Recording of team meeting’s processes with electronic devices can be problematic because of the invasiveness of the process: issues with privacy; interpretation difficulty with noise or quiet speech; and distortion of participants’ behaviour. There is a need for less intrusive methods. We developed the interaction diagram method by extending the directed graph nature of sociograms to capture the time sequence of events, including the identification of the person, communication behaviour, and duration of interactions. The method was tested on engineering team meetings. Data processing by quantitative and qualitative analysis is shown to be feasible. Several team roles were observed in the engineering context: Initiator; Passive collector; Explorer; Information provider; Facilitator; Arbitrator; Representative; Gatekeeper; Connector; and Outsider. The work provides a graphical representation of the record of the interaction flow during meetings. It does this without needing video recording. It is also an efficient method, as it does not require subsequent transcription or coding. It provides a procedure to quickly analyse communication situations, identify group roles, and compare group activity at different meetings.

Team communication plays a vital role in engineering management, however, there is a paucity of work that examines how team roles emerge as a response to the communicative processes between participants. This research explored role adoption using qualitative methods comprising observations, questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. Five student teams doing final year projects at a university in New Zealand were observed during the academic year and then interviewed at the final stage of project completion. A number of team roles in the engineering context were identified for students and their supervisors: Explorer; Initiator; Facilitator; Active and Passive Information Provider; Outsider; Active and Passive Connector; Passive Collector; Arbitrator; Gatekeeper and Representative. Personal factors, such as social sensitivity, were correlated with the choice of team behaviour pattern. In addition, the team roles could be arranged in circular order to create a circumplex, the two axes of which were identified as Personal Agency/Communion and Social engagement/Social disengagement.

Background: communication is important for project teams. There is a need to better understand how members respond to communication at project meetings, and how this affects the team roles the participants adopt. Methods: observational data were collected from (a) two engineering organisations and (b) five university engineering student teams. A mixed methods approach was used, comprising observations (recorded with the interaction diagram method), questionnaires and interviews. Results: participants adjusted their communication style to the behaviour of other people and to different communication settings. This happened with three different dynamics: micro-level (grounding processes in conversation), mezzo-level (emotional and rational regulation) and macro-level (over a period of time). Originality: a new theory was presented for the process of team behaviour during project meetings; specifically, role adoption and communication behavioural changes. Participants change their team roles within three different dynamics: at the macro-, mezzo- and micro-levels, corresponding to the organisation, project and meeting, respectively. The changing of team roles in project meetings arises from rational and emotional regulation. The findings have the potential to assist managers and supervisors to better understand and manage the team dynamics on their projects.

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