Use of Social Media in IT Project Management: a Literature Review Based on Hermeneutics and a Research Agenda

Since IT projects have been the key to success in today’s competitive environment, the adoption of most appropriate tools for managing these projects is essential. Social media, such as wikis, blogs and microblogs, have emerged to facilitate knowledge management in new ways, and subsequently contribute to project success. However, companies underexploit these tools as support in project management. Some of the challenges faced by project managers are organizational culture, lack of familiarity with the tools and with data storage solutions. The objective of this paper is twofold: 1. analyze the use of social media in project management, specifically in IT projects; and 2. provide a research agenda for the use of social media in project management. This is an exploratory qualitative study based on hermeneutic approach. The literature review is based on academic papers published in the last 10 years and searchable by Google Scholar. The literature review shows that despite the potential of social media in project management, most of the empirical evidence presented in the literature so far involves adoption of a single tool or separate tools. The research agenda provides guidance for further research on the application of social media in IT project management (ITPM). This paper contributes to practice by offering project managers a broad view of how social media are being used and how they can be adopted in ITPM in the coming years.