Role of Interpersonal Skills in IT Project Management - Essay Example

INFORMATION SYSYTEM PROJECT INTERPERSONAL SKILLS Introduction It organizations around the world has now a hot debate on lack of having orhaving equipped with soft skills. Every one want to have the due betterment in their career no matter how well they are technically good at what they do, only the big companies seem to have realized earlier than others, the importance of learning, improving and building up their skills in every aspect of business along with the technology. The report here speaks about the significance of interpersonal skills in IT project management. The study explores in the light of the existing literature the importance of the soft skills in IT project management and moves on to rationally explain the need of such learning and development. The real-world IT organization, when a manager trying to make a deference in approach with the expectation of much better end result, is likely to cause numerous challenges which a hybrid manager will negotiate. The challenges one might face are seen in many contemporary organisations. Finally, the strategies in which a hybrid manager, who can think in terms of technological issues at the same time human issues, might address these problems are discussed. The importance of interpersonal skills in today's information system Keen observation and indented studies make marks in today's corporate world. The present day development has brought business from a point where relationships often grew out of business deals to a deferent point where relation ships usually grow out of business deals. Information system and information technology have become the most important factors for the economy in both developed and developing world. The beginning of the twenty first century has also witnessed a change of thinking and in creating and providing value in the business approach. Information system in an organisation mostly provides connection and information between employees, customers and suppliers. At the same time information system protects the sensitive data as required by the organization and law of the land. In the new found organizational scenario information gathered and shared seems to be indispensable. Patching and Chatam (2000, pp 6) describe this organizational development has a nature of technophilia manifested on it, (an attitude which will appear in the near future as 'not to surf the net will be a terrible loss of opportunity)' by which, most of the times the much needed human touch is lost. Data and information are among an organisation's greatest assets (Klein 1998). What enables people with in an organization to develop the ability to collect information and share what they know What leads to improve the action and out come of an organization Where does the support and motivation for persistent learning through out all levels of an organization come from Xu and Al-Hakim (2002) found that while IT professionals had more confidence on the newer technology, business professionals were more concerned about the human related factors. Even when the IT professionals discussed organisational problems they seemed to be more system oriented. At the same time, the business professionals showed a wider perspective and understanding on discussing the system related issues based on the technological advancements. They focused on the human perspective believing that people's understanding of systems would impact on the quality of the information. Communication within an organization was perceived by the professionals as indispensable in building team work and personal competency. The team work and personal competency are, in fact, two factors which need to be built upon the foundation of Inter-personal skills. Over the years, we have taught and mentored project managers and then monitored their projects. We discovered that too many project managers focus so much energy on using the technical skills that they overlook what successful project managers know to be true - there is a human side to projects (Filler and Harris 2007). This human side is what leads the organisation to improve. What the rational is behind inter personal skills best practised in IT management. There is no doubt that IT project managers have a difficult task when undertaking the management of an IT project. Clearly, there is a need for further research and development of IT project management practices. 'It is also important that universities educate potential IT project managers so that they can better deal with the complexities of their roles' (Jewells and Ford 2004). It is, after all, well-recognized that it is the project manager who is accountable and responsible for what occurs in a project and who must strive to bring the project to a successful conclusion (Cadle & Yeates, 2001). Having made a commitment to bring a successful completion, the IT project managers need to exploit the strength of the organisation to maximum. Every individual in an organization might be convinced that enhancing his/her technical skills would bring success. In other words, anything under the heading of mechanics, technology would advance one's career. The assumption usually implies that interpersonal skills are secondary. Dr. Lew Ireland, who retired as a military officer with a high rank, points out a few aspect of team work which looks like the imperfection of the team work. Nevertheless, a close look at his example will just tell us why Interpersonal skills from the part of the leadership of an organisation become vital. He says 'Team work is promoted in sports but still many trophies go to individual. All team members are not paid equally nor do members get rewarded for a team effort. Some position in sports team gets more recognition than the other positions' (Ireland 2007). How does an IT manager exploit the strength of the organization (staff) at his disposal for the good quality of the undertaking he/she has. It is practical to have a look at (After having looked at what Lew Ireland said of the importance to keep motivation, negotiation and over all communication on the priority to keep the individuals in a team to be at their best for the reward of the team.) the multiple surveys of academics and practitioners (Trauth, Farwell and Lee 1993). The academics and practitioners had deferent concepts of career expectation to succeed, Academics stressed on traditional systems and programming development, where as, the practitioners stressed more on rapid application of development and integration. When asked which skills were most important for the future, practitioners rated productive user/client relationship first. Making use of the Complete Strength of an Organization It has a lot to offer organizations yet many organizations fail to take full advantages of IT. One very convenient reason for this is the relatively poor quality of their dialogues. They can not talk to each other in common feasible language (Patching and Chatam 2000). Here what needs to change from the top is the attitude of 'I know more about computers than you do'. A manager over here needs to be a man whose status comes from being able to out-jargon those you meet. (not to turn them away but to have them for you). Thus gaining an important upper hand over the situation to size up and come to a decision. The key challenges faced by the real world IT organisations This session will deal more into the physical challenges an organization face at an instance when the information system fails to project interpersonal skills in the management. IT executives need to update hardware and software seen change relentlessly. The ideas about the actual management of the IT function are being continuously updated, modified and changed. Keeping up with what is going on are a real task the IT managers are to cop with. Patching and Chatam (2000) state that one of the hurdles that It managers must overcome with there better interpersonal skill is that of being too sensitive towards criticism. It's mostly because of the stereotypical nature of the IT profession where he/she wants everything in a logical and rational order. So most of the time the decision on a case is taken following all the right things from an IT management point of view after care fully sorting their system, standard of implementing and procedure. Still, the result may not be successful all the time due to the ineffective handling of the politics and relationship (Mann 2002 pp 263). What would be the daunting challenge an IT manager face with when ineffective interpersonal skills are exercised As we have discussed earlier the strategic implication of innovative competence deployment and exploitation (the maximum exploitation of the strengths of the organization) can only be realized by the dynamic capabilities of the manager radiating through the whole group (Eisenhardt and Martin 2000). A firm need to draw the ability to integrate, build and reconfigure internal and external competence to address rapidly changing environment. This capability is really dynamic because this gives the organization an edge over its competitors. To bring this dynamism to oneself and to others on needs to see himself/herself as a part of this world but, as a stereotypical agent the IT professionals at times in the midst of issue relating to the humans rather than technology view the world a little bit too much and away from them. He/she often becomes logical, intelligent and thus predictable. The staff comes to know the management and they would not want to be disturbed by the trappings of management from their delightful and equally simple life of gracing on their programs, say Patching and Chatham (2000). The organization turns out to be group of system oriented technological wizards. But within the organization and in dealing to the suppliers and customers the above said dynamism would miss. This type of stereotypical approach in the IT management will give way to a different "IT culture" , way apart from the "organizational culture" that is indispensable for the success of the project. A culture which usually realizes two aspects of social influences, the first is when individuals accept information as evidence of reality that can be called Informal Influence, secondly, when individuals come up to the expectation of others, that can be termed as Normative Influence (Nemati and Barko 2003, p263). Does an IT manager, who comes from the programming, posses the much needed interpersonal skill of language There language most of the times is deferent from the rest of the professional. They speak on their own terms. This verbal constituency can often group them aloof from the personal managers and most importantly consultants. The language familiar to them is hard to penetrate by lay person, while they have little fondness to learn the widespread language. This particular phenomenon makes them feel hostile towards the persistent soothing, negotiating and enquiring language of the consultants and human resource professional. This hostile but out of compulsion agreement with those less technologically oriented professionals will create differences within the organisations in due time. The answer to this issue from the IT manager's point of view is a strong interpersonal skill of negotiation and effective communication. We have so far discussed the challenges of taking criticisms positively as a morale boosting factor of IT management, secondly, thinking of an organisational culture which meant understanding the politics of an organization leaving behind the IT culture to one's own cabin. Thirdly, the aspect of holding the team together with the rest of the departments and with the stirring changes of this world by negotiations and effective communication. This aspect becomes practical only when the Interpersonal skills of a manager create a leadership quality in him. The success and failure in prudently applying some of these qualities evidently end up in the gaining or loosing of the organization, even if it is not IT field the end results are drastic. The high profile firing of Julie Roehm from the world's largest retail chain wal-mart store Inc. and the ugly aftermath that saw both the parties engage in legal as well as public battle. That episode brings forth the vital importance of learning the organization culture, organizational change, office politics, organizational communication, managerial ethics, employee misconduct, employee surveillance, etc. Shortly after being fired from the wal-mart on December 15, 2006 Roehm filed a civil suit in Oakland County, Michigan District, against Wal-Mart for unlawfully terminating her employment, infringing compensation agreements, and also for slandering her in the press. She also claimed that she was a victim of a culture clash at Wal-Mart and that her image as a change agent had led to her ouster. In its counterclaim filed on January 18, 2007, Wal-Mart refuted Roehm's claims and also accused her of violating its employment policies. This incident at Wal-Mart turned out to be the most talked about episode in corporate America during 2006 and 2007. This episode turned out to be the food for thought in the above said skills, for many experts. Sourced from: http://www.icmrindia.org/casestudies/catalogue/Human%20Resource%20and%20Organization%20Behavior/Julie%20Roehm-Wal-Mart%20Stores%20Inc-HROB%20Case%20Studies.htm My role as a hybrid manager in addressing the challenges It's an analysis of how I would deal as hybrid manager in the given situations. The very role of the IT professional in an organisation is changing. In addition to the traditional role of technician, IT personals need to be vision builders, team players, alliance builders, tacticians and deliverers (O'Connor and Smallman 1995).According to Whiting (1987) while an understanding of information technology is useful, an understanding of business environment is more important for relationship managers. I have brought the concept of Whiting up to make the importance of soft skills obvious in management. As a hybrid manager an IT professional must remain, on one side, firm to his/her traditional role of a technical wizard. Then he/she needs to think out of the box. He or she must address the issue of human nature in a multifaceted person's way that is to try closing in the gap between him as an IT professional and the rest of the world. The gap, in fact, an IT professional needs to cover from a programming background to the managerial level is very wide. There is a perspective gape a hybrid manager needs to be thorough with because IT some times forgets, when the viewpoint of one group is incomplete, system must provide value to the business by meeting evolving business goals and that the world does not evolve around the IT department (Scalet 2000/2001). Then again we have discussed earlier of being persuasive in influencing and relating, that actually helps the IT professional to close in on the cultural gap. When the different groups have different traits, values, working behaviors, and/or priorities because each group either attracts certain kinds of individuals or it acculturates members in the group. For example, IT people tend to be more introverted, analytical and tend to use rational persuasion to influence others. Business end-users tend to be more extroverted, intuitive and use more sophisticated influence strategies (Shah and Golder 1994). Positively negotiation seems to be one of the most needed managerial qualities in pursuit of success. Negotiation on the right path when it is people centred which means it is more on the acceptance or letting an atmosphere of acceptance. One could make out this bringing of the soft skills with the technology in the Chinese culture of negotiation. The Chinese attach greater importance for to economic performance, non-personal factors, such as product, technology and financing (Fang, 2006 p100). Chinese business negotiation continues to be heavily influenced by the people centric philosophies of Confucius and Lao Tzu, and their core values are collectivism, honour, respect, obedience and harmonious relationships (Sebenius and Qian 2008). A hybrid manager will strive to give value to the business by being effective in both the respect of the organisation Business environment IT/IS Hybrid Manage Organizational Business environment Leadership based on above discussed human factors would be my prime tactics as hybrid manager to address the challenges. Effective leaders can devise the organizational arrangements to address each challenged area to address their interdependencies. With one's leadership qualities one can also influence the over all business perception of IT's role and contribution and establish strong business/IT relationships (Feeny and Willcockes !998). Secondly, I would have a thinking one step more than the regular thinking system. I would envision integrating the business developments innovatively in the IT capabilities. The project will have the system possibilities to be incorporated with the human beings in their own language, just in simple terms I would find ways out to make technology work for the organizations in their terms without loosing the potency of sophisticated technology. Technology in itself cannot provide competitive advantage. As IT has become a wide-spread commodity; its importance for business performance is increasing, but its importance to competitive advantage is decreasing (Carr 2003). Second, the nature of IT based innovations seems to be elusive. After the initial frenzy, both the BPR and the dot com booms faltered. Many companies tried to learn from the early innovators, like Amazon and eBay, without much success. This implies that we need to understand better several aspects of IT-based innovations (Bygstad, and Fagerstrom. nd). Building relationships with business units by spending time there or being collocated there and actively interacting with business unit personnel. Educating and consulting on information technology management and strategic use. Moreover, clearly explaining the value of new technology to business managers. Creating reusable solutions and disseminating best practices across to other units and son would remain my strategic plan to take my project a successful end. Not only will the said methods help to improve the organization work better, but my organization also brings a new culture of interpersonal skills in the IT management. Conclusion It's time for me -- and you -- to take a lesson from the big brands, a lesson that's true for anyone who's interested in what it takes to stand out and prosper in the new world of work, Says Pters (2007). In this whole article he exhorts everyone saying that all have a chance to stand out. Everyone has a chance to learn, improve, and build up their skills. Everyone has a chance to be a brand worthy of remark. That is what actually expected of a hybrid manager who stands out and enterprise oneself in every aspect. Thinking differently, being able to change or to accept the changes inevitable without loosing the values of the tradition, not being defined by the job title rather the job be defined by you. That is where the New IT hybrid manager equipped with complete range of interpersonal skills. Reference Bygstad. B and Fagarstrom. A (nd) Exploring the relationship between software development process and IT based business innovation. A quantitative study in Norway. Cadle, J. & Yeates, D. (2001). Project management for information systems (3rd ed.). Malaysia: Pearson Education. Carr. N (2003) IT doesn't matter: Harvard business review may. Eisenhardt. K.M and Martin. J.A (2000) Dynamic capabilities; what are they Strategic management journal 21: 1105- 1121 Fang (2006) Chinese business negotiation style, p 100. Feeny. F.D and Willcockes. 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