Purpose: The past few decades have produced a number of investigations into the correlation between project managers’ competencies and project success. As a result, competencies lists have become extensive “shopping lists.” The purpose of this paper is to define the most important competencies to project success and investigate their correlations. Design/methodology/approach: The authors surveyed project managers on the importance of 28 project manager competencies to project success. Data were analyzed using univariate and multivariate procedures. Findings: Data show that communication, commitment and leadership appear as the three most relevant aspects. Multivariate analysis identified seven groups of competencies: leadership, self-management, interpersonal, communication, technical, productivity and managerial. Practical implications: The results confirm a growing trend toward soft skills and reinforce the need for an update on project management education to fill the gap between theory and practice. Originality/value: Project manager competencies lists have become too extensive, and the field is in constant change; therefore, this study updates the discussion and downsizes the number of competencies to fewer, more relevant items.

Since the concept of smart cities was introduced, there has been a growing number of surveys aiming to identify the dimensions that characterize them. However, there is still no consensus on the main factors that should be considered to make a city more intelligent and sustainable. This report contributes to the topic by identifying the most important smart city drivers from the perspective of professionals from four broad areas of expertise: applied social sciences, engineering, exact and Earth sciences, and human sciences, which provide important insights for the understanding of smart and sustainable cities. In this study, we conducted a wide and detailed literature review, in which 20 potential smart city drivers were identified. The drivers were prioritized from the results of a survey conducted with 807 professionals that work in the concerned field. The results showed that the seven drivers identified as the most important to increase the intelligence of cities are related to the governance of cities.

Since the 1980s, smart buildings have aroused the interest of researchers. However, there is still no consensus on what the intelligence of a building is, and what enhances that intelligence. The purpose of this paper is to identify and correlate the main drivers and systems of smart buildings, by associating them with the main beneficiaries: users, owners, and the environment. To identify the main drivers and systems of these buildings, we carried out a comprehensive, detailed, and interpretative literature search. From the selected articles, we sorted the information, extracted the main concepts and knowledge, and, finally, identified the set of potential drivers and systems. Results showed eleven drivers and eight systems, and these can be enhanced by more than one driver. By analyzing the main beneficiaries, we grouped the drivers into three categories: users, owners, and the environment. Given the lack of consensus on the key drivers that make buildings smarter, this article contributes to filling this gap by identifying them, together with the key systems. It is also relevant for detecting the relationships between drivers and systems, and pointing out which drivers have the greatest potential to affect a particular system, keeping in mind the main beneficiary.

Urban mobility plays a key role in the ecosystems of complex smart cities. It is considered a key factor in enabling cities to become more intelligent, which highlights the importance of identifying the drivers that improve the intelligence of cities. In this study, we investigate the main drivers with the potential to increase urban mobility intelligence and assign them a priority. Following on from a systematic review of the literature, we conducted broad and detailed bibliographic research based on the recommendations of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA). We also surveyed 181 professionals working in the field concerned to confirm the importance of different drivers and assign them a level of priority. The results show that 27 drivers identified in the literature were considered important, of which seven, related to city governance and technical solutions, were considered the most important to increase urban mobility intelligence.

The regulation of urban property use is a fundamental instrument for the development of cities. However, most of the norms that set general guidelines for urban policy predate the transformations that the smart city concept has brought about in the way cities are appropriated and perceived by society, and even today, studies on how these regulations collaborate to make cities smarter and more sustainable. This work contributes to filling this gap by investigating the main guidelines of the Brazilian City Statute that have the greatest potential to contribute to having smarter and more sustainable Brazilian cities. To prioritize the sixteen guidelines of the City Statute, the methodology used consisted of a survey carried out with professionals working in the concerned field. The results show that the sixteen guidelines were evaluated as important for increasing the intelligence of cities, of which five were evaluated as having the most priority, these five were related to the governance of cities. Considering the scarcity of resources in Brazilian cities, these five guidelines contribute so that municipal governments can direct their efforts towards what has the most priority.

Urban drainage systems play an important role in the complex ecosystem of cities and are often subject to challenges that hinder their functioning. Although identifying these challenges is essential for developing policies and actions to improve drainage systems, there is a lack of studies addressing these challenges. This work has two objectives to contribute to filling this gap: (1) to research the main challenges that make it difficult to improve urban drainage systems; and (2) to prioritize them. We conducted extensive and detailed bibliographic research in which 15 challenges were identified, and a survey with 30 Brazilian professionals with experience in the concerned field. The results showed that 15 challenges identified in the literature were considered important by the survey respondents. It also showed that the most important challenges concern the inadequate functioning of drainage infrastructure, dynamics of city expansion, system maintenance, vulnerability of urban areas, public policies, and investments.