Group Think in the Engineering Profession

In his book, Going to Extremes, Sunstein discusses how when like-minded people work together, they often gravitate toward extremism on shared views. Collaborating with like-minded individuals has a lot of drawbacks. For instance, there is less wealth of information because everyone possesses similar viewpoints and reasoning for these opinions. Furthermore, there is a failure to consider the opposing viewpoint and why they might think in such a way.

As an engineer, I can fully appreciate the value of working with a diverse group of people. The field of engineering is a very innovative one that emphasizes a group approach to problem solving. However, engineers did not always operate in this manner. Before the 1980s, engineers practiced an "over-the-wall" approach of design and manufacturing. Design engineers would develop a prototype and then send it to manufacturers to be built to completion. Then the product would be tested and redesigned to correct its failures. As you can imagine, this was a very costly mechanism for implementing new designs.

In 1980, a man named Taguchi came along and introduced a better approach to engineering design. He suggested the collaboration of engineers and manufacturers in developing a design. In doing so, engineers were able to better understand the limitations of materials and machinery as communicated by the manufacturers. The manufacturers also spent less time building products that were prone to failure. This group work saved companies a lot of money and used time a lot more efficiently.

This instance provides a good example of the importance of heterogeneity in group work. Taguchi promoted diversity in engineering as Sunstein promotes diversity in politics and other settings.