Interpersonal skills and project management

As project managers try all the potentials to raise the chances of achievement in their projects, they are required to an emphasis on refining project management skills which includes technical skills while preserving the significance of soft skills which are generally ignored by many establishments. Also, while the research places small consideration on the topic of interpersonal skills as compared to hard skills. Here we will debate about soft skills as it relates to project management discipline by combining soft skills into the essential model of the project cycle.

In spite of the fact that soft skills are imperative for the project, there is a slight effort made in the literature to deal with it in an orderly arrangement. Most project management scholastic material relates to this matter briefly. Though some academics have used other terms in an effort try to plug this gap. Joseph et al (2010) used the word “practical intelligence” as a key idea in order to deliver a better understanding of soft skills in the IT industry. The word “practical intelligence” is a public expression in the psychology discipline. Literally with it, there are opinions of understanding the environment of intellectual theory.

Communication

Communication is extensively understood as a form of trading information and opinions through mode such as verbal, visual, written or behavioral.

It has the below-mentioned constituents:

Sender: The person who encodes the message.

Receiver: The person who decodes the message.

Medium: the means of sending the message.

Feedback: the response from the receiver to the sender regarding the message so received.

Noise: This can be a physical sound such as a traffic noise near the office.

Encoding/Decoding: These events are extremely reliant on the sender and receivers’ competencies and skills. Language, words, and symbols used may disturb these events.

Message: Too much or too little information in the message may result in an issue in the message cycle.

Medium: The communication medium may be direct where interactive parties discussed verbal and nonverbal messages such as body language.

Leadership

Some academics distinguish between management and leadership and contemplate them as two different subjects, while others use the standings interchangeably (McKenna, 2006).

Schafer (2010) recognized twelve individual traits and habits which are effective in a leadership capacity, some of which are:

  1. Honesty
  2. Employee caring
  3. Effective communication
  4. Strong work ethics
  5. Willingness to listen

Negotiation

Negotiation is a matter of business administration. It is not rare that negotiations now and then reach undesired outcomes and consequently tasks accomplishment become uncertain. Dobrijevic, Stanisic, and Masic (2011) states sixteen sources of power which can be used in negotiation.

Conflict management

Nearly everyone has definite awareness, not essentially identical, regarding conflict which typically involves terms such as disagreement, problem, resolution, and attitude. As it is not unusual to occur in our daily life, conflict is unavoidable in any business due to the inborn variances in the observation of each individual (Al-Tabtabai & Thomas, 2004)

Conclusion

The evidence provided in the study clearly shows the positive effects of soft skills on a project’s success.

The following are the outcomes:

  1. Providing an indication that there is an association between soft skills and project success.
  2. Only a minor quantity of project success could be described by soft skills.
  3. Managers must consider developing newer soft skills and strategies that can be used for project success.
  4. Managers must reconsider the essential interpersonal skills and qualities that they think exist in their behavior in order to boost them.