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The concept of "collective intelligence" is simple — it asserts that if a team performs well on one task, it will repeat that success on other projects, regardless of the scope or focus of the work. While it sounds good in theory, it doesn't work that way in reality, according to an Iowa State University researcher.
Marcus Credé, an assistant professor of psychology, says unlike individuals, group dynamics are too complex to predict a team's effectiveness with one general factor, such as intelligence. Instead, there are a variety of factors — leadership, group communication, decision-making skills —that affect a team's performance, he said.
Anita Woolley's research supporting collective intelligence quickly gained traction in the business world when it was first introduced in 2010. The attention was not surprising to Credé. Because organizations rely heavily on group work, managers are always looking for a "silver bullet" to improve team performance, he said. However, after re-analyzing the data gathered by Woolley and her colleagues, Credé and Garett Howardson, an assistant professor at Hofstra University, found the data didn't support the basic premise of collective intelligence. Their work is published in the Journal of Applied Psychology.
[Source]: You would not ask a firefighter to perform open-heart surgery
Do you agree with this premise?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 19 2017, @03:39PM
But in a large team, you've got a much better chance that there's at least one who can do that work. Of course if the team gets too large, the probability grows that there are at least two who could do it, which means they will start fighting each other, which brings down effectiveness. Therefore the best team size is the one that maximizes the probability that there is exactly one person in it who is able to do the work.
The job of the team manager is to identify that person, and keep the others busy to make sure they don't interfere with that one person's work.