IT Outsourcing Encounters Setbacks

Victoria Anderson could not believe how much money her company was paying for outside consultants to help with an important operating system conversion project. The consulting company's proposal said it would provide experienced professionals who had completed similar conversions in the past, and that the job would be done in six months or less with four consultants working full time. Nine months later her company was still paying high consulting fees, and half of the original consultants on the project had been replaced with new people. One new consultant had graduated from college only two months before and had extremely poor communication skills. Victoria's internal staff complained that they were wasting time training some of these "experienced professionals". Victoria talked to her company's purchasing manager about the contract, fees, and special clauses that might be relevant to the problems they were having.

Victoria was dismayed at how difficult it was to interpret the contract. It was very long and obviously written by someone with a legal background. When she asked what her company could do because the consulting firm was not following its proposal, the purchasing manager stated that the proposal was not part of the official contract. Victoria's company was paying for time and materials, not specific deliverables. There was no clause stating the minimum experience level required for the consultants, nor were there penalty clauses for not completing the work on time. There was a termination clause, however meaning that the company could terminate the contract. Victoria wondered why her company had signed such a poor contract and whether there was a better way to procure services from outside the company.

Victoria decided to appoint an internal project manager that was part of the organisation's IT Strategy Group to liaise with all appropriate stakeholders and take actions to ensure the project was still viable and achievable.

Question: List and describe five (5) skills that would be required by the IT project manager to complete the tasks allocated to them in the project scenario presented above.