A study of conflict in group design activities: implications for computer-supported cooperative work environments

The authors examine one particular aspect of the group process of software design, namely the interpersonal conflict that occurs within a software design team. Structured observations of the conflict that occurred within a set of team meetings that took place during the requirements-definition phase of an actual software development project form the basis for the analysis. It is shown that conflict is a consistent but fairly small percentage of the group interactions. Issues are not resolved in a top-down manner, and general issues such as project goals and overall design approach tend to resurface at later meetings. The implication of these findings for the design of computer-supported cooperative work environments for software design teams is explored.<>