Research into future air vehicles incorporating novel technologies is characterized by a high number of interacting disciplines which need to be considered. Despite advances in numeric interfacing techniques for participative Multidisciplinary Design and Optimisation (pMDO), it is not well understood how to build a team of specialists who jointly operate shared tools and gain system level insight. This contribution shifts focus to the human MDO participants and their working environment. Three aspects of collaboration are considered: (a) design of cognitive experiments to measure engineering performance in different settings; (b) integration of prior experience through a Lessons Leaned process; and (c) the application of the above into the enhancement of Integrated Design Laboratory (IDL). The pronunciation of competence and working environment, rather than software tools or data, opens opportunities for attractive use cases.