Complexity Skills Development for Transdisciplinary Knowledge Producing Teams (TDKPTs)

Transdisciplinary knowledge producing teams (TDKPTs) dedicate their efforts to solving wicked problems. Successful TDKPTs embody characteristics of complex adaptive systems (CAS) and exemplify behaviors associated with human adaptation. Individuals within these types of work groups are highly interactive and perform within complex environments where structural and interactive dynamics are constantly at play. We use a complex adaptive systems (CAS) lens to identify and define the features of TDKPTs and suggest how team members might develop skills that are more congruent with complex adaptive conditions. Acknowledging these dynamics and mapping the skills required to effectively work within these teams is at the heart of ensuring that teams meet their required outcomes. Once identified, behavioral measurement techniques can be devised that link behaviors to team effectiveness allowing for further research to be conducted using these behavioral competencies as indicators of team member readiness and abilities to work in complex adaptive environments. Science-of-Team-Science (SciTS) and complexity and systems theory contribute to construct a typology of the features of TDKPTs based on systems and interactive complexities. A list of features and corresponding skills foci are developed from a diverse body of literature useful for considering complexity within TDKPTs.

Learning Objectives:

1.  Evaluate a cross-disciplinarity team approach using complex adaptive systems in Transdisciplinary Knowledge Producing Teams (TKPTS). 

2. Identify complexity challenges for TKPTS.

3. Generate Complexity focused competencies for TKPTS.