About the study

We've all seen what happens when a team just "gells" and becomes a true team instead of a collection of individuals. Each team member understands and counts on their teammates to do the right thing at the right time. Communications between team members are clear and easily understood, often using a common jargon. In academic terms, the team is exhibiting high levels of relational capital ( trust and reciprocity between team members). The result is a highly effective team, whether in combat, sports, or business.

I've seen this "gelling effect" happen with Information Systems Development (ISD) teams, but there haven't been many studies to date that examine how this actually comes about. Most prior studies have focused on whether high levels of relational capital are associated with success in ISD projects (the answer seems to be yes), but not how it comes about.

Relational capital appears to be built on mutual knowledge about the skills and capabilities of each member of the team. This results in a common language for the team and enhanced trust between team members. Each team member recognizes the expertise and contributions of the other team members and (this is the important part - at least to me) understands enough about the other team member's domain that they communicate easily and avoid stepping on each other's toes.

ISD projects have typically focused on one-way understanding through requirements elicitation and capture. The academic term for this is knowledge transfer. Basically, knowledge about the desired solution is transferred from the end users to the development team members. Despite decades of improvement in requirements elicitation and documentation techniques, ISD projects still have a fairly poor track record, so there must be something we're missing. Maybe the mutual understanding associated with relational capital is a key to success. In other words, bi-directional knowledge transfer might be a key to success in ISD projects.

The main research question is thus: Are successful ISD projects more likely to exhibit a team of end-users and developers that have established significant relational capital through bi-directional knowledge transfer regarding software development processes as well as system requirements?

Now all I have to do is answer the question...