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Interpersonal skills in project management

Conference Paper · March 2020

DOI: 10.1201/9780367814557

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Interpersonal Skills in Project Management

Ahmad Said
Doctor of Research in Management, Bina Nusantara University, Jakarta, Indonesia
Harjanto Prabowo
Doctor of Research in Management, Bina Nusantara University, Jakarta, Indonesia
Mohammad Hamsal
Doctor of Research in Management, Bina Nusantara University, Jakarta, Indonesia
Boto Simatupang
Doctor of Research in Management, Bina Nusantara University, Jakarta, Indonesia

Abstract :
Expeditious change is an accelerating problem for projects in most industries. In fact, a project
leader becomes the key person to project success. The aim of this paper is to explore how the
interpersonal skills of a project manager influence on the project performance. This quantitative
study was conducted to test the relationship between communications and project performance.
This paper also examined the effect of leadership transformation on project performance, by
presenting three different characteristics of project success (time, budget and customer
satisfaction). An online questionnaire was used as a survey tool to obtain data from Project
Managers/PMO/PD and Team Leaders of various projects in Indonesia. The dataset was
subsequently analyzed using SmartPLS-SEM. This paper proposes a conceptual integrated
research model of interpersonal skills of a project manager to promote transformational
leadership which can positively impact on project success.
Keyword: Project management, Interpersonal Skills, Communication Skills, Leadership
1. Background
Under business uncertainties having new ideas and describing a strategy are very
important for an organization (Landscape, Cost, & Performance, 2018). According to De
Smet, Lurie, & St George( 2018), with more complex growth in the world at this time many
emerging things becomes uncertain because of necessities. During the last decade there has
been an increase in performance in dealing with the performance of a project within the
organization, accompanied by a decrease of around 27% that will provide benefits for an
organization (PMI, 2018).
There are two main concepts when discussing the project, namely, Project Success and
Project Management Success (Radujković & Sjekavica, 2017). In PMI (2018), the success
of a project's performance is assessed through several aspects, namely (1) Goal Project
Meeting, (2) Complete on time, (3) Complete on budget, (4) Project scope creep, (5) Project
deemed failure, and (6) Project lost in project failure budget..
Many factors have caused a project to fail, one of which is the project manager's effective
communication (PMI, 2013). The project manager has the greatest power to bring project
success by his/her own style and manner of leadership (Gruden & Stare, 2018). For the
project manager, interpersonal skills are very necessary to possess. Strohmeier (1992)
suggests 4 interpersonal skill problems, namely, 1) Motivation, 2) Conflict, 3)
Communication, and 4) Team work. Thus, to avoid project failure the project manager must
have good interpersonal skills in carrying out activities and getting people involved during
the project.

2. Literature Review
1. Project Management Method
Project management is defined not only as a theory related to the project
management theory, but also as a guideline to the basic standards in executing a
project (Kostalova, Tetrevova, & Svedik, 2015). Though, many guidelines have been
standardized by some organizations, the overall goal is to focus organizational
resources on the completion of certain projects (D.C. Smith, 2014). With a growing
 number of organizations adopting the project management approach, the demand for
project managers will grow because of the need and the standards for the
development and assessment of project management competencies (Crawford,
2005).
Furthermore, in project management methods there are several predictive, iterative,
agile and hybrid methods (PMI, 2017). The agile approach is widely used in the
development of an application project (Vallon, da Silva Estácio, Prikladnicki, &
Grechenig, 2018). Success in application development is one of the competitive
advantages for the organization (Sanchez, Terlizzi, & de Moraes, 2017).
2. Project Success
Although, project failure in application development is very low, it continues to
be a problem for organizations (Engelbrecht, Johnston, & Hooper, 2017). According
to Aga, Noorderhaven, & Vallejo (2016) as traditionally, project management has
been associated with construction and engineering, where the criteria for project
success are objective, well received, and measurable.
Joslin & Müller (2016) argue that historical understanding related to project
success has developed from the concept of simple triple constraints, known as triple
constraints into something that includes many additional criteria of success such as
quality, stakeholder satisfaction, and knowledge management.
Additionally, according to Joslin & Müller (2015), the Model contains three criteria,
usually called triple constraints, plus five dimensions of additional project success
criteria namely, project efficiency, organizational benefits, project impacts,
stakeholder satisfaction, and future potential. In contrast to Berssaneti & Carvalho
(2015), it has been argued that there have been many criticisms in recent years
regarding the success of a project, not only from time, cost, and quality. The success
of the project relies mainly on the expertise of the project manager himself to get
good outputs or outcomes (Sanchez et al., 2017)
3. Communication Skills
Effective communication is a broader skill and involves a lot of knowledge that
is not unique to the project context (Edum-Fotwe & McCaffer, 2000). The
implementation or form of this communication function can include preparing
project direction, attending meetings, general project management, marketing and
sales, public relations, record management such as minutes, memos / letters /
newsletters, reports, specifications, and contract (Siregar, Ichsan, Riantini, &
Indonesia, 2018). Good communication will lead to customer satisfaction while poor
communication will result in customer dissatisfaction (Huijgens, van Deursen, &
van Solingen, 2017).
4. Transformational Leadership
Van Kelle et al.(2015) divided the leadership style in project management into:
1. Transformational leadership. This style refers to an adaptive leadership style
that has such characteristics as motivating, inspiring, expressing a vision and
emotional involvement of followers, while focusing on long-term commitment
and involvement.
2. Transactional leadership. This style refers to social environments where
expectations and rewards are clearly stated, and the existence of short-term
focus.
Furthermore, Aga et al. (2016) concluded that in the previous studies
transformational leadership had general agreement, there were four dimensions that
shaped transformational leadership: ideal influence, intellectual stimulation,
inspiration motivation, and individual consideration.
4. Research Problem
when someone occupies a position as a project manager technical knowledge decreases
as a priority to run a project, while interpersonal skills are really essential and even become
 critical (Strohmeier, 1992). Most project managers do not know what a leader must have and
what type of leader they should be.
5. Methodology and Research model
This study uses 3 latent variables with 50 indicators and employs a quantitative approach
using key stakeholder analysis units which include Project Directors, PMOs, and Project
Managers who have experience as project leaders. The data were collected through online
questionnaires, created using GoogleSheet platform.

Transformational Leadership H1

H2 Project Success
Communication Skills

Fig. 1. Research Model

6. Result and Discussion
The survey was conducted on week 4 in June. Of the 80 questionnaires distributed, 17
respondents did not fill and qualify as research units. 53 respondents filled in completely and
qualify for analysis of this study. 70% of respondents work as a project manager and have
up to 36 years of work experience in project management.

Fig. 2 Modeling Result SmartPLS Fig. 3 Bootstraping Result

Fig. 2 shows the results of smartPLS in looking at the loading factors of each indicator
against variable latency. Loading factors of less than 0.700 were excluded from the model
while those greater than 0.700 remained included in the model.
Fig. 3 indicates the results of testing the relationship between variables based on the
existing model. Based on these results, T-test for transformational leadership was 2.245 >
1.96 so that it can be assumed that transformational leadership has a positive and significant
relationship with project success, while for communication skills T-Test was revealed 1.474
<1.96 so it is concluded that communication skill is not significant for project success.
This study found a significant relationship between transformational leadership and
project success as nowadays many team members tend to work independently and allowed
to execute a project in their own. Hence, at this time there has been a shift from transactional
to transformational leadership.
There are two possible limitations of this study. First, this study does not have industry
specifications to be examined and secondly this study is not specific to which method
approach to be selected. Therefore, further research must specify what kinds of industry to
study and should add other variables related to the organization's technical and cultural
approaches.
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