After the Implosion: Strategies for Engineering Communication Conflict Resolution

After the Implosion: Strategies for Engineering Communication Conflict Resolution:  Often, communication advice focuses on the prevention of team conflict and the strengthening of team dynamics. Unfortunately, despite this guidance, team dynamics and communication can still implode, leaving teams to wonder what to do after a breakdown in communication. In response, Dr. Jonathan Adams brings expertise in rhetorical theory and engineering communication to craft a new use for the traditional root cause analysis techniques used in the field of engineering. He describes how they might be used within our rhetorical infrastructures to get to the root of our communication issues, rather than solving our surface level team problems. His methods help engineering and scientific teams who are suffering from various communication breakdowns to get back on track in productive and lasting ways.

Dr. Jonathan Adams is an Assistant Professor of Rhetoric and Composition at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University where he directs the cross-disciplinary writing program. He teaches in integrated mechanical engineering capstone courses where he works with teams of engineering students to assist their communication while designing space-propulsion, energy, and robotics projects. Dr. Adams’ is a rhetorical theorist whose research focuses on persuasion in interdisciplinary fields and his theories of infrastructural rhetoric and locational fidelity have been published in Technical Communication Quarterly, Replay, and the American Society for Engineering Education.