Differences in Jazz Project Leaders' Competencies and Behaviors: A Preliminary Empirical Investigation

TL;DR

This study investigates how competencies and behaviors of distributed software project leaders vary with project types, challenging the idea of universal leadership traits and emphasizing task-specific leadership strategies.

Contribution

It provides empirical evidence that leadership competencies in distributed software projects are task-dependent, suggesting tailored role assignment over personality-based selection.

Findings

Leadership competencies vary with project tasks.

Universal leadership traits are not supported by data.

Task-specific leadership strategies are recommended.

Abstract

Studying the human factors that impact on software development, and assigning individuals with specific competencies and qualities to particular software roles, have been shown to aid software project performance. For instance, prior evidence suggests that extroverted software project leaders are most successful. Role assignment based on individuals' competencies and behaviors may be especially relevant in distributed software development contexts where teams are often affected by distance, cultural, and personality issues. Project leaders in these environments need to possess high levels of inter-personal, intra-personal and organizational competencies if they are to appropriately manage such issues and maintain positive project performance. With a view to understanding and explaining the specific competencies and behaviors that are required of project leaders in these settings, we used psycholinguistic and directed content analysis to study the way six successful IBM Rational Jazz leaders operated while coordinating their three distributed projects. Contrary to previous evidence reported in personality studies, our results did not reveal universal competencies and behaviors among these Jazz leaders. Instead, Jazz project leaders' competencies and behaviors varied with their project portfolio of tasks. Our findings suggest that a pragmatic approach that considers the nature of the software tasks being developed is likely to be a more effective strategy for assigning leaders to distributed software teams, as against a strategy that promotes a specific personality type. We discuss these findings and outline implications for distributed software project governance.