Processes Based Identification of Software Project ...

Processes Based Identification of Software Project Manager Soft Skills Malgorzata Pinkowska Department of Computer Engineering Kasetsart University Bangkok, Thailand

Bogdan Lent Department of Business and Administration University of Applied Science Bern, Switzerland

Somnuk Keretho Institute of IT Innovation Kasetsart University Bangkok, Thailand

Abstract— Practice and science today agree that software project managers have to master soft skills in order to be successful. Lack of justified, derived from concrete needs, essential soft skills identification makes their mastering impossible. The research model presented hereafter is build on detailed investigation of human factor related processes in software project management and subsequent identification of project manager soft skills needed to perform these processes. The LTimer™ process based mental model of project management is chosen for the evaluation. Innovative and systematic approach identified at least 645 human factor related activities. Their effective execution requires mastering of at least 256 soft skills.

that takes one or more kinds of input and creates an output with value to the customer [25]. Johansson et al. consider process as a set of linked activities that take an input and transform it to create an output [26].

Keywords - software project management; project success; human factor related processes; project manager soft skills;

To perform any activity successfully, appropriate skills have to be mastered [28]. Skill is defined by Knapp as learned ability to bring pre-determined results with maximum certainty, often with the minimum outlay of time or energy or both [29].

I. INTRODUCTION The low number of successful software projects prompted the research in key success factors for last several decades [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]. According to most frequently quoted CHAOS only 16-35% of all projects have been successful in the last 15 years [11]. Recently scientists and practitioners recognized that software projects success depends not only on technical skills and knowledge but also on the project manager soft skills [e.g. 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 29]. Adaptation of the curriculum of software engineering education towards inclusion of soft skills development is indicated in [20, 21, 22]. However, those efforts remain pointless tilting at windmills, as long as there is no clear, scientifically justified and validated by practice, indication, which skills and when are needed. Authors attempt to answer these questions with scientifically sound research model. II.

PROCESS, ACTIVITIES, SKILLS AND SOFT SKILLS

1776 Smith described how the work could be divided into a set of simple tasks, which in turn would be performed by specialized workers [23], conveying the first definition of the process. In the early 1990s, business processes became subject of broader evaluation. Davenport defines a process as a structured, measured set of activities designed to produce a specific output for a particular customer or market [24]. Hammer and Champy see process as a collection of activities

Authors adopting the meaning of the above business process definitions and using the IEEE Standard Glossary of Software Engineering Terminology [27] define process as a sequence of interlinked elementary activities or chains of such activities. An elementary activity has inputs and generates outputs. Jointly they produce a meaningful result.

More complex challenge is the adaptation of the above definition to soft skills. Dewson describes soft skills as those skills, which are required to achieve soft outcomes, and the soft outcomes he sees as outcomes which are difficult or impossible to measure [30]. Wohlin follows this view in project management evaluation and refers to all non-technical aspects, which are difficult to quantify, as soft factors [31]. Several authors use various terms to describe soft skills without truly clear definition (see [32] for a more thorough discussion of what constitutes soft skills). The same soft skills are variously referred by different authors in such phrases as: - soft factors [33, 31], - interpersonal skills [9, 34], - people skills [35], - personal skills [36], - social skills [37], - behavioural skills [17], - human skills [22] etc. Most of the authors use term soft skills to describe all or parts of the aspects like project employees qualification, behaviour in conflicts, motivation to work and leadership style [e.g. 38]. For the purpose of the research pursued by the authors, the term soft skills is hereafter defined as an aggregation of all interpersonal and personal learnable abilities, which contribute to higher efficiency of the execution of the human factor related processes of project management.

III.

HUMAN FACTOR PROCESES APPROACHES

The most widely know international project management standards: IPMA Baseline (International Project Management Association) [39] and PMBoK (Project Management Body of Knowledge by project Management Institute PMI) [40], differentiate in their approach and identification of the project management processes and competences. IPMA distinguishes 46 competences in technical, contextual and behavioural clusters. In the area of human factor related processes unclear is why e.g. communication and teamwork (which contains also leadership of the team) are classified in the group of technical competences – required to start, manage, execute and close the project and at the same time e.g. leadership (partly treated above) and engagement & motivation are in behavioural cluster, relevant to the project and context but not required for it successful execution? PMI distinguishes Project Human Resource Management (including team management) and Project Communications Management. Other human factor related processes briefly discussed at PMI conferences and commercial publications are not contained in PMBoK – mandatory for project manager’s PMI certification. Therefore, in further evaluation of the soft skills, authors adapt the human factor related processes of the L-Timer™ system as a common denominator. L-Timer™ is a comprehensive and complete, as far as the authors can judge, mental model of project management processes (see [41] for more details). IV.

L-TIMER™ HUMAN FACTOR RELATED PROCESES

There are six human factor related processes defined in the L-Timer™ system [42]. Their sequence is given by logic of occurrences in project life cycle and relationship to corresponding administrative processes (e.g. HRM below matches Organisation Management OM, CFM matches Problem Management PBM and so on). A. HRM: Human Resource Management (Process) In this process project manager targets the best possible assignment of the team members to project roles and related tasks [43] taking personal needs under considerations. Support in team members personal development in accordance with company strategy is an issue here [42]. B. TM: Team Management (Process) The goal of team management process is to ensure the highest efficiency of the project team measured against yielded performances, staff commitment, client satisfaction and process improvement. The efficiency is determined by mutual trust, built on personal knowledge about each other in a team [32]. Team performance is determined by the four stages group development dynamics [44]. C. CFM: Conflict Management (Process) Conflict on a long run dramatically reduces the efficiency of a team up to the point where a real crisis (no one believe in positive outcome any more) blocks completely the productivity. Project managers shall identify potentials of

conflict within project teams and between team members and persons relevant to the project, prevent conflict occurrence and undertake the suitable actions to solve the emerging conflict securing the sustainability of the solution [32]. D. COM: Communication Management (Process) Effective communication is one of the key success factors in a project [45]. Message sent is not necessary perceived as intended [32]. Communication complexity awareness and proper communication skills significantly increase this process performance.Communication comprises both project marketing and plain information, which are exchanged ambiguously within the project team as well as with the outside world, relevant to project goals achievement. E. SM: Self Management (Work & Life Balance) Self-management refers to an ability of the individual to manage himself under provision of good role performance in a team. A person with good self-management skills will have clear goals and priorities and be able to critically review own strengths and weaknesses [46]. Self Management contributes towards reaching the project objectives by developing the personality, personal attitude, capability, self-motivation and managing personal resource towards successful work and life balance. It is a personal process of project managers, and shall be a process of each team member, too [32]. F. L: Leadership Leadership is a particular process where skilful and conscious control of the behaviour of team members targets initiation of specific actions to be taken by the team members [32]. Motivating people is a key activity of a leader. According to Nash [47] leaders distinguish themselves by: - strong will to win, - focus on achieving the results, - establishing the culture of readiness for changes, - creating an atmosphere of trust. Skilful leader deals convincingly with uncertainties in project. V.

HUMAN FACTOR RELATED PROCESSES FLOW DEVELOPMENT

Hereafter the general framework for process flow development, verification and validation is presented. The main objects in a process design are activities and resources. Activities are transformation steps which use resources as inputs and produce new ones as outputs. Special activities are decision activities, where input resources allow person in charge of process execution asses the further process flow direction. Elementary activity is the one, which uses its’ all input resources jointly to produce the output resource (s).Resources are the results of other activities or information (knowledge and documents), essential to the performed given activity. Two types of resources are used through the process: the internal resources, created in currently executed process and external resources, produced outside the process.

Activities can be represented as nodes while resources, for simplicity of depiction, as directed interconnections. Each activity uses one or more inputs and generates one or more outputs. Inputs are in-bound interconnections, while outputs are out-bound interconnections. Each activity is characterized by a set of attributes such as its duration, costs, or quality aspects. The evaluation of the duration, costs, or quality aspects of the process is an aggregation of the evaluations of the activities contained in the selected process paths. In the process design, the sequence of activities in each of six human factor related processes has to be determined. Potential sequences are constrained by three requirements: 1. All inputs must be available before an activity can be executed (inputs are related by an AND rather than OR relation). 2. All outputs are generated when considered activity is executed (AND or OR (decision activities) output interrelation). 3. Each activity consumes at least one unit of the resource and generates at least one unit of the resource. For the simplicity of analysis and of understanding the six human factor related processes are further divided in several sub-processes as presented in Table I. The sub-processes are given by the proximity of process objectives related activities. The flowcharts of all main processes start with the similar activities: - Decision if the process has to be tailored to a given situation/project. - Analysis of the internal process storage, where are stored open issues from the previous process execution loops. For validation of the correctness and completeness of developed process flows the Delphi method, popular quantitative research approach, using consensus from the expert, was applied.

TABLE I.

Process

Human Resource Management

Team Management

Conflict Management

Communication Management

Self-Management

Leadership Total:

6

TABLE II. Symbol

In this paper the Human Resource Management HRM main process flow is depicted in Figure 1. All 6 processes and 23 sub-processes may be found in [48]. The short explanation of symbols used in process flowcharts is given in Table II. Person in charge of HRM process has to work closely with HRM department in the company, if such exists, obtaining support for taken actions. HRM starting point is the decision if the process has to be tailored to a given situation/project and with an analysis of the internal storage. At the first decision point of HRM process the question “Does any new role exist?” needs to be answered. Positive answer is given if an application with request for new role assignment is received from Organization Management process or there are open issues, concerning the new role, in the internal storage. The answer “yes”, given most often in the situation of recruiting new team members or finding candidates for open project roles, starts sub-process “Set role owner”.

Process improve.

PROCESS, SUB-PROCESSES, ACTIVITIES

Sub-process

Set role owner Apply role changes Increase effectivness Satisfy needs Adjust informal roles Personal developemnt Create team Increase team efficiency Team efficiency potential Solve conflict Secure solved conflict Prevent conflicts Design network Elaborate communication rules Send content Check effectiveness Aspire to personal goals achievement Physical resources under control Non-material resources under control Self-motivation Leader characteristic Maximal abilities Perceived as a leader 23

No of identified activities

No of decision points

34 17 19 21 8 13 47 27

7 7 4 7 1 4 9 8

13

3

35 10 10 17

13 3 3 5

11

2

37 12

9 1

16

2

25

3

50

6

17 24 43 16 522

2 6 15 3 123

PROCESS FLOWS SYMBOLS EXPLANATION Description Terminator, starts the process or sub-process. Triggered by planned process execution or external requests or ends the process or ends the sub-process leading to return to main process flow. Process/sub-process flow direction Input data/information, receiving information from extern, external request to the process, download from extern needed to perform given task document Output data/information, sending information extern, sending document Both direction data/information exchange External triggers for process or external resource with whom communication is needed. OM – Organisation Management Process, CM – Change Management Process. Process or sub-process activity. Decision point. Always closed ended questions, with two “yes” or “no” result. Divides process flow in two separate flows. Document created or needed to use. Sub-process, used only in main processes flows to jump to sub-process execution. Internal process storage

The objective here is the best possible assignment of the role owner by efficient recruitment preparation, execution and results monitoring. If any role changes are necessary, then the answer “yes” activates sub-process “Apply role changes”. The objective of this sub-process is the optimization of role-tasks matrix. Next, the level of project employees’ effectiveness is verified. Not satisfying effectiveness is a trigger for “Increase effectiveness” sub-process, where source of low effectiveness are assessed and means of their overcome and/or prevention are elaborated. Afterwards satisfaction of the role owners is revised. Procedures, methods, techniques and tools for needs identification and fulfilment are recognized and implemented in the fourth sub-process “Satisfy needs”. Next step “Adjusting informal roles” objective is assuring that formal roles match the informal roles in team. Cohesion of formal and informal roles creates optimal team work environment. Last sub-process “Personal development” focuses on personal development of role owners in accordance with the company strategy. Development plan, career plan, in house or external trainings are exemplary issues here. Process HRM ends with collection of lessons learned from its execution and suggested improvements. Detailed description of all processes and subprocesses is available in [47]. VI.

6. Survey among professionals based on the above results. 7. Final results statistical evaluation, validation and conclusions. In order to get possibly differentiated picture of cultural impact, with authors capable to assess it, two comparable and simultaneously developing economies: Poland and Thailand has been chosen (according to The Global Competitiveness Index 2010–2011 Thailand is one 38th position, Poland on 39th) [49]. Switzerland as world's most competitive economy according to the global competitiveness report 2006-2007 (rank number 2), with highest quality of life and work motivation, was chosen as a good reference model [49]. Furthermore Swiss employees are known for their highly developed skills, high quality of their work, high labor efficiency as well as for their strong work ethic.

ACTIVITY- SOFT SKILL RELATIONSHIP

Project manager is perpetually engaged in each process, i.e. performing some actions like chosing team member to fulfils a specific role, shall be periodically reviewed and adjusted if chosen person does not meet the expectations. Nevertheless, presented research allow to identify 645 activities needed to be performed in human factor related processes. Additional hundreds awaiting in other processes. As human can handle only a limited number of activities a role system with priorities within the individual roles and tasks have to be settled. The process model of project management and its components: sub-processes and single activities proved to be helpful in identifying and allocating the demanded skill. Some skills are useful in several processes. Their recurrence is indicated in the summary of all skills. The recurring skills are assigned arbitrary to activity in the process, where the particular skill is essential in fulfilling process goal. The number of possible skills-activities combinations is the complex interrelation problem, not solvable within reasonable time limits. Therefore, at this research stage, to speed up the process of finding a good enough solution, authors decided to adopt a heuristic approach and Delphi validation as follows: 1. Content analysis of scientists and practitioners soft skills awareness. 2. Diagnosis of skills for each activity based on external awareness and validated by authors’ own experience. 3. Diagnosis of skills for each activity by expert psychologist. 4. Results logical combination (super-set of both). 5. Validation of the correctness and completeness of the developed skills by software project management expert.

Figure 1. HRM Main process flow

Major investments of international Switzerland are in the ICT sector [50].

companies

in

The results of the review of 29 journals and conference proceedings and 46 monographs and standards strictly related to ICT project management, allowed to identify 74 soft skills. The identification of the practitioners’ awareness has been done by extracting the demanded soft skills from the job offers for software project managers, advertised across 2009 and 2011 on most popular job-websites in Switzerland, Poland and Thailand. Online jobs advertisements are the most popular source of jobs proposals for IT workers, as compared to the classified sections of traditional newspapers [51]. Only about 35% of advertisements contained the soft skills requirements. 59 soft skills could be solicited from 69 Swiss, 80 Polish and 85 Thai advertisements. Detailed research analysis is available in [52]. Steps 2, 3 and 4 has been done and the research is currently at stage 5 (Survey development). First four stages resulted in 256 soft skills. 121 most frequently demanded are listed in Table III. Several skills have been identified as basic (elementary) to other skills. Therefore, beside six processes, the seventh group of elementary skills has been allotted. Further research procedures will focus on data collection, statistical evaluation, validation and final results elaboration. TABLE III.

MOST OFTEN REPETITIVE SOFT SKILLS

Process

Cluster skills

HRM

needs identification skills, personal needs management skills, resource allocation skills, recruiting skills, recognizing prior skills, personalities understanding skills, exposing individuals to select skills, performance evaluations skills, productivity management skills, developing others skills, training skills, career development skills, promoting skills, etc. team development skills, team building skills, cross culture management skills, group facilitation skills, relationship management skills, building partnership skills, team work skills interaction skills, collaboration skills, team cohesion management skills, team culture management skills, etc. conflict prevention skills, conflict recognition skills, conflict resolution skills, dealing with conflict skills, compromise skills, win-win approach skills, agreement skills, handle difficult situation skills, crisis handling skills, etc. writing skills, oral skills, choosing the right communication channel skills, network initiation skills, (active) listening skills, questioning skills, negotiation skills, mediation skills, feedback skills, presentation skills, facilitation meetings skills, selling skills, marketing skills, data interchange skills, information processing skills, customer orientation skills, conversation skills, dialogue skills, small talk skills, making contact skills, interviewing skills, receiver-sender recognition skills, listener involvement skills, body language using skills, non-verbal communication skills, transactional analysis interpretation skills, public speaking skills, conclusion drawing skills, etc. ethical behaviour skills, assertiveness, positive attitude skills, discipline skills, self-development skills, self-learning skills, fast learning skills, personal career development skills, work under stress skills, stress management skills, time management skills, flexibility skills, self-motivation skills, self-mobilisation skills, self-discipline skills, self-anger management skills, emotions management skills, self-observation skills, self-sincerity skills, self-criticism skills, reflection skills, etc. building trust skills, supervising skills, mentoring skills, coaching skills, motivating others skills, inspiring skills, influencing skills,

TM

CFM

COM

SM

L

Elementary skills

political skills, persuasion skills, delegation skills, good judgments skills, taking initiative skills, energizing others skills, decision making skills, diplomacy skills, building team morale skills, directing skills, achievement orientation skills, business acumen skills, providing vision skills, inspiring authority skills, criticism skills, controlling skills, determination skills, change atmosphere creation skills, etc. analytical skills, assessment skills, thinking (logical, creative, critical) skills, synthesis skills, conceptual skills, observation skills, diagnosing skills, deduce skills, selection skills, implementation skills, expressing commitment skills, being objective skills, expressing respect skills, etc.

VII. SUMMARY State-of-the-art concerning ICT project manager essential soft skills is far from being conclusive in software process improvements. The lack of clear definitions, ambiguity of used terms, coincidentally selected required skills, expose broad demand for systematically elaborated approach. The focus of the research, presented in this paper, was to introduce possible process based identification of software project manager soft skills. The results reached so far allow to conclude that it is feasible to execute an in depth analysis of human factor related processes of project management and deduce the skills relevant in performance of those activities. Such approach enables recognition of single process activities.. Because of project specific characteristics, each project is different. Therefore, the generalised methods of work place analysis used by psychologists, or interviews with practitioners conducted by project management standardization organizations are insufficient assessment methods in the case of projects. In each project definition of roles, processes, tasks and activities, and subsequently demanded skills offers higher probability of appropriate staffing of the project team including the project manager himself. The multiple case studies and survey analysis, validating the above results are currently conducted in Switzerland, Thailand and Poland. Findings should have significant implications for both research and practice in the field of software project management improvement. REFERENCES [1]

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