Relationship Between Project Managers’ Age, Years of Project Experience, and Project Success

Project failures are costly to businesses and are increasingly present in the news. In many industries, projects have a 40% failure rate, and 90% of venture capital projects fail even to start. Project managers play a key role in delivering successful projects. The purpose of this correlational study was to examine the relationship between project manager’s age and years of project experience and project success. The population of this study consisted of 108 active or former project managers working in Albania or Kosovo who were LinkedIn members. The study was not grounded in a named theory; rather, based on the conceptual framework that project managers’ age and years of project experience may predict project success. The independent variables were project managers’ age and years of project experience, and the dependent variable was project success. Data were collected using a questionnaire posted on the SurveyMonkey website and analyzed using multiple linear regression. The results revealed that age has a negative, though not statistically significant, effect on project success. Project managers’ experience has a positive influence on project success; this effect is also not statistically significant. The coefficient of determination R2 was .02, which demonstrated that only 2% of project success relates to the independent variables. The study may contribute to positive social change by helping project managers and leaders of international development agencies, that conduct project to positively affect social change through improvements in areas such as agriculture, water, sewage, health, nutrition, education, environment, and social development. An increased rate of project success may translate into an improvement of livelihood for local communities in low-income countries