{"52656":{"#nid":"52656","#data":{"type":"event","title":"GVU Brown Bag: Sandra A. Slaughter","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u0022Project Managers\u2019 Skills and Project Success in IT Outsourcing\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EABSTRACT:\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nMany firms are outsourcing their information technology (IT) projects\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nto external vendors. Such projects can involve building new software\u003Cbr \/\u003E\napplications or maintaining existing applications. From the perspective\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nof both the vendor and the client, the allocation of the right person\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nto lead a project is very important. Poor project management can lead\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nto project failure and can also jeopardize client relationships. At the\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nsame time, selecting the right person to lead an IT project is very\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nchallenging, especially for large IT vendors who have access to a\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nmyriad pool of talent and a divergence in projects.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EIn this study, we draw upon the literature on software project\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nmanagement, IT human resource management and contingency theory, to\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nidentify the types of skills needed for effective project management\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nand to develop a model matching project characteristics with project\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nmanagers\u2019 skills and project outcomes. We consider two major types of\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nproject manager (PM) skills: hard skills and soft skills. Hard skills\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nrefer to a PM\u2019s familiarity with the technical aspects of the project\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nincluding the domain, technology and methodology. We conceptualize soft\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nskills drawing on the work of Wagner and Sternberg on practical\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nintelligence, and use the critical incident methodology to assess PM\u2019s\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nsoft skills in managing and coordinating tasks, self, career, peers,\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nsubordinates, superiors and clients. We hypothesize that higher levels\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nof soft and hard skills should have beneficial project outcomes, and\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nfurther theorize that higher levels of soft skills will be especially\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nbeneficial in projects that are large, complex or uncertain, or where\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nthere are low levels of team familiarity or client familiarity.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u00a0\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nTo evaluate our theoretical model, we collected and analyzed detailed\u003Cbr \/\u003E\narchival data on 530 IT projects from a leading IT vendor. We also\u003Cbr \/\u003E\ncollected critical incidents from the 209 PMs leading the projects to\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nevaluate their levels of soft skills. Our findings indicate that, after\u003Cbr \/\u003E\ncontrolling for project characteristics, PM hard skills and experience,\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nand team attributes, PM soft skills have a significant favorable impact\u003Cbr \/\u003E\non project outcomes, including project cost performance and client\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nsatisfaction. This is an especially important finding in the case of IT\u003Cbr \/\u003E\noutsourcing projects, where both project costs and client satisfaction\u003Cbr \/\u003E\ncan be important determinants of vendor projects and market share. We\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nalso find that higher levels of PM hard skills improve project\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nperformance but the impact is less than that of PM soft skills.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nFinally, we find that higher levels of PM soft skills are especially\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nvaluable for managing larger projects (in terms of team size and\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nproject size) and when team familiarity and client familiarity are low.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u00a0\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThis study contributes by identifying the project performance effects\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nof different kinds of PM skills. It is the first study to link PM soft\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nskills to project performance. Our research also extends contingency\u003Cbr \/\u003E\ntheory in the context of IT projects by revealing the contingent\u003Cbr \/\u003E\neffects of soft skills for different kinds of IT projects.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nBIO:\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nProfessor Sandra A. Slaughter is a member of the information technology\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nmanagement faculty in the College of Management at the Georgia\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nInstitute of Technology and holds the Costley Chair.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EPrior to her academic career, Sandra spent ten years working as an\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nIT analyst and project leader in companies including Hewlett-Packard,\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nthe Allen-Bradley division of Rockwell International, and Square D\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nCorporation. Her research builds upon her practical experience in IT\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nand focuses on development productivity and quality issues and on\u003Cbr \/\u003E\neffective management of IT. Currently, she is conducting research on\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nopen source software development, software process improvement,\u003Cbr \/\u003E\ncapabilities and performance in IT outsourcing, and the compensation,\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nskills and careers of IT professionals.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003ESandra has published more than eighty articles in leading research\u003Cbr \/\u003E\njournals, conference proceedings, and edited books and has received\u003Cbr \/\u003E\neight best paper awards. Her research has been supported by grants from\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nthe National Science Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Software Industry\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nCenter, the Carnegie Bosch Institute, the Center for Analytical\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nResearch on Technology at Carnegie Mellon University, and the Quality\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nLeadership Center at the University of Minnesota. Professor Slaughter\u003Cbr \/\u003E\ncurrently serves as Departmental Editor for Management Science, and on\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nthe Editorial Board of other journals.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":"","uid":"27154","created_gmt":"2010-02-11 15:56:41","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 01:49:56","author":"Louise Russo","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","field_event_time":{"event_time_start":"2008-11-06T11:00:00-05:00","event_time_end":"2008-11-06T12:00:00-05:00","event_time_end_last":"2008-11-06T12:00:00-05:00","gmt_time_start":"2008-11-06 16:00:00","gmt_time_end":"2008-11-06 17:00:00","gmt_time_end_last":"2008-11-06 17:00:00","rrule":null,"timezone":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"47223","name":"College of Computing"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}