How do you make design decisions as a "team"?

[Peggy Painter]

This has been our rookie year and, as of last night, our team is still eating meals together so we're not too bad off.....however, as the group leader (and a NEMO! ) my big challenge has been trying get the group--kids & adults to communicate their ideas and to make group decisions, especially on design matters.

I'm trying to keep our group a kid-led group, however the kids aren't technically skilled enough or developmentally ready to do everything and I'm afraid that when adults make suggestions the kids are reluctant to contribute. And I have noticed that kids & adults (myself included) can get emotionally attached to our design ideas.

How do other teams work through the process of developing a design & build plan?

Is there a standard process amongst engineers for collaborating on team building projects?

Do any of you mentors go to sleep at night after a meeting and NOT wake up in the wee hours concerned about how things went?