human experience. It is a field characterised by high complexity and uncertainty; and is fundamentally reliant on heterogeneous team collaboration. Globalisation and digitalisation have dramatically increased interdependencies in DRM, such that no single actor can grasp or influence the overall system. Instead, a heterogenous range of actors are required to somehow collaborate effectively under challenging conditions, with different organisational systems, while sharing limited resources. Accordingly, DRM continues to face persistent problems of heterogeneous team collaboration at various levels, from small-scale team interactions, to macro-level, multi-organisational initiatives such as the cluster system. In this context, even small improvements to our understanding of heterogeneous team collaboration can yield enormous impacts to DRM objectives; such as lives saved, improved situation awareness and increased resource sharing.

Technology-based Innovation (TBI) is a field highly similar to DRM, being also characterised by high complexity and uncertainty and requiring ongoing heterogeneous collaboration among teams of researchers and practitioners, rapidly responding to unexpected changes. TBI also exists at the extremes, where teams must continually push technology to the limits of what is physically possible, in a reliable and systematic way in order to thrive. In this regard, TBI makes an ideal point of comparison with DRM.

To seek potential improvements to team collaboration in DRM, a research process was designed to ask: what -if any- insights concerning how to improve team performance can be drawn from the concepts and experiences of heterogeneous team collaboration, by comparing TBI to DRM? To answer this, a comparative analysis was undertaken, between the concepts and practical experiences in both DRM and TBI. A combined methods approach was used to meet the research question and overall aim, by using background research, a structured desk-based study and 8 semi-structured interviews with experienced practitioners from both DRM and TBI.

The results confirmed that DRM is highly complementary to TBI. Additionally, three major emergent themes were identified in the results, being: 1) New team perspectives; 2) Management and leadership; and 3) Related variety. New team perspectives is the assertion that a new way of analysing and understanding teams is needed for DRM contexts, given the near-infinite variety of team-types and objectives that can exist across DRM phases. Management and leadership is the recognition that in all collaborative teams, there is an essential role of management and leadership to guide, train and provide decisive directions to ensure teams can adapt effectively to various system changes. Finally, Related variety is the recognition that heterogeneity can create both benefits and costs to team collaboration: Heterogeneity is beneficial to collaborative teams when the variety among collaborators is strongly related and relevant to team objectives; conversely, if the variety among actors is too unrelated, then teams must devote increasing resources to maintain fundamentals of collaboration, creating an increased risk of dysfunction and failure of the team.

5 recommendations were drawn from the results, providing potential ways to improve team performance or to suggest further research. First, to investigate how team processes or leadership training might be better designed to facilitate divergence in teams, while still enabling harmonious collaboration. Second, to ensure strong related variety in teams by developing and standardising the practice of team selection and task distributions, implemented across the phases of DRM. Third, to maintain the primacy of leaders and lead-organisations, so that authority and hierarchy is recognised above other forms of consensus collaboration. Fourth, to improve the ability of DRM practitioners to collaborate using emerging technologies. And fifth, to develop systems and practices to better identify and adopt ongoing innovations in communication and technology. Of all the findings, related variety is perhaps the most novel, suggesting that diversity has nuances and degrees to which it can be either beneficial or costly; and should therefore be actively managed at all levels of collaboration.

Ultimately, this project offers novel insights to our understanding of heterogeneous team collaboration, relevant to all phases of DRM; and, arguably, to wider forms of collaboration. By understanding how and why heterogeneity can be managed during team collaboration, we stand to improve not only the impact on lives saved and other objectives of DRM teams, but also how to avoid risks of dysfunction that un-managed heterogeneity poses to collaborative ventures. Arguably, these findings provide novel insights not only for DRM but also for various levels of societal interactions; so that heterogeneity is managed sufficiently, to ensure that collaborative ventures remain functional and beneficial, while also encouraging improved performances among collaborative actors.

• author: Norris, Peter
• supervisor: Christian Uhr
• organization: Division of Risk Management and Societal Safety
• alternative title: A comparative analysis of concepts and experiences in heterogeneous team collaboration, between the fields of disaster risk management and innovation
• course: VBRM15 20172
• year: 2018
• type: H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
• subject: Technology and Engineering
• keywords: Disaster Risk Management, heterogeneous, team, collaboration, innovation, technology
• language: English
• id: 8960079
• date added to LUP: 2018-10-15 14:26:04
• date last changed: 2018-10-15 14:26:04