Social Issues in IT Project Teams

Author(s):  
Awie C. Leonard ◽  
D. H. Van Zyl

The role and impact of social issues in IT project teams should not be under estimated. With the involvement of virtual project teams, this is even more relevant. One such social issue is the establishment of relationships between members of teams. The establishment and maintenance of social relationships and networks in the IT project environment is a phenomenon all IT professionals are exposed to and in many cases involved in. The question is what impact such social relationships and networks might have on the success or failure of any given IT project? The objective of this chapter is therefore to emphasize the important role social relationships and networks play in the IT project team environment. Furthermore, to illustrate to the management of software project teams how such relationships can have a positive or negative impact on team members. In this regard a climate or culture should be allowed for these relationships to flourish to the benefit of the IT department.

Author(s):  
Awie C. Leonard ◽  
D. H. Van Zyl

The role and impact of social issues in IT project teams should not be underestimated. With the involvement of virtual project teams, this is even more relevant. One such social issue is the establishment of relationships between members of teams. The establishment and maintenance of social relationships and networks in the IT project environment is a phenomenon all IT professionals are exposed to and in many cases involved in. The question is what impact such social relationships and networks might have on the success or failure of any given IT project. The objective of this chapter is therefore to emphasize the important role social relationships and networks play in the IT project team environment and furthermore, to illustrate to the management of software project teams how such relationships can have a positive or negative impact on team members. In this regard, a climate or culture should be allowed for these relationships to flourish to the benefit of the IT department.


2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Awie Leonard

The establishment of social relationships between information technology (IT) project team members is a phenomenon all IT professionals are exposed to and, in many cases, involved in. Furthermore, these relationships are used by IT project team members for personal as well as professional purposes. The question is what positive or negative contributions do these kinds of relationships have on the project itself? Past studies have placed little focus on these social relationships and networks, and have failed to take cognisance of their importance in the IT project environment. This paper demonstrates that social relationships and networks in the IT project environment play a significant role in project teams and should be managed in such a way that the team members and the project as a whole can benefit from them. A partial grounded theory (GT) research approach was followed. Interpretive patterns from GT enabled inferences to be drawn about the role and impact of social relationships and networks in IT project teams. The research findings provide practical considerations and highlight potential problem areas. A conceptual framework is proposed to support management in decision making and to give them a better understanding of the complexities involved in such relationships.


Author(s):  
Daniel M. Brandon

Managing IT projects and being on an IT project team used to be simpler. PMs typically had one project to manage, and team members were on only one team. All the team members were located in close geographic proximity, and the work was all done at the workplace. Currently the project landscape has become much more complex, where everyone is concerned with multiple projects and teams may be spread out all over the world. The business needs of cutting costs and being quicker to market have increased the pressures on project teams and their managers. According to the “Chaos Report” from the Standish Group (2004), unqualified IT project success only occurs in about one third of IT projects,. To improve this success rate, many associations (such as the IT Governance Institute) and companies are investigating broad IT governance issues. In regard to project management, these broad issues include such matters as project portfolio management, corporate-wide comprehensive standard project policies and procedures, and project knowledge management. As a vehicle for such consolidation and standardization and to deal with the complexities of project teams, companies have started to establish a Project management office (PMO). The PMO, its key current functions, and the future role of the PMO in global projects, project management maturity, Web portals, and strategic planning are discussed further in this chapter.


2004 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Leonard

This paper introduces a model of three maturity levels, which helps managers to evaluate end user involvement during systems development. This model is based on research done in terms of how relationships between IT departments and end users are constructed. The value of the three levels lies therein that it gives the IT department the advantage of understanding and supporting the end user in a more effective way during systems development. The model also enhances more efficient interaction between all participants of a project team. Furthermore, it gives management on the IT and business side the ability to establish training needs for both the end users and IT professionals of software project teams. End users on the other hand, who are aware of their level of maturity, could play a more efficient role during the systems development process.


Author(s):  
Zsolt T. Kosztyán ◽  
Eszter Bogdány ◽  
István Szalkai ◽  
Marcell T. Kurbucz

AbstractThe adequate allocation of human resources is one of the most important success factors in software projects. Although project teams can be regarded as complex systems in which a team’s performance is highly influenced by the interdependencies among team members, the allocation methods applied to date have focused only on individual skills and consider project teams as units of isolated workers. The existing software project scheduling problem (SPSP) is extended to (1) consider different skills and efficiencies of employees and (2) examine the pairwise synergies between them, as well as to (3) handle the flexible structure of the project that is used in flexible management, such as agile project management. To better understand the impact of synergies on the project’s cost, the solutions of the traditional and extended SPSP versions are analyzed and compared on the generated project networks. The results show not only that this factor has a highly significant impact but also that the project cost strongly depends on the structural parameters of the synergy network (e.g., topology, network size and degree centrality). Among these parameters, a low degree of centrality and some topologies, most notably star and circular networks, obtained the highest reduction in the projects’ total cost.


2009 ◽  
pp. 2461-2471
Author(s):  
Cezary Orlowski ◽  
Zdzislaw Kowalczuk

The article discusses how the knowledge of management and artificial intelligence can be used for controlling the budgets and schedules ofsoftware projects. The first part of this paper gives an outline of the problems involved in software project management regarding the planning and control of processes and project teams. Next, an overview of changes in management is presented, followed by a description of a method for how these ideas can be used to solve software engineering problems. Consequently, an example is presented of a decision-support system, designed to aid project-team managers in planning and controlling budgets and schedules and helping the team members to adjust.


Author(s):  
Ira Patriani

Border areas, is one of affected area on COVID_19 this present. Many of people cn not go out as usually, adding almost each country has to implement their territorial limitation (lockdown policy) to minimalize this virus spreading. One of Malaysia State, where very close and get direct border with Indonesia. This research took place at Sanggau District, Entikong, Gun Tembawang Village.The research approach used is qualitative, using data collection methods in the form of interviews, observations, and documentation supported by interviews with the theoretical approach to the negative and positive aspects on policy implementation. Research results, The results stated that the lockdown activities of Malaysia which were affected by the corona virus outbreak needed to be carried out in an effort to minimize the spread of the virus outbreak. Although of course it has a negative impact on the country's economic structure, social issues and other sector. In implementing this lockdown, there is a need for cooperation between the government and the community as well as an agreement with neighboring countries in terms of the mobility of residents closest to each other's territory on exemptions in order to realize social welfare and public health without limiting the origin of the state, religion, community and profession. Especially in border areas where mobility and kinship ties have always been closer than in other regions. Keywords: Border area, lockdown policy, covid_19


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. 4513
Author(s):  
Summaira Malik ◽  
Muhammad Taqi ◽  
José Moleiro Martins ◽  
Mário Nuno Mata ◽  
João Manuel Pereira ◽  
...  

The success of a construction project is a widely discussed topic, even today, and there exists a difference of opinion. The impact of communication and conflict on project success is an important, but least addressed, issue in literature, especially in the case of underdeveloped countries. Miscommunication and conflict not only hinder the success of a project but also may lead to conflicts. The focus of this paper was to examine the impact of communication on project success with the mediating role of conflict. By using SPSS, demographics, descriptive statistics and correlation were determined. Smart PLS version 3.0 was used for confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), internal accuracy and validity estimates, hypothesis checking and mediation testing. The results showed that formal communication has a negative impact on the success of a construction project, resulting in conflicts among project team members, whereas informal communication and communication willingness have a positive impact on project success because people tend to know each other, and trust is developed. Task, process and relationship conflicts were used as mediating variables. It was found that task conflict effects the relations positively because project team members suggest different ways to do a certain task, and, hence, project success is achieved. On the contrary, process conflict and relationship conflict have a negative impact on communication and project success. Both of these conflicts lead to miscommunication, and project success is compromised. Hence, it is the responsibility of the project manager to enhance communication among project team members and to reduce the detrimental effects of process and relationship conflict on project success.


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