Numerous theories exist today on teamwork and teambuilding. From a distance of thirty years, it seems to me that more than chance brought our small planning team together. Each one of us—and each of our consultants as well—turned out to be vital for the making of the Londonderry plan. The contribution of consultants proved to be essential in the successful outcome of the plan and the absence of even one of the participants, whether staff or consultant, would have greatly diminished the end result. Interestingly as it turned out, the backgrounds and philosophical outlook of everyone involved were so intertwined thatwe could almost anticipate each others thoughts.Not that therewasn't argument and even dissension at times, but the infrequent nature and substance of the arguments and the goodwill and humour of the participants, combinedwith incredible dedication and hard work, enabled us to accomplishmuchwithin a very short time.

While at least half the teamhad known each other formany years in the Munce office and had established good working relationships, there were other factors influencing the strong philosophical direction that evolved during the making of the plan. Paramount was the influence of the pioneering, turn-of-the-century planner, Patrick Geddes. The attitude of Geddes to industrialised countries was succinctly explained by Percy Johnson-Marshall who wrote that:

Also important to the team was the emphasis Geddes placed on survey, and we were always mindful of his paradigm of Place, Folk and Work. I suspect also that with the exception of the engineers on the team we were all in some way Utopians, although I personally liked to think of myself as a pragmatist—a term then in vogue and frequently overused by British Prime Minister Harold Wilson, a Socialist. Peter Daniel, Mike Murray, and I all had strong Edinburgh connections where the ideas of Geddes and his ‘Outlook Tower’ had been kept alive by Johnson- Marshall.