Edinburgh Napier University

  As project management (PM) and information technology (IT) evolved over the last decades, an increasing number of project management software products have emerged. Project managers in IT consulting can improve the success of projects through the utilization of such software. However, the diversity of software available cannot sensibly be grasped by a single individual.
Based on this context, the study aims to examine the key considerations in the selectionof project management software in IT consulting from the project managers’ perspective. A literature review identifies key aspects of IT consulting projects that may be relevant to the software selection. No evidence was found that provided a view on the process of the selection of PM software in IT consulting itself. The review also unveils the lack of common terminology in regard to PM software.
The study addresses these gaps by utilizing interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) to understand the experiences made by project managers. To gather data, 17 semistructured interviews were conducted with experienced project managers. Thematic analysis was used to develop an understanding of the process employed by project managers in the software selection and the considerations they make along the way. The findings were synthesized to create a process guide, supported by a checklist and the working definition of key terminology.
This study adds a broader perspective to the field of PM software through the application of qualitative methodology in an otherwise quantitatively dominated field of research. It addresses the lack of existing knowledge on the perspective of the project manager in the selection process through the generation of a 6-staged process guide. The detailed considerations of project managers were compiled into a checklist of selection criteria. These two also contribute to practice by providing a structured approach to PM selection for practitioners. The third output is a working definition of project management software as used in practice, which simplifies an exchange of knowledge between theory and practice.