Understanding the role of project management soft skills to increase project success rates

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This study aims to determine to what extent soft skills play a role in project success and employee performance compared to hard skills. Also, which of the soft skills are commonly used in project management and are more important to the teamwork and contribute to increasing the level of performance. To this end, the following research questions have been developed: Q1. Are soft skills as important as hard skills in project success? Q2. What are the most important personal skills influencing stakeholders? The questionnaire was distributed to the participants through the official website of the Project Management institution (PMI-KSA) in Saudi Arabia. All government and private sectors have been included in this study. The quantitative research approach was used in a sample of project managers in Saudi Arabia. Non-probability sampling technique has been conducted by using the snowball. The results of the data analysis showed that the majority of respondents agree that soft skills have a significant impact on increasing a projects' success rate and contribute to improving employee performance. Moreover, there are some soft skills that the participants mentioned as being more important than others, such as, problem-solving skills, dealing with individuals, self-confidence, and leadership personality, which were prioritised from the perspective of the participants. The soft skills discussed were varied in importance and were concerned with improving the quality required for project management. Companies and organisations need to pay more attention to training in the field of personal skills of employees and of expanding their awareness as to how to implement and develop them. Future research could continue the study by taking into account some cultural aspects of the country, and choosing a specific activity for companies, in order to provide more focused results and interest in a specific field, and the selection of other soft skills that were not discussed in this study.

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