IT Projects have a very high rate of failure. It is the responsibility of the IT project manager to ensure the success of the project. For a project manager to be both effective and efficient at their job they must possess the appropriate qualities and skills. Failure of an IT project as a result of poor project management can result from the lack of management of the various constraints on the projects. There can be many factors that can contribute to this, but ultimately it is the role of the project manager to assess and allocate the resources such as time, cost and staff skills accordingly. In assessing the success of the project managers' role, it is considered necessary to use qualitative and quantitative research techniques together, rather than either of them alone. To support this argument, two journal articles which be reviewed to show the benefit of both research techniques, but in particular, that the success of IT project management can not be assessed with qualitative measures.
             The two articles selected to address the essay topic in relation to the practice of information technology project management are attached at Appendix 1 and Appendix 2. The first article is entitled 'No More IT Projects'. 'This article presents insights on the failure of companies in the U.S. to align information technology (IT) plans with their corporate strategies as of March 2004'4. This article focuses on quantitative research, in particular statistical research, to support the failure of IT projects through a project manager not addressing the alignment of the project with corporate requirements.
             The second article is 'IT Project Management: developing on-going skills in the management of software development projects'5. In evaluating the different aspects of IT project management the ability to align 'IT plans with corporate strategies' is an extremely important facet of IT project...