Multidisciplinary approach
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Multidisciplinary approach includes the drawing appropriately from multiple disciplines (such as sociology, geography, planning, engineering, architecture and design, economics, public health, cybernetics, statistics, systems thinking etc) to define and apply new ways of understanding complex situations. Most recently this method of working has been adopted in the specialist field of computer security by practitioners such as Gene Spafford and Sarah Gordon.
In the 1960s and 1970s the multidisciplinary approach was successfully employed in the UK by architects, engineers and quantity surveyors working together on major public sector construction projects and, together with planners, sociologists, geographers and economists, on overseas regional and urban planning projects. Three London based professional practices led the field: Ove Arup & Partners, Colin Buchanan & Partners and Robert Matthew Johnson-Marshall & Partners (RMJM).
In 1980 RMJM introduced multidisciplinary working combined with US professional practices on its Milton Keynes projects for the Burroughs Corporation when it delivered on-time, on-cost and on-spec new residential training, system benchmarking and product distribution facilities at half the usual UK full-service fee of some 15 percent. This exceptional performance would have been impossible without the multidisciplinary approach combined with an innovative approach to the management of project roles and responsibilities.
Historically the first practical use of the multidisciplinary approach was during the Second World War by what became known as the military-industrial complex. Notably the Lockheed Aircraft Company set up its own special projects operation - nick-named the skunk works - in 1943 to develop the XP-80 jet fighter aircraft in just 143 days.
Multidisciplinary working is often seen as revolutionary by skill-centred specialists but it is simply a fundamental expression of being guided by holism rather than reductionism, as described by Jan Smuts in his 1926 book Holism and Evolution. One of the major barriers to the multidisciplinary approach is the long established tradition of highly focused professional practitioners cultivating a protective (and thus restrictive) boundary around their area of expertise. This tradition has generally been found not to work to the benefit of the wider public interest and has recently become of interest to government agencies and some enlightened professional bodies recognising the advantages of systems thinking in the field of complex problem solving.
The use of the term 'multidisciplinary' has in recent years been overtaken by the term 'interdisciplinary' (a Google ratio of 86 : 214 in mid-August 2006) for what is essentially holistic working by another name. The former term tends to relate to practitioner led working while the later term tends to carry a more academic overtone.
The difference between multidisciplinary approach and interdisciplinary approach'
An interdisciplinary approach to any situation is slightly different from that of a multidisciplinary approach. A multidisciplinary approach involves different parties working together in order to combat a particular problem. An interdisciplinary approach also involves different parties working together but in a much more integrated structure.
An example of this would be in the field of sports science support. If an athlete had a torn muscle injury, having a physiotherapist rehabilitate it, biomechanist look at the technical problem that may have caused the injury while a psychologist works to build up the athlete's confidence in the injury, would be a multidisciplinary approach. For the approach to be interdisciplinary, the specialists would have to come together and devise a plan of action to combat the injury problem and work together with open minds in order to integrate each of their specialist areas of expertises and knowledge.
