A follow up study of the effect of personality on the performance of software engineering teams

Abstract

This paper describes ethnographic observations and analysis of the performance of student teams working on year-long software projects (2004-2005 UK academic year) for industrial clients. Personality types were measured using an online version of the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), as a basis for studying how individuals interacted within the teams, and the effects of disruptive issues on the quality of work produced by the team. The behavior of the observed teams is analyzed and the results compared with those from the previous year's (2003-2004) research, also carried out on student teams. A significant finding in 2003-2004 was that issues which teams did not discuss adequately caused more problems for the quality of work than issues which produced actual disruption within the team; the results from 2004-2005 differ in that actual disruptions proved most damaging to the teams involved.