Applying a Core Competence Model on Swedish Job Advertisements for IT Project Managers

Author(s):  
Leif Marcusson ◽  
Siw Lundqvist

Recruitments of IT project managers are costly and time-consuming, which makes it important to handle them effectively. IT project managers' key function in IT projects conveys that the prerequisites in such job ads become extensive and hard to satisfy because of overloaded descriptions. The organization's core competence (henceforth CC) requirements need to be decisive and explicitly expressed. Hence, each recruitment process should involve the defining of what the CC qualifications are. Advertisements were collected (2010-2013) and a CC lens was tested for assessment of CC criteria in order to get an indication of its value. The study's practical implication is an added understanding of the importance to discern what core competence/-s a specific project requires and furthermore to match those with the job requirements during the recruitment process. The implication for research is an inspiration for further development of methods for determining core competence criteria for recruiting IT-project managers.

2016 ◽  
pp. 939-957
Author(s):  
Leif Marcusson ◽  
Siw Lundqvist

Recruitments of IT project managers are costly and time-consuming, which makes it important to handle them effectively. IT project managers' key function in IT projects conveys that the prerequisites in such job ads become extensive and hard to satisfy because of overloaded descriptions. The organization's core competence (henceforth CC) requirements need to be decisive and explicitly expressed. Hence, each recruitment process should involve the defining of what the CC qualifications are. Advertisements were collected (2010-2013) and a CC lens was tested for assessment of CC criteria in order to get an indication of its value. The study's practical implication is an added understanding of the importance to discern what core competence/-s a specific project requires and furthermore to match those with the job requirements during the recruitment process. The implication for research is an inspiration for further development of methods for determining core competence criteria for recruiting IT-project managers.


Author(s):  
Leif Marcusson ◽  
Siw Lundqvist

Project success, which is critical to achieve, requires a competent project manager. Could anybody become a skilled project manager, or what does it take? One factor that is considered to influence the opportunities of succeeding is individuals' personality traits. Which ones would be suitable for Swedish IT project managers then? Could these be mirrored in the perspective of the Big five categories? This research was carried out by collecting and analyzing job advertisements (henceforth ads.) once a year (2010-2013), in total 325 ads. The findings indicate that the three most requested personality traits for a Swedish IT project manager are driven, communicative and structured. Mirrored in the Big five dimensions the most requested traits from the study fell into the categories conscientiousness and extraversion. The practical implication is improved ads. by using the Big five categories; research implications are foremost yet another perspective of IT project managers' personality traits.


Author(s):  
Leif Marcusson ◽  
Siw Lundqvist

This chapter stresses the importance of putting core competence in its specific and accurate context to optimize its usefulness. Otherwise, the value might easily erode or even get totally lost. This research highlights core competence in the contexts of recruiting and educating IT project managers. A longitudinal study (2010 – 2013) scrutinized 325 advertisements for IT project managers. A core competence lens was used on the findings to test if such a lens was applicable to the project area (recruitment and training), which it was. This chapter follows-up on the prior research that proposes both recruitment and further training of IT project managers would gain from applying the core competence concept. The main reason for this goes back to understanding the importance of acknowledging the context, and of acting accordingly to reach customer perceived benefits/values. Core competence must be considered in the light of end products and business value.


2018 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 170-190 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dawn R. Deeter-Schmelz ◽  
Andrea L. Dixon ◽  
Robert C. Erffmeyer ◽  
Kyoungmi (Kate) Kim ◽  
Raj Agnihotri ◽  
...  

Given the recent proliferation in sales programs, business colleges face a new set of challenges. Sales competencies are changing rapidly, and firms struggle with identifying and attracting sales candidates on campus. Therefore, it is important that we understand needed competencies and how the content of job advertisements may differentially appeal to various student populations. To do so, we develop a conceptual model, based on signaling theory, that focuses on how students formulate their intention to pursue a given sales position. Our research utilizes a two-study approach. First, we explore the desired entry-level sales skills communicated by employers through job advertisements. Next, we examine both student and advertisement characteristics and their distinct relationships with the satisfaction with the job ad and the intention to apply for a sales position. Our study is unique, as we examine distinct undergraduate groups’ (sales, marketing, other business, and nonbusiness students) responses to sales job advertisements. Our findings demonstrate that differences in job ad clusters and student group characteristics influence the intention to pursue a sales position. Specifically, different student majors perceive job characteristics communicated within job ads differently. As such, our research provides insight into academic programs as well as corporate sales recruiters.


2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 451-465 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julien Pollack ◽  
Chivonne Algeo

Purpose – Many projects involve an organisational change component. Project management (PM) and change management (CM) have the potential to jointly contribute to the delivery of organisational changes. However, there is a lack of clarity in the literature about the boundary and relationship between these disciplines. The purpose of this paper is to explore the contribution these disciplines make to a set of project critical success factors, to understand the ways that these disciplines can most effectively work together. Design/methodology/approach – This paper analyses data collected through an online survey, examining project managers’ and change managers’ perception of each disciplines’ contribution to critical success factors. The survey received 455 responses. Findings – This paper identifies the success factors that are most clearly influenced by PM and CM, and areas where practitioners of these disciplines hold significantly different perceptions of their contributions. The results have been used to rank and categorise success factors based on the influence of each discipline. This has been used to develop a risk-based questionnaire to guide the contribution of PM and CM to the mitigation of specific project risks. Originality/value – These findings will be of use to practitioners managing organisational change projects, or projects with a significant change component. The findings will be of assistance in determining the ways in which these disciplines should work together to mitigate risks associated with specific critical success factors.


Author(s):  
Hazel Taylor ◽  
Jill Palzkill Woelfer

What behavioral competencies do experienced IT project managers apply when facing critical situations in their projects, and how have they developed those competencies? In this paper, the authors answer these questions. The authors interviewed 23 experienced IT project managers from 11 organizations, focusing on critical situations that they now managed differently from their earlier, novice, practices, and on how they had learned to develop these different approaches. The authors discuss a variety of management development and training interventions. They use a thematic analysis to identify the key competencies being applied and learning methods experienced by this set of managers. Results suggest that IT project managers are drawing on a different set of competencies from those required for project management in other industries. Additionally, this paper reveals the importance of informal learning channels, often involving project experiences, for the development of IT project management competencies.


2022 ◽  
pp. 1077-1089
Author(s):  
Pekka Mäkiaho ◽  
Katriina Vartiainen ◽  
Timo Poranen

This paper presents the Metrics Monitoring Tool (MMT) that was developed in university graduate and undergraduate courses on software project work in 2014-2016. The tool aims to support project members, project managers and upper management in reporting and monitoring software and project metrics for their easier and more effective utilization. The paper covers the development process of the tool, evaluation assessment, its current composition and features. The paradigm applied in this study is Design Science Research and the methods for evaluation include prototype, expert evaluation, case study and technical experiment. Data was collected from the tool users by two questionnaires. As a result, MMT was evaluated to ease the metrics handling, while several aspects related to the richness of functionalities and usability still require further development.


Author(s):  
Catherine M. Beise ◽  
Fred Niederman ◽  
Herb Mattord

This chapter presents the results of a case study pertaining to the use of information and communication media to support a range of project management tasks. A variety of electronic communication tools have evolved to support collaborative work and virtual teams. Few of these tools have focused specifically on the needs of project managers. In an effort to learn how practicing IT project managers employ these tools, data were collected at a North American Fortune 500 industrial company via interviews with IT project managers regarding their use and perceptions of electronic media within the context of their work on project teams. In this study, “virtual” describes the extent to which communication is electronic rather than the extent to which team members are geographically separated. Although the number of respondents was limited, the richness of the data collected leads to the conclusion that successful project managers and teams become skilled at adapting a variety of existing communication technologies to match the project task or process, the receiver, their own role as sender, and the content of the message. Groupware designers and developers need to better understand project management methods and best practices in order to provide better tools for practitioners, particularly as organizations expand globally and increasingly outsource various functions of their IT development and operations.


2011 ◽  
pp. 1738-1747
Author(s):  
David Sammon

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) packages can be described as the most sought after means of organisational transformation and IT innovation since the mid 1990s. Over the past decade, ERP packages have become a major part of the organisational landscape and form the cornerstone of IS architectures for an ever increasing percentage of organisations. Despite the strong push toward enterprise-wide ERP systems in the wider organisational community and the experience accumulated over 20 years of large scale integrated systems implementations, there is, in relation to ERP deployment, a lack of understanding of the specific project management required to counter the difficulties that can arise when organisations fail to ensure that all the required factors of success are present in their projects. Therefore, novel ideas to help managers and project managers to better prepare for enterprise-wide ERP projects are badly needed. This entry presents a method of practical relevance for organisational decision-makers by introducing the concept of a devil’s advocate workshop—reminiscent of Klein’s premortem sessions (Klein, 1993, 2002), but tailor-made for large scale Information Systems projects—which leverages the concept of sense-making, in introducing a preplanning “intelligence” phase in any enterprise-wide ERP project life-cycle.


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