Introduction Due to societal changes there has been an increasing demand for ‘T’ shaped professionals who are able to apply 21st century skills to the creative process of solving design challenges [1]. These skills include among others “collaborative working, creativity, critical thinking and problem solving” [1]. Working in multidisciplinary teams makes learning, applying and developing these skills most suitable. Therefore Van Hout en Gootjes proposed the SCREAM! approach for Multidisciplinary Design Teams that allows multidisciplinary teams to learn, apply and develop these 21st century skills during the design process [1]. A recurring problem in the design process of Multidisciplinary Design Teams is the notion of design waste. Design waste happens when parts of the valuable work of the Multidisciplinary Design Team are lost or unavailable for creative reuse. Therefore teams are not able to build upon others work and keep reinventing the wheel. This takes time, creates double work and impedes the creation of better products. This paper proposes an addition to the SCREAM! approach that will make ‘communicating the process’ with others more effective and subsequently should prevent design waste in- and outside the Multidisciplinary Design Teams. Theoretical framework The term Multidisciplinary (Design) Team is defined in different contexts and in different fields. There has been academic literature published about multidisciplinary (design) teams in the context of engineering, project management and in the medical field. In this paper a Multidisciplinary Design Team is defined as a team of creatives who combine “multiple sources of knowledge, ways of working, and perspectives on problems” [2]. According to Evers combining different disciplines and different skills does not automatically mean that these teams achieve success. Problems such as “define collective
objectives”, “develop team-based insight”, “streamline communication” and “manage decision-making” can arise during the process [2]. However the problem of design waste and how it is defined in this paper has not been discussed in academic literature thus far. In the context of engineering there has been published literature about concepts that are related to the notion of design waste. Kleinsmann and Valkenburg for example discuss the benefits of creating a shared understanding. A shared understanding will enable the multidisciplinary teams “to integrate and explore their knowledge, and to achieve the larger common objective” [3]. This can be difficult, because the team members are all viewing the objective from different backgrounds, disciplines and with different interests [4]. The integration of data, information and knowledge is necessary to design and create new products [4][5]. Problems that can occur while researching and designing, are negative iteration and design errors [6] Knowledge is either forgotten or neglected or not possessed in the first place [6]. These problems are wasteful, because they “can be eliminated without loss of value or causing failure to complete the project” [6]. Therefore it is important to reuse design knowledge. Design knowledge is defined as a combination of “documentation”, “past designs”, “complex methodologies” as well as “a whole range of informal and formal sources developed through discussions and meetings” [5]. Defining design waste In order to understand where and when 'design waste' occurs in design processes, it is critical that these processes are mapped out. The SCREAM! approach is based on the agile work frame named SCRUM. However SCRUM does not provide the Multidisciplinary Design Teams with enough space for creative input and applied research [1]. An important element that was added to the approach, to enable creativity and applied research, is the Design Method Toolkit. The Design Method Toolkit consists of a set of 60 methods that are most suitable