Work alone or in teams
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- MSTRPLN
Interesting article on the concept of "The New Groupthink". Debating the value of working alone or working in teams for creativity.
"Most of us now work in teams, in offices without walls, for managers who prize people skills above all. Lone geniuses are out. Collaboration is in."
- clearThoughts0
depends on what you call "work"
- doesnotexist0
knowing when to regroup is called wisdom
- monospaced0
I read the article, and I see the trend. The only way I can contribute to the discussion is to reflect on my own working methods.
I think there is a lot to be said for group collaboration and I believe it can truly enhance the creative process. Yet, from experience, there are two situations in which I come up with my best ideas. 1) Alone. Working alone for hours, isolated, running through a multitude of concepts and refining. 2) Adding to another's ideas.
The only way 2) seems to work best is if the ideas coming to the table were created in isolation first using method 1). Coming up with initial ideas in a collaborative setting is akin to too many chefs in a kitchen. More time is wasted brainstorming and discussing instead of just free-thinking.
So, in conclusion, experience has shown that for me, working alone and working in collaboration go hand-in-hand. I prefer to send designers off to come up with ideas, and then we come together to share them. Once we're at that stage we build off each other's ideas and the result is always better than what we came up with alone.