The shape of teamwork: visualising collective design dynamics through synergy bands

ABSTRACT: Divergence and convergence are central to design processes, but can these patterns be made visible, and what might they reveal? This paper examines design team dynamics through NLP by tracing cognitive trajectories in weekly reflections. Textual data are transformed into numerical values and plotted in a Synergy Diagram, enabling instructors to monitor team bands. This paper consists of a four year study covers 48 project teams and 250 participants, comparing team bands across multiple bandwidth measures and showing how they vary against a design outcome, such as total grades (TG).