Use of Social Network Analysis in Early Phases of ICT Projects

According to results of our surveys in 2011 the ICT project managers operating in the Czech Republic would like to have wider possibility of influencing the selection of team members in their projects.The article focuses on the psychological and the sociological aspects of the ICT project teams’ structure, analyzing the existing social networks within a company as well as the concept of the team roles when setting up the project team by mapping the existing relationships among the team members and the possible personality divergence of each employee.The first part of the article summarizes the important milestones for mapping the social networks, the possibility of mapping the network of social relationships, communication channels and relationships in the company, it is focusing on the differences between a team and a work group and the consequences on their functioning.The article represents two surveys results. First one took place among 36 ICT project managers and the second one among visitors of international conference Systems integration 2011. Based on these results, we are presenting a brief description of process design that supports and is important for the ICT team leader’s nominations, as well as for the ICT team members, respecting their relationship structure, results of past cooperation and psychological team roles.The process includes a mapping of a subset of social networks, recommendations of competent managers for the approved project charters based on the output of the analysis, progress and outcomes of finished projects and other relevant business information. The following stage carries the selection and recommendation for individual leaders in regards of the appropriate team members. To ensure the continuous process improvement and preservation of knowledge for the next cycle, the last part is completed by the feedback and evaluation. The proposed process cycle should stress the importance of psychological and sociological factors when setting up the ICT teams in order to speed up the team development and achieve maximum team performance as soon as possible.