| Abstract [eng] |
Thesis Description. Project management can be quite challenging for Information Technology companies. While hard skills such as technical knowledge are essential, it's equally important to have good soft skills to ensure the successful completion of projects on-time. Without effective communication, ownership, and leadership skills, even the most qualified IT teams can struggle to deliver quality results. Therefore, IT companies need to encourage a culture that values and prioritizes the development of soft skills among project managers. Aim and Objectives. The thesis aim is to identify the main project manager’s soft skills and how they influence successful IT project completion on-time. The main objectives are to distinguish the most important soft skills of a project manager in completing successful projects; to identify the main challenges in IT project completion on-time; to analyze the synergy between soft and hard skills from an IT project completion perspective; to analyze how much soft skills influence IT project’s successful completion. Methodology and Results. A qualitative research method was used for the empirical part of the study. Respondents from three different international IT companies were interviewed, and the data was collected through semi-structured interviews with 12 project managers. The main objective was to identify the soft skills that have the most influence on completing successful projects on time. The research reviewed literature and analyzed data from interviews to identify the main challenges faced in IT projects, along with the impact of soft skills on project management. Conclusions. After data analysis including a literature review, the main soft skills that have the biggest impact on the IT project’s success and its completion on-time were identified. The top three soft skills are communication, ownership, and leadership. There are also supporting soft skills such as empathy, task delegation, active listening, and the ability to be the bridge between different stakeholders. Along with the mentioned soft skills, the main project management challenges were identified such as too optimistic or incorrect scoping of a project or a task, not getting the full use case of a project, bad communication, and demotivated teams. The takeaway from the research is to realize how important communication as a soft skill is in the project manager’s daily work in overcoming various project management obstacles. |
