Interview participants said that the added scientific complexity of TD team science had greater potential to produce holistic findings with practical relevance to real-world problems, but created added project management challenges. TD science that incorporated data at multiple levels of analysis, from multiple sources, oftentimes required new data management systems. In addition, because TD team science often involved more collaborators, management and coordination of the research team required greater investments of time and effort, and a unique set of expertise. Composing the research team; developing a unified mission, vision and shared research questions; and managing the team's collaboration during the course of the research project all were more labor intensive than in more traditional research approaches. In addition, a unique skill set was required to deal with the multiple departments, colleges, universities or organizations that were involved in large TD teams. One participant used the analogy of “steering a large ship” to describe the skill and effort involved in successfully managing a large TD research center.
