Prioritising project management competences across the software project life cycle

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relative importance of project management (PM) competences across the different stages of a software project life cycle to identify competence development gaps and opportunities. Design/methodology/approach A deductive and quantitative approach was adopted to address the research questions with a web-based survey for data collection. Findings After reviewing the context of competences and PM competences, the importance of the PM competences overall and for specific stages in the project life cycle was analysed. The result highlights that functional and meta-competences are perceived to be the most important competence dimensions for software project practitioners. Originality/value This study makes three contributions. First, it consolidates PM competences into a set of 20 within four competence dimensions. Second, it prioritises these competences across the software project life cycle. Third, it identifies the significance of the inter-relationship between PM competences and project life cycle to reveal PM competence development gaps and opportunities

Strategic Project Organizing

Strategic Project Organizing takes a unique approach to project management that places emphasis on the strategic and organizational aspects of projects and their leadership. Structured around the Three Domains model, it covers all the fundamental project management concepts, whilst guiding the reader through the organizational challenges of enabling positive change. Through the lens of strategic leadership, this text equips students to know how to respond proactively to threats, as well as seize opportunities, in order to advantageously change the socio-economic environment in an organization's favour. The text also helps students to understand the tools and techniques adopted during the process of organizational transformation. All chapters offer review and discussion-based questions to encourage critical thinking; as well as case vignettes and a longer, end-of-chapter case study to help students apply theory to practice. Real life projects featured in the case studies include the Eden Project, the Thames Tideway Tunnel and the Berlin Brandenburg Airport