New product development project manager skill sets in the telecommunications industry

New Product Development is a key strategy to cope with ever-increasing competition in the Telecommunications industry (called ‘Telco’ for short). The flexible project management processes to deliver newer technologies in challenging short time-to-market goals require skillful and strong project managers. In this paper, we present a theoretically based and empirically proven skill set framework, with clear definitions grounded in the recent management and leadership literature, to define successful Telco NPD project managers. It consists of technical, leadership, managerial and administrative skills: managerial skills are mandatory; technical and administrative skills are important to understand the technical work and business processes; and leadership skills are found to be limited at an operational level. We also examined which skills are important with respect to project phases.