Culture Coaching: A Model for Facilitating Globally Distributed Collaborative Work

Engineering students engaged in product-based learning typically see what they have produced, but do not as easily see what they have learned. In a joint course between the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden and Stanford University, U.S., graduate students from each university worked in high performance design-development teams on globally distributed scenarios for an industrial client. One of the difficulties of distributed teamwork is establishing team cohesion, trust, and credibility early in the project. Recognizing these challenges, an intervention engaging local "culture coaches" was implemented. Each coach served as a facilitator and interpreter of each team\´s similarities and differences with regards to local class culture as well as the social culture. In the study, the work of the culture coaches contributed to a more unified team identity and increased student awareness of learning in the design process and product