Inevitably, there will be more resources available in the outside world than are readily available to team members. Learning from outside sources keeps the R&D process fresh, allows for fact-checking and verification early in the process, and can solve problems much more efficiently than reinventing the wheel in-house. The potential for information overload must be appreciated, though; too much of a good thing is often too much. Below are tips for managing information acquisition and making sense of external sources.

Learning from external sources is essential to a team’s eventual success. However, there are so many potential sources of information out there that they can become a trap—too much information can be worse than no information at all if that information is not effectively integrated and used. What follows are notes on common external sources of information and their potential value and limitations.

Textbooks, Journal Articles, and Books

The library is a great place to start research. This should be obvious, but it is amazing how many team members fail to start here and thus miss out on potentially valuable sources of information.

One reason behind this is that the wealth of information out there is daunting; it’s hard to know where to begin. Course textbooks are often a good starting point because they are designed to be comprehensive investigations of a particular problem that reduce information to essential lessons. Most offer the reader additional resources to pursue investigation further.

Journal articles, conference papers, technical papers, and academic books are usually the next logical step. Again, there is a wealth of information available from these sources, often too much. It is impossible to be fully aware of all published sources on a given topic; information production is rapidly outpacing an individual’s ability to read it. Hitting key sources is essential. You can do this by noting references in publications—usually the key sources are cited by many articles and books, and lesser or more specialized resources are cited less.

This is not to say that you should ignore less-cited resources . If you do require a very esoteric piece of information, you can probably find it in a less-cited resource.

Often, asking for research assistance can reduce complexity. Faculty advisors and university librarians can be excellent resources to help you focus your research and target especially valuable resources.

Expert Lectures and Consultation

Sometimes, the quickest way to integrate new information is to solicit the assistance of those already skilled in a particular field. A quick half-hour or hour lecture or consultation can be an effective way of learning new information and disseminating it to all team members.

Some teams are very adept at leveraging this. The Solar Decathlon team, for example, runs a weekly lecture series as part of course requirements, bringing in local and external experts to talk to the team about their areas of expertise. In addition, the team’s architectural design is vetted by panels of experts both here and externally, providing even more expert feedback and advice on the team’s work. Setting up and running such lectures and expert consultation can be complicated and perhaps not relevant for all teams and the problems they face, but they are certainly worthwhile options to consider.

Popular, Trade, and Online Sources

Formal expert sources are not the only or necessarily even the best sources of information for some problems. Many problems are best solved with the advice of lay sources found in less academically rigorous publications like popular magazines, trade magazines, Web sites, blogs, etc. These sources can be valuable in researching industry contacts and soliciting the feedback and advice of lay practitioners in a field.

Due care must be taken with such sources, however. Many popular and trade magazines in particular are not peer-reviewed, whereas most academic journals are. This can lead to potentially partial or biased sources of information: e.g., a company-written article that is little more than a thinly disguised marketing pitch or an individually written piece that is little more than an opinion. Online sources in particular can be of varying and occasionally dubious levels of quality. Don’t ignore these sources, but do treat them with some caution and skepticism. They are probably best used in conjunction with more reliable or expert opinions.

Competitive Intelligence

Often, the best source of information regarding the dynamics of a particular student engineering team competition is competing teams.

Many engineering competitions are surprisingly cooperative affairs. Most team members are proud of their work and eager to discuss it with others. In the case of Formula SAE, the team deliberately recruits new members a month before the May competition because the competition itself is a key learning experience. With 140 schools and hundreds of engineers onsite, the competition itself is a great way to learn about what one’s competitors are doing. Spring recruits on FSAE return in August with only a month more seniority than fall recruits but are usually considerably more expert and start the year off with a much shorter learning curve.

Competitive intelligence is also increasingly done between competitions through online communication channels. Forums such as FSAE.com are excellent sources of information in general but probably most valuable in determining what other teams are up to.

Of course, this source is partial and biased in its own right. Even in a highly cooperative environment, other teams are still competitors and are not likely to divulge information that will compromise their success or substantially increase your chance to best them in competition.

Reducing Information Complexity

Learning through these and internal sources of information is essential for a team’s success. However, too much of a good thing can be simply too much. Many team members get bogged down with information overload and find it difficult to cease research and move to development.

Consider making limitations on research a key element of the design phase. Structures like design reviews help streamline the research process by setting key deadlines for the resolution of any research investigation.