How to Teach Emotional Intelligence Skills in IT Project Management

High emotional intelligence ("EQ") is considered one of the greatest strengths of an alpha project manager, yet undergraduate project management students are not directly trained in EQ soft skills such as communication, politics and teamwork. This article describes examples of active learning exercises implemented in an undergraduate IT project management course to improve students' EQ skills in project management scenarios. Instruction emphasized the interplay of hard and soft skills in project management. In-class activities were designed to show students how to skillfully interact with peers and stakeholders on an IT project. This research provides examples of pedagogical interventions that involved students in their own learning and forced them to constructively engage with each other and with the material. This research contributes to the literature by demonstrating how to implement suggestions from research directly into pedagogy. Additionally, this research provides a set of activities that can be used to increase the EQ of students in a project management course. Based on the results from this study, the interventions worked as intended. Students reported higher EQ, critical thinking, and communication skills after completing the course.