Building Engineering Team Skills

California State University, East Bay Foundation, Inc., Hayward CA

Investigators

Abstract

The Building Engineering Team Skills Program proposes to determine industry best practices by culling practitioners' experience and expertise and then adapting those practices to build engineering team skills as part of the University educational experience. There is a great need for research to determine what capabilities, characteristics and dispositions of engineers working on teams are most valued by industry. Similarly, there is a great need to understand what practices best serve to create and nurture which team skills. Best practices will be determined through multiple research methodologies targeting multiple respondent sources and utilizing a phased approach. Completion of each phase will provide results specifically designed to inform the next research phase. There will be three phases consisting of Manager Interviews, Manager Survey, and Engineer Survey. After the research phases determining skill value and the best practices for creating those skills have been completed, then course curricula, materials and exercises will be planned. Activities will first occur at California State University Hayward, then at University of California, Berkeley, two institutions rich in the diversity of their underrepresented student populations.