The Role of Project Manager in IT Projects

Information Technology (IT) project management is planning, scheduling, executing, monitoring, and reporting IT projects. The IT project manager’s role has become essential in advancing IT-related projects. IT project management is beyond the application of knowledge, utilizing standard tools and procedures, or aligning expertise to handle projects from start to completion. Therefore, the IT project manager is saddled with the responsibilities of dealing with the challenges of linking and consolidating version changes and rapid technology upgrades throughout the IT project life cycle. Consequently, an IT project manager requires more than the standard project management tools and skills. This chapter gives a bit of background to an IT project, including IT project management; however, a section of the chapter discusses the roles/initiatives of the IT project manager in managing IT projects, meaning that the IT project manager oversees its objectives to ensure timely completion of project within budget. Also, the author highlights the six phases of an IT project and explores the team members in a typical IT project organization and their associated responsibilities. There are discussions around IT project manager competencies and Team dedication. Finally, the author identifies the challenges of IT project management. The focus on metrics of key performance indicators (KPIs) of IT projects was how development quality, progress, and planning, including quality of the technical specification, can be measured.