Redefining success: How personal ambitions and confidence levels shape IT project dynamic

Background: Failures in information technology (IT) projects continue to concern executives and organisations. Individuals are realising that to remain competitive in the workplace, they must develop skills to become successful project team members and project managers. Objectives: The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between IT project team members' competencies and their impact on IT project success, considering the iron triangle. Methods/Approach: Our study is based on IT projects that have been implemented for a public or private organisation in Slovenia and where contractors are employed in IT development enterprises on a sample of 141 IT companies. Step-wise regression was used to determine which competencies of various project roles are relevant for project success. Results: The most intriguing result is the negative association of achievement orientation with project success for analysts or consultants, suggesting that an excessive focus on personal accomplishments could potentially conflict with team objectives. Additionally, the variation in the significance of self-confidence across roles, particularly its less critical impact on project managers, challenges conventional wisdom regarding the universal importance of confidence in leadership positions. Conclusions: These insights reveal the nuanced and role-specific contributions of individual characteristics to project success, highlighting the importance of aligning personal traits and professional actions with the project team's collective goals.