How to Make Smart Collaboration Work in Multidisciplinary Teams

A key capability to work in multidisciplinary teams is smart collaboration. While previous research has elaborated on starting smart collaboration in firms, less is known about how to move smart collaboration from initial starting projects towards excellent implementation. In this design science project, we address this question and develop design knowledge on how to move smart collaboration from good to great in a firm working with multidisciplinary teams. We outline a situated artifact for the collaborating firm (i.e., The Firm) and infer more general design principles based on this study. This study contributes in three ways. First, it develops a situated artifact for improving smart collaboration in a firm relying on multidisciplinary teams. Second, it develops more general design principles on improving smart collaboration in professional service firms. Third, it provides initial empirical evidence for the quality of the proposed design object.