A recent survey conducted by IT and business service provider Parity Group, found that while meeting clients’ objectives is the top priority for IT project managers, this is often fulfilled at the expense of completing projects to budget and timescales – two items surprisingly low on project managers’ list of priorities.

Despite this however, almost 60% of respondents rated the ability to plan, prioritise and prepare in advance as crucial – a competence they value most among individual team members.

Another important attribute for success was the ability of individual team members to convey information clearly and accurately. The report’s authors note however that this sense of clarity and direction essentially has to be set at the top, so that it permeates through all tiers of a project, from managers to suppliers.

The report also notes that business and IT project managers must not become complacent when using project guidelines such as Prince2 or MSP. Without strong leadership the project is likely to fail, irrespective of underlying methodologies, say the authors.