Journal of Information Technology and Application in Education (JITAE) JITAE Vol.1 No. 1 2012 PP.28-34 www.jitae.org © World Academic Publishing - 28 - Using Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) as a Tool for Setting up Student Teams for Information Technology Projects Vicente Rodríguez Montequín, Joaquín Villanueva Balsera, José Manuel Mesa Fernández, Alberto García Nieto Project Engineering Area, University of Oviedo C/Independencia 13, 33004 Oviedo, Spain montequi@api.uniovi.es Abstract-IT projects follow established management methodologies governing the life cycle of the project. It is commonly accepted that the development of information systems is a complex task involving technical, human, and organizational issues. In order to instruct students, one of the most used methodologies is organizing them into small groups and provides them with a project. The groups act as project teams performing a project close to their field of professional interest. This methodology is usually named Project Based Learning (PBL). As is the case with actual projects, there are other issues in addition to the technical skills influencing the group outcomes: human aspects and personality. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) has become one of the most widely-used psychometric instruments for assessing personality characteristics regarding work environment. Learning more about team member personalities and how different personalities compliment or conflict with each other can be useful information in building and leading a project team. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the most relevant features that help create successful student project teams within Information Technology (IT) field, in relation to the MBTI personality characteristics. Three most usual profiles within the IT projects are considered: system analyst, designers, and programmers. The results of this study have the implications for setting up student groups in collaborative projects under the IT studies. Keywords-Information Technology Projects, Project-based Learning; Setting Up Groups; Learning Through Projects; MBTI I. INTRODUCTION IT projects follow established management methodologies governing a project’s life cycle. It is commonly accepted that the development of information systems is a complex task, involving technical, human, and organizational issues. The purpose of this paper is to explore the most relevant personality features when building a successful team within the Information Technology (IT) field, and how this situation could be translated to academic environment through Project Based Learning methodology (PBL). IT projects are notorious for their failure rate. The Chaos Report, a study periodically published by the Standish Group [http://www.standishgroup.com], has consistently shown that there is a large number of problematic and unsuccessful projects in this sector. Other surveys found 24% of success rate in enterprise management solutions [1]. Several authors try to explain the low success rate for this field. For example, Klein and Jiang [2] state that much failure is due to a difference in expectations prior to the start of a new system development. Much of the difference in expectations may be in the use of metrics not fully understood by every stakeholder in a new system. Current theory and management practice suggest a better focus on building an understanding of the critical evaluators to develop a common understanding of expectations, which will improve success rates. Such activity requires broader viewpoints of success and the input of more stakeholders well before any project tasks are conducted. The difficulty in delivering IT projects successfully comes from the challenge in specifying the system requirements in a way that will create business benefit and lead the intangible nature of the product being produced. Reel [3] defines ten signs that indicate that an IT project is in jeopardy: 1. Software people don’t understand their customer’s needs. 2. The product scope is poorly defined. 3. Changes are managed poorly. 4. The chosen technology changes. 5. Business needs change. 6. Deadlines are unrealistic. 7. Users are resistant. 8. Sponsorship is lost 9. The project team lacks people with appropriate skills. 10. Managers avoid best practices and lessons learned Most of the ten factors are strongly related with teamwork and personality aspects, especially communication and coordination aspects. The Chaos report results also seem to confirm that. The scale of many development efforts is large, leading to complexity, confusion, and significant difficulties in coordinating team members. Uncertainty is common, resulting in a continuing stream of changes that slow down the project team. Interoperability has become a key characteristic of many systems. New software must communicate with existing software and conform to predefined constraints imposed by the system or product. In order to overcome these problems, a team working environment is needed. Researchers are beginning to postulate that the most effective software development teams are also the teams that contain a variety of different personality or temperament types [4] [5]. Teamwork capability of team members and working relationships among team members, which directly affect team performance, are important for a successful project team and cannot be overlooked. If team