Dynamically capturing engineering team interactions with wearable technology

This paper addresses the need of matching the product architecture and the interactions in design teams. A new method for this of how to build agile design teams was first introduced in 2013. We conducted a method-confirming study during spring 2014 where the same study-setup was tested. An idea of gathering interaction data of this study dynamically with a device occurred and led to prototyping with different technologies and concepts. We built a wearable device that is able to detect proximity of other similar devices in front of it nearby and this acts as a proxy for interaction. The device is based on an open source Arduino platform and a radio frequency transceiver chip. User testing of the proof of concept prototype shew promising results of acceptance and robustness. In future research we should be able to to see in real-time how system components and organizational interactions are in interplay with each other, where are the resources used, and thus learn from it how to build better design teams and manage their allocation and interfaces more effectively throughout the various phases of the product and systems development process.