Does group cohesion matter to decision quality in information systems development teams?

Newer information systems development approaches such as agile methods, which emphasize a sense-and-respond approach, increase the number of operating decisions made regularly within the development team. These methods are being used by an increasing number of organizations as a means of improving the agility of the development process. Development teams are required to make regular group decisions and team members work closely with each other to develop software in time-boxed iterations. However, the literature lacks a clear understanding about how the cohesion of the development teams impacts the decisions made under the time pressures imposed on teams by the agile methodology. There is a paucity of literature examining the impact team cohesion has on the decision-making quality of an agile process. This research-in-progress paper seeks to fill this void by examining the impact the group cohesiveness of decision-making teams have on the relationship between time pressure and decision quality during the software development process. By reviewing and analyzing the literature on group decision making, time pressure, group cohesion and decision quality we begin to develop a group decision-making model for better predicting decision quality based on time pressures and group cohesiveness.