How do Project Managers’ Skills Affect Project Success in IT Outsourcing?

What skills do project managers (PMs) need, and how do these skills impact project success in IT outsourcing? In this study, we seek to identify what factors impact IT project outcomes, such as costs and client satisfaction, given the project characteristics and PM’s hard and soft skills. We examine data collected from a field study conducted at a major IT service provider in India. Our results suggest that while hard skills such as technical or domain expertise may be essential in a PM, soft skills such as tacit knowledge of organizational culture and clients are the most important contribution that PMs bring to a project. Soft skills not only improve project outcomes directly, but are especially helpful when projects have greater coordination complexity or when there is less familiarity with the task and client. The results are robust to different specifications.