Content area
Full text
1 Introduction
Information technology (IT) project failures worldwide are still significantly high ([17] Johnson, 2006). These failures continue to occur despite attempts by project management bodies such as the Project Management Institute (PMI) to provide managers with frameworks and methodologies to assist them in their activities. These initiatives include the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBoK) ([23] PMI, 2001), which prescribes processes, tools and techniques relating to specific knowledge areas of project management.
The competencies of an IT project manager project manager can be categorized as hard skills and soft skills. Essentially, the PMBoK focuses on hard skills. This research focuses on the soft skills required by an IT project manager working in a matrix organizational structure whilst building complex, risky IT artifacts. Soft skills span a wide range of personal and emotional dimensions and the skills of interest in this research are levels of optimism and stress management.
The objectives of the research are to:
- investigate the effect that a project manager's level of optimism has on IT project success; and
- investigate the effect that a project manager's stress management has on IT project success.
The paper first analyses the research covering the soft skills of an IT project manager focusing on optimism and stress. In the next section, the research design is explained including how the story telling approach was applied. In the discussion section, themes were extracted from the stories and related to previous research findings. In the final section, the implications of the findings are presented and conclusions drawn.
2 Literature review
Organisations have historically followed Weber's concept of bureaucratic structures. More recently, the project management organisational structure has been used specifically in highly dynamic and technological environments ([11] French et al. , 1985). The project manager in this organizational structure becomes the focal point for information and activities related to a specific project. The overall goal is to focus an organization's resources towards the completion of a specific project. Implementing a project management approach can involve dramatic changes in the relationships of authority and responsibility.
The matrix organizational structure evolved from the project management form [18] Kolodny (1979). It represented a compromise between the traditional bureaucratic approach and the autonomous project management approach. This matrix organization has permanently...