The Practice of Emotional-Social Intelligence within Project Teams

The Phenomenon and Process Regarding the Practice of Emotional-Social Intelligence within Project Software Development Team Operations by Mark R. Murphy, Ph.D. and Michael G. Brizek, Ph.D. (ed.) The problem addressed in this study was the high failure rate in technology projects due to interpersonal issues among team members. According to the Standish Group CHAOS Report, over half of all technology projects fail due to the break down in interpersonal relationships in software development teams. These failures may threaten business survivability. An emerging view among project managers is that although tools and specific processes are important, interpersonal team dynamics and emotional-social intelligence (ESI) may make a difference in successful project outcomes. In this quantitative, correlational study, emotional-social intelligent (ESI) competencies communication, motivation, and conflict resolution were investigated as predictors of project success. Participants from 53 agile and 51 traditional software development teams from Hewlett-Packard (N=104), completed online questionnaires to measure ESI competencies and project success. ESI levels were measured using the Team