Successful IT Projects?

Sumner, Bock and Giamartino (2006) build in their study on several studies which indicates that IT projects tend to success if the project manager has “soft skills” such as the ability to communicate, to manage and motivate people and to deal with interpersonal relationships.

In the study, Sumner, Bock and Giamartino use the Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI) developed by Posner and Kouzes (1990) which consists of five leadership practices:

·         Model the way

·         Inspire a shared vision

·         Challenge the process

·         Enable others to act

·         Encourage the heart

The hypothesis is that “more successful IT projects should have project leaders that exhibit positive leadership behavior to a greater extent than the leaders of less successful projects” (p. 45) which is tested on 57 IT project managers. The findings show that the project managers value their management skills such as the ability to monitor and track scope, time, cost and quality over leadership skills whereas the observers (peers, superiors or subordinate) perceive soft skills as most important to the delivery of successful projects.

The study is based on a rather small scope. However, it is an interesting study of project management and the different perspectives related to the success of IT projects.

References:

Sumner, M., Bock, D., and Giamartino, G. (2006). Exploring the linkange between the characteristics of it project leaders and project success, Information Systems Management 23(4), 43-49