Skills of SuccessfulIT Project Managers

Nannette NapierMark Keil

Georgia State University

Felix TanAuckland University of Technology

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Agenda

Motivation Research Questions Literature Review Methodology Initial Analysis Future Analysis Anticipated Contribution

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Motivation

28% success rate for IT projects [Standish Group, 2001]

Project management (PM) skills critical to improving success rate on IT projects Experienced project manager one of top 3

critical success factors [Standish Group, 2001]

Lack of effective PM skills listed among top five risk factors [Schmidt et al., 2001]

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Research Questions

What are the attributes and skills of highly successful Information Technology Project Managers?

How do IT PM skills differ from generic PM skills?

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Literature Review

Limited research to date Jiang, Klein and Margulis (1998) Day and Bobeva (2003)

No comprehensive study regarding the IT PM skill set

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Methodology

Interviewed 19 IT Project Managers 3-20 Years of Experience as Project

Manager Subjects asked to compare successful

and unsuccessful IS Project Managers Used Repertory Grid Technique

(RepGrid) [Tan and Hunter, 2002]

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RepGrid Technique Subjects randomly select 3 cards

from a stack of 8 index cards 6 cards: IT PMs they identify 1 card: “Ideal” IT PM 1 card: “Incompetent” IT PM

Constructs are elicited from subjects “With regard to the skills of successful

IT PMs, how are two of these PMs the same and yet different from the third?”

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Example RepGrid

Good

Rank

Ideal

Name1

Name2

Name3

Name4

Name5

Name6

Incompetent Bad Details/Ladder (Bad) Details/Ladder (good)

Communicating goals, expectations, and roles 9 9 8 5 2 9 5 4 1 Not communicating No team meetings

Regular team meetings. Collaboration. Everyone knows expectations and roles of each team member. Allows team members to prioritize and work toward common goals

Flexibility; Know how to tail processes & parameters 6 9 7 7 2 9 6 1 1 Rigid

My way or the highway

Open to ideas. Knowing how to motivate different people.

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RepGrid Technique The elicitation of constructs was

repeated with each interview subject until s/he started repeating ideas

Typically, subjects identified 6-8 individual constructs

Interviews continued until saturation was reached (i.e., no new constructs emerged)

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Number of New Constructs Elicited with each Interview

Saturation Curve

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0 5 10 15 20Interviewee

Nu

mb

er

of

New

C

on

str

ucts

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Advantages of the RepGrid Technique

Relevant project manager skills emerge naturally from participants

Structured interview results in a ranked list of attributes for subsequent analysis

Major constructs are identified and written down during the interview

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Initial Analysis

Our 19 Interviews generated a total of 40 unique constructs

We are in the process of coding for common themes (i.e. Meta Constructs)

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Example of a Meta Construct

Communication Fostering external communication Communicating downward Communicating upward Direct communication Listening

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Future Analysis

Complete meta construct analysis Compare these results to the skills

reported in the project management literature

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Anticipated Contribution Identify critical skill areas for IT PMs

To help guide curriculum development To aid in hiring decisions and personnel

development Provide foundation for measurement

instrument to assess IT PM skills Lay groundwork for future research on

relationship between IT PM skills and project success