Project performance and the liability of group harmony

Abstract

There have been numerous debates about the proper makeup and behavior of effective project teams, and the literature is contradictory with regard to this issue. In the present study, 44 members of 14 project teams who worked on the same complex computer-simulated project were observed. A survey administered four times during the life of the project revealed that initial ratings of group attributes were good predictors of later success. Teams which ultimately performed well began the project with lower opinions of their respective groups than did teams which ultimately did not perform well. Peer ratings of individual members' contributions were generally lowest in the high-performing teams. Additionally, technical expertise appears to have been valued more highly in the high-performing groups than in low-performing groups. These results suggest that project teams which begin with harmonious interpersonal relations may not perform as well as those which experience early disharmonics. The managerial implications of these results are discussed in relation to the literature on groups, with special attention to 'groupthink' theories.>