The Importance of Pairwork in Interdisciplinary and Educational Initiatives

The Importance of Pairwork in Interdisciplinary and Educational Initiatives David E. Goldberg Illinois Foundry for Innovation in Engineering Education University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Urbana, IL 61801 USA [email_address] & www.ifoundry.illinois.edu

Motivation

Georges Harik, early Google employee, gave talk at Illinois in 2008 as part of Engineering & Technology Studies at Illinois series ( here ).

Asserted that pairs in startups 20x more productive than singletons.

Intellectual smack upside the head for me: Four experiences of pairwork in educational and interdisciplinary initiatives.

Observed that from cold war to quality revolution moved from lone engineers to teamwork.

Wondered two things:

Is pairwork undervalued with respect to teamwork? Went from 1  n, but skipped 2.

Could qualitative and little quantitative models recover Harik’s 20x boost?

Roadmap

Great pairs in history.

Invisible pairs.

Complementary skills only part of the story.

A sixfold qualitative theory of pairwork.

Crossing qual-quant divide  3 little models (LMs).

Personal reflections on pairwork.

Academic & managerial implications of theory.

Great Pairs in Tech History

Wilbur & Orville Wright: Powered flight.

David Packard and Bill Hewlett: HP.

John C. & James F. Lincoln Brothers: Lincoln Arc Welding.

Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak: Apple Computer.

Larry Page and Sergey Brin: Google.

Great founding pairs not evidence of pairwork by itself.

Invisible Pairs

Great “lone” inventors often surrounded by individuals to complement skills.

Call these invisible pairs.

Example: Thomas A. Edison.

Edison had many important assistants:

William J. Hammer

Charles Batchelor

Samuel Insull

Complementary Skills: Part of Story

Complementary skills part of the story.

Recognized in the literature of teamwork.

Clearly part of the equation.

Common bilateral alignments:

Tech-business.

Insider-outsider.

Big picture v. details.

Gregarious v. introverted.

Discipline 1 v. Discipline 2 .

Think externally in terms of task .

Qualitative Theory of Pairwork

Sixfold decomposition:

Complementary skills, signature strengths, or personality traits.

Personal compatibility.

Coordination costs.

Dialectic creativity.

Motivational leveling.

Sociocultural negotiation in miniature.

Consider each in turn.

Complementarity

Complementary

Strengths

Personality traits

Skills

Complementarity is relative to task & is largely about results external to the pair.

Good pairs complement on multiple dimensions.

Complementary skills subject to minimal personal affinity for effective sustained work.

Compatibility

Do not need to be best friends.

Do need to

Work well over sustained period.

Respect each other’s talents and contributions.

Think of compatibility as a constraint.

Maximize other qualities subject to minimal compatibility.

Complementarity is about task. Compatibility is about relationship, internal to the workings of the pair.

Dialectic Creativity

Pairwise interrogatory to arrive at better solution.

Organizational innovation literature (Poole et al.) recognizes dialectic as critical model.

Step from singleton to pair: mental debate  real debate.

“ Two heads better than one.”

Step qualitative improvement in solution quality.

Think of creativity of civilization following 5th century BC in Athens.

Coordination Costs

Working by yourself no real coordination (issues of time management).

Working with others very real costs:

Communicate.

Negotiate.

Decide.

Decompose & distribute work.

Synchronize & reintegrate.

Pair: Grouping with real dialectic & minimal coordination.

Motivational Leveling

Mood swings and motivation of single person can be significant.

With two people, chances that one is up and can raise other are high.

Alternating pushing toward common goal.

One person depends on the other.

Doesn’t want to let the other down.

Negotiation in Miniature

When pairs come from different sociocultural backgrounds, each has knowledge about respective culture.

When pair negotiates conditions, brings tacit knowledge of culture.

Acceptable to each, then likely to be acceptable to others from two cultures.

Can then recruit & communicate credibly with new members.

Especially important in radically interdisciplinary ventures.

Example: Getting philosophers & engineers to meet at Workshop on Philosophy & Engineering.

Three Little Models

Used term “little models” to talk about facetwise or simplified quantiative models in engineering.

Fuller discussion in The Design of Innovation.

Three little models:

LM1: Complementarity

LM2: Motivational leveling

LM3: Dialectic creativity

Product model: Probabilistic patchquilt integration.

LM1: Complementary Skills

Assume person 1 good at skill one, successful with probability p, and successful at skill two with probability q = 1 – p  (p, q).

Person 2 is complement (q, p).

Singleton:

Pair:

Boost, B:

Minimum B = 2.25@p1=0.25, approaches 1/p1.

LM2: Motivational Leveling

Assume individual is up with probability p 2 = 1 – q 2 .

Assume that pair is up when one or other is up.

Pair is up when both are not down: (1- q 2 ) 2 .

Motivational leveling boost B 2 is ratio of pairwise success to singleton:

ML boost can be as great as 2.

LM3: Dialectic Creativity

Singleton:

Assume singleton has probability p 3 of being creative on given challenge.

Without further interaction, assume individual is stuck.

Pair:

Pairwise one shot success of creativity is 2 p 3 – p 3 2

Pairs continue to innovate  approaches success probability of one.

Dialect boost approaches B 3 = 1/ p 3 .

Product Model

Assume independence of LM1, LM2, LM3.

Boost of overall model is product of individual boosts.

Exact model precision unimportant.

Asymptotic model of overall boost B approaches

Let p 1 = p 3 = 0.2  B = 50.

Personal Reflections

Georges Harik’s remark: pairs 20x more productive ( http://www-illigal.ge.uiuc.edu/ETSI ).

Education & interdisciplinary activities led by pairs:

Engineering and Technology Studies at Illinois (w/ Michael Loui): Michael inside community, DEG salesman and fundraiser.

iFoundry curriculum reform (w/ Andreas Cangellaris): Andreas connections to larger campus and optimistic & DEG idea guy, but skeptical.

Workshop on Philosophy & Engineering (w/ Ibo van de Poel): DEG engineer & Ibo philosopher.

Olin-Illinois Partnership ( www.ifoundry.illinois.edu and www.apie2.org ), Sherra Kerns at Olin (little school & engin ed insider) & DEG (big school & marketer).

Implications of Theory

Key point: More attention to facilitating great pairwork.

Facilitating pairwork: Create incentives, remove obstacles, and facilitate recruitment of complementary individuals.

Routine activities vs. creative activities: Routine leadership assumes unified command & emphasis on execution of known tasks. Should interdisciplinary structures & educational initiatives have leadership pairs more often?