Nurturing Data-Savvy Talent in Digital Transformation of Projects

Abstract

Digital transformation in projects disrupts how project-oriented organizations recognize and value skills and expertise of new data-savvy talents. Existing research on digitalization in projects has focused mainly on technologies that can help organizations and people achieve, without connecting the implications these technologies have on human and social capital in project environments. This research goes beyond this dominant technocratic view to examine talent management for project management professionals operating in an increasingly digitalized and data-rich world. Through a purposive sample of 24 semistructured interviews with diverse project management experts across industry, academia, and professional institutions, our findings extend talent management scholarship in two ways. First, unlike scholarship on talent management that hitherto has emphasized identification and recruitment of talents, our interviewees placed more attention on developing and retaining talents. Second, whereas talent management scholarship can identify pivotal roles that can secure competitive advantage, our research highlights the importance of data-savvy expertise to interact with nondigital project management expertise in order for such pivotal roles to succeed in project contexts. Strategies are proposed for new directions in talent management practices based on our proposed buy–lease–make model for talent management in project-oriented organizations.