Can one be an effective IT project manager with little IT knowledge, background or inclination?

"IT projects" could mean a lot of things and the best answer may be different depending on whether that means hardware, internal software development, software sales, IT services, or something else.

You mentioned software development. In many organisations, software development is done without any PM involvement. Software development knowledge is important for someone who will be part of or leading a software development team but perhaps not important otherwise.

It really depends on the nature of the project, and the abilities of the PM.

I have taken on multiple projects in various domains including IT where I had very little technical background, and been successful in most. In some cases, the technical details are not the most difficult aspect of the project. Another way this works is if there is some technical principal who is managing the technology aspect, and I as the PM am primarily working the programmatic aspects.

That is not to say that a PM will have little technical knowledge throughout the project. As a PM in a new domain, I take it upon myself to research the field, and ask a lot of questions. The PM must be paired with a very knowledgeable technical expert who will spend the time to help them get up to speed. By the end of these types of projects, I might not be able to write a single line of code, but I am well versed in the development process and the key risks and issues that steer the project outcome.

When I describe my core competencies, I often say that I am highly proficient at quickly becoming a temporary expert in technical fields I previously knew nothing about. As evidence of that, I literally have multiple patents in technical subjects I cannot even spell.

Programmatic aspects of a project would relate more to the PM technical abilities, than the IT technical abilities. Here are some examples of problems I've worked in the past on IT projects that would fall into the programmatic category:

- Planning large design reviews with many stakeholders in an efficient manner.
- Training development and deployment to hundreds of end users in a short timeframe with a limited number of instructors and demo workstations.
- Integrating the schedules from many teams working in parallel to determine the critical path
- Identifying and managing the many data exchanges between many teams so that all of the information is received in time to support the release schedules.
- Phased implementations that prioritize specific functionality so that it is developed in time to support critical early users.

With those types of issues, the PM requires technical knowledge unrelated to the underlying technology. The technical SME may be the expert on how to develop some "black box", but often it takes someone with a higher level perspective to ensure the the planning and deliverables for that piece of HW/SW have the right level of maturity at the right time to support other teams working on related projects independently.