First year cross-functional design teams: Engineering and business

Engineers need to be able to work on cross-functional teams. Some researchers advocate exposing first year students to the professional skills, and then reinforce them throughout the curriculum. A collaborative effort was made between a first-year introductory engineering course and an introductory marketing course. As each team of engineers worked on a product improvement design project, a team of marketing students developed a marketing plan for their proposed product. Nearly 40% of the engineering projects incorporated very specific design changes as a direct result of the input from their marketing partners. Further, an additional 46.5% of the teams seriously considered the marketing input. As expected, the greatest obstacle was finding meeting times that would work for both teams. Although appreciated, 25% of students indicated communication with non-engineers was difficult. Despite these obstacles, the collaboration was successful in promoting cross-functional teamwork. Many students, 69%, valued the input and indicated the best aspect of this project was learning to communicate with non-engineers.