Accommodating soft skills in software project management
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Authors
Sukhoo, Aneerav
Barnard, Andries
Eloff, Mariki
Van der Poll, John Andrew
Motah, Mahendrenath
Issue Date
2005
Type
Article
Language
en
Keywords
Soft skills , Hard skills , IT project Management , Software project management , Project management technology , Emotional intelligence , Psychology
Alternative Title
Abstract
Software project management probably is a sector that has witnessed the highest rate of project
failure in the world. This is not the case with project management concerned with other disciplines
due to better management of their inherent strengths and weaknesses.
Hard skills, often described as a science and comprising processes, tools and techniques applied
to projects are the main focus of many project management methodologies. Extensive research
has been carried out in the project management domain with greater focus on hard skills. Soft
skills described as an art, are very often ignored during software project management. Such skills,
acquired through experience, are concerned with managing and working with people, ensuring
customer satisfaction and creating a conducive environment for the project team to deliver high
quality products within budget and on time and exceeding stakeholder expectations.
This paper summarizes the soft skills that can possibly improve the success rate of software projects.
These projects, if not managed properly can lead to escalation of budget and time schedules
beyond expectations. Deterioration of quality may be inevitable while deploying efforts to deal
with cost overrun and schedule extension.
Research in the field of soft skills required has been carried out at the University of Arkansas.
The results show that IT organizations are conscious of the need for soft skills. Furthermore, a
number of organizations, like Polaris, Sun Microsystems and Mastek have found it necessary to
include soft skills in their training agenda.
Description
Citation
Sukhoo, Aneerav (et. al) 2005 Skills in Software Project Management. Issues in Informing Science and Information Technology Volume 2 pp 691-704
Publisher
Information Science Institute
License
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Material published as part of this journal, either on-line or in print, is copyrighted by Informing Science. Permission to make digital or paper copy of part or all of these works for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that the copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage AND that copies 1) bear this notice in full and 2) give the full citation on the first page. It is permissible to abstract these works so long as credit is given. To copy in all other cases or to republish or to post on a server or to redistribute to lists requires specific permission from the publisher at Publisher@InformingScience.org
Journal
Volume
Issue
PubMed ID
DOI
ISSN
1547-5867