American, Asian and European Scientists and Practitioners View on ICT Project Managers Soft Skills

USA as an ICT (Information and Communication Technology) innovative leader, Europe with its knowledge offensive and Asia as the fastest growing economies share the common fate: ICT projects do under perform. Numerous surveys point at human factor as a source of this malheur. The question emerge to what extent project manager is responsible for improvements there, and which particular skills are demanded to turn the ICT projects course towards more predictable, more efficient and better budget able endeavours. Authors examined and compared the scientific and practitioners views. Twenty-nine journal and conference papers and 46 monographs and standards dedicated to project manager skills have been scrutinized. Further 324 jobs advertisements for the ICT project managers in USA, Switzerland, Poland and Thailand underwent an analysis related to the demanded soft skills of the project manager. The L-Timer® taxonomy of human factor related processes in project management is applied as comparison vehicle. Methodology extracted main (global) terms and detailed aspects, both weighted appropriately. The practitioners on all continents expect primarily communication skills followed by the team management abilities. Human resource is partially treated, while conflict management is underrepresented. The science seems to be focused on leadership followed by the communication skills, neglecting self management skills of project managers. The last are surprisingly well represented in the US advertisement. The USA job advertisements are the most comprehensive and elaborated one—and, what might be explained by high impact of American science on job definition—close to the scientific details of skill description, self management excluded. In Poland, team management appears to be a problem, while Thailand’s companies seek leaders first. The best balanced approach might be found in Swiss job advertisements. The inter-cultural differences point at impact of cultural heritage, which call for differentiated view of science on demanded project manager human factor related skills. Authors pursue this fascinating research.

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