Had the privilege of hearing a presentation by Brian Binnie, the test pilot for Scaled Composites (http://scaled.com http://scaled.com) shortly before they won

Had the privilege of hearing a presentation by Brian Binnie, the test pilot for Scaled Composites (http://scaled.com http://scaled.com) shortly before they won Ansari XPrize back in 2004. His description of their team sounded like the ultimate group of hackers. And his description of their process sounded exactly like the questions you ask above... discarding all preconceived notions, how do we make this happen in the cheapest, simplest way possible? He also advised that teams adopt a mantra of "Question, don't defend." In other words, it's more important to realize that something is wrong and get it fixed than to assign blame or respect egos.