Do cognitive styles affect the performance of system development groups?

Abstract

Communication systems requirements analysis is an essential ingredient for developing new communication systems. Unfortunately, system development groups consisting of system users, analysts, and managers have not been very effective in performing the requirements analysis. Users have been unable to communicate what they want, the technical ideas suggested by the analysts reflect their particular interests, and the managers have been unable to facilitate the interactions between the users and the analysts. This has resulted in systems that are inadequate. Many techniques have been suggested to improve the effectiveness of system development but none have been particularly useful. There has been recent evidence to indicate that poor requirements analysis is related to the cognitive styles of the members of the system development groups. It suggests that a mix of possible cognitive styles is required for effective system analysis and design, and that imbalances of cognitive styles may contribute directly to poor system performance. This thesis evaluates the status of measuring group performance and considers the useful tools for measuring cognitive styles. The emphasis is on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and its utility as the primary tool for determining cognitive styles.