Joining together is a beginning, keeping together is progress, working together is success.
~Henry Ford on teamwork
AbstractEffective team functioning is one of the key ABET criteria and is also essential for successful capstone design work. Existing teamwork enhancement practices focus on key factors such as contributions of team members, balancing skills and personality types, fostering a constructive team climate, and response to conflict; however, the best method for forming successful teams is still the subject of debate. In the Senior Capstone Design course at Northeastern University, no explicit instruction in team functioning is provided at present. Teams are typically studentformed when possible; however, the course coordinator needs to ensure that team formation outcomes align with the course constraints -such as of number of projects, number of faculty advisors, and team size of 4-5 students-and must form teams when students are unable to. In terms of project assignments, students rank possible projects, and although an attempt is made to give them one of their top choices, this is not always possible. In this work, the two types of teams, student-formed and instructor-formed, are examined to see if there are any differences in terms of design quality, project completeness/implementation, and final prototype grade. Assessment tools include the validated prototype scoring system previously developed by one of the authors. Teams were categorized based on how the teams were formed -instructor versus student, topic preference -students initial ranking of their assigned project, what percentage of the team members were actively chosen by other team members, and whether they were chosen based on skill or work style, and/or because of friendship, and the degree to which their assigned advisor was among their top choice. The team's passion and commitment to their project was also assessed, using an operational definition of this engagement factor. Results show that teams who select team members themselves with an eye to the skills and work style of their team members have high final scores and also a high level of commitment to and passion for the project. Additionally, it seems that neither the actual topic of the project nor the team advisor necessarily affects the outcomes of the project. Findings will inform guidelines for capstone team formation and future coaching of the students in general and in capstone teams once formed. Results will help determine what type of team-formation protocol is recommended and the coaching intervention may improve the performance of potentially low-functioning teams.