More and more organizations are making use of teamwork. Effective teams are also important from an Information Technology (IT) perspective, since teamwork forms an integral part of all software development activities. It is therefore extremely important that IT students are able to work together as an effective team. These statements lead to the following questions – How can IT student project teams be effective and what obstacles need to be overcome in order to ensure effectiveness? This dissertation reports on an exploratory study of second and third year IT project teams and exposes factors that lead to ineffectiveness. Firstly, the problems experienced by the groups seem to have the largest detrimental effect on effective team functioning. Secondly, the project mark is also affected by the priority issue that is associated with the particular task. Thirdly, the issues of time management, communication, conflict management, compromise, social loafing and group cohesion also play an important role in team effectiveness. This dissertation sets out to prove that the key to "effectiveness" lies in empowering the student to deal with all possible dilemmas that may be faced when working in teams in the tertiary team situation. The benefits of these actions will hopefully lead to the realization of “effectiveness” in the tertiary team situation and ultimately, in the student’s work environment.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:nmmu/vital:10800 |
| Date | January 2003 |
| Creators | Patrellis, Yiota |
| Publisher | Port Elizabeth Technikon, Faculty of Computer Studies |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis, Masters, MTech (Information Technology) |
| Format | xix, 296 leaves ; 30 cm, pdf |
| Rights | Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University |
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