The Development of a Taxonomy of Desired Personal Qualities for IT Project Team Members and Its Use in an Educational Setting

Although much literature exists on desired qualities of team leaders of IT projects and even desired components of the team, there is a paucity of literature on the desired personal qualities of individuals working within team settings. This research set out to empirically investigate the personal qualities which students believe would be desirable in IT project team members. An initial attempt to create a taxonomy of desired personal qualities was made using feedback from two groups of students; undergraduate and graduate students who had completed an IT project management (ITPM) course. The students were asked, as part of a major group assignment, to give the personal qualities that they would want in project team members if they were a project manager. This topic had not been explicitly covered in their course, though there had been an underlying emphasis on the importance of ‘soft skills’.