This document discusses the importance of human resource management in projects. It notes that people are the most important asset for organizations and managing human resources effectively is one of the toughest challenges for project managers. The document outlines strategies for developing the human resource plan, acquiring the project team, developing the project team through training and team building activities, and managing the project team. It emphasizes treating people with consideration, understanding what motivates them, communicating carefully, and focusing on enabling team members to do their best work.
2. The Importance of Human Resource
Management
Many corporate executives have said, “People are our
most important asset”
People determine the success and failure of
organizations and projects
Most project managers agree that managing human
resources effectively is one of the toughest challenges
they face
Project human resource management is a vital
component of project management, especially in the
ICT field – in which qualified people are often hard to
find and keep.
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3. Global IT Workforce
Unemployment rates in many IT occupations is one of
the lowest in the global labor force
Demand for Talent is high and several organizations
can not grow as desired due to difficulties in hiring the
people they need
Employers like to hire people with a solid record of
accomplishment. It helps to have previous experience
in related field.
But employers say that the most important skill for IT
workers is their interpersonal skills.
As the job market changes continuously people should
upgrade their skills to remain marketable and flexible
Negotiation and presentation skills also become
crucial in finding and keeping a good job.
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4. Implications for the Future of IT
Human Resource Management
Proactive organizations are addressing workforce
needs by:
Improving benefits – such as informal dress codes,
flexible work hours, tuition assistance, on-site day care
etc.
Redefining work hours – working less than 40 hours a
week or working from home several days a week etc.
Incentives – provide incentives that use performance
not hours worked, as the basis for rewards
Finding future workers – who will maintain the systems
we have today or who will continue to develop new
quality products
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5. What is Project Human Resource Management?
Processes required for making the most effective use of
the people involved with a project
Processes include:
Developing the human resource plan: identifying and
documenting project roles, responsibilities, and reporting
relationships
Acquiring the project team: getting the needed
personnel assigned to and working on the project
Developing the project team: building individual and
group skills to enhance project performance
Managing the project team: tracking team member
performance, motivating team members, providing timely
feedback, resolving issues and conflicts, and
coordinating changes to help enhance project
performance
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6. Keys to Managing People
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Motivation plays an important role in building
people’s ability to work properly.
A motivated individual can play an important part
and work to achieve certain goals.
We can look at what is motivation and how it can
be achieved in different circumstances.
7. Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation
Intrinsic motivation causes people to participate
in an activity for their own enjoyment
Extrinsic motivation causes people to do
something for a reward or to avoid a penalty
For example, some children take piano lessons
for intrinsic motivation (they enjoy it) while others
take them for extrinsic motivation (to get a reward
or avoid punishment)
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8. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
It states that people’s behaviors are guided or
motivated by a sequence of needs such as
Psychological needs – basic needs like thirst and
hunger
Safety needs – Physical safety, economic security
Social needs – Association with team/group
Esteem needs – Recognition, status
Self-Actualization – Challenging opportunities to
prove one self
Maslow suggests that each level of need is a
prerequisite of the next one. For example people
in a emergency situation won’t be worried about
personal growth, personal survival would be their
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10. Maslow’s Hierarchy
of Needs
•If our project team member is worried about getting food on the family table,
about the safety of their family, doesn’t know where the next payment is going to
come from; (the lower levels of needs) they may not be a good member of our
team.
•We want individuals from the upper hierarchy of needs on our team. People
seeking challenges and opportunities.
•If our team members are not at the higher levels, the project manager should
seek to help fulfill their lower needs. Train the person so they improve their skills
and then can in turn earn a higher salary and hopefully move up in the hierarchy.
Improve our team members!
•Beware of team members that have too many problems. Can they leave their
problems at home? We are going to have enough problems completing our
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11. Ways to Influence that Help and Hurt Projects
Projects are more likely to succeed when project
managers influence with:
Expertise – Special Knowledge
Work challenge
Projects are more likely to fail when project
managers rely too heavily on:
Authority
Money
Penalty
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12. Improving Effectiveness
Project managers can improve effectiveness on
projects
Be proactive – anticipate and plan for problems like
changes
Begin with the end in mind – Goal to achieve
Put first things first – must focus on important things
which are not urgent like developing various project
plans, building relations with major stakeholders
etc.
Think win/win – overcome conflict and create a
win/win situation.
Seek first to understand, then to be understood
Synergize – grouping together yields better results
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13. Empathic Listening and Rapport
Good project managers are empathic listeners; they
listen with the intent to understand
Before you can communicate with others, you have to have
rapport, a relation of harmony, conformity, accord, or
affinity
Mirroring is the matching of certain behaviors of the other
person, a technique to help establish rapport
IT professionals need to develop empathic listening and
other people skills to improve relationships with users and
other stakeholders
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14. Developing the Human Resource Plan
Involves identifying and documenting project roles,
responsibilities, and reporting relationships
Contents include:
Project organizational charts
Staffing management plan
Responsibility assignment matrixes
Resource histograms
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17. RACI Charts
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Some organizations prefer to build RACI charts for
responsibility assignment because of it’s elaborative
style.
It can show Responsibility (who is responsible for a
task), Accountability (who is accountable or performs
the task), Consultation (who provides consultation for
the task), Informed (who must be kept informed about
the task status).
18. Staffing Management Plans and
Resource Histograms
A staffing management plan describes when and
how people will be added to and taken off the project
team
A resource histogram is a column chart that shows
the number of resources assigned to a project over
time
Staffing management plan often includes a resource
histogram
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20. Acquiring the Project Team
Acquiring qualified people for teams is crucial
Project managers with strong influencing and
negotiating skills are often good at getting internal
people to work on a project.
It is important to have good procedures in place for
hiring subcontractors and recruiting new employees.
It is also a priority to address retention issues.
One innovative way to hiring and retaining IT staff is
to offer existing employees incentives for helping to
recruit and retain personnel.
Once people are assigned to projects, there are two
techniques available to project managers that help
them use project staff most efficiently : resource
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21. Resource Loading
Resource loading refers to the amount of individual
resources an existing schedule requires during specific
time periods
Helps project managers develop a general understanding
of the demands a project will make on the organization’s
resources and individual people’s schedules
So we have identified a task (work) that is to be
completed. We identify the resources required to
complete that task within the time allotted.
Overallocation means that the work requires more
resources than are available. We don’t have the
resources that are required. So, Triple Constraint, we
can change the amount of work that the task requires
(scope), increase the budget (cost) and obtain more
resources, and/ or extend the schedule (time) for the
task to be completed.
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22. Resource Leveling
Resource leveling is a technique for resolving
resource conflicts by delaying tasks (more time)
It is a form of network analysis in which resource
management concerns drive scheduling decisions
The main purpose of resource leveling is to create a
smoother distribution of resource usage and reduce
over-allocation
Project Managers examine the network diagram for
areas of slack or float, and to identify resource
conflicts.
They remove the over-allocations by delaying
noncritical tasks, which does not result in an overall
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24. Developing the Project Team
The main goal of team development is to help
people work together more effectively to improve
project performance
It takes teamwork to successfully complete most
projects
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25. Training
Training can help people understand themselves,
each other, and how to work better in teams
Many organizations provide e-learning facilities to
help train their employees any time and at any place.
To train your people to work on new projects is more
realistic than to hire a new lot.
Team building activities include:
Physical challenges – hiking, trekking, sports etc.
Psychological preference indicator tools
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26. Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
MBTI is a popular tool for determining personality
preferences and helping teammates understand each
other
Four dimensions include:
Extrovert/Introvert (E/I) – drawing energy from external
or internal sources
Sensation/Intuition (S/N) – being practical minded or
imaginative
Thinking/Feeling (T/F) – objective & logical or
subjective & personal
Judgment/Perception (J/P) – closure & task completion
or open & flexible plan
NTs or rationals are attracted to technology fields
IT people vary most from the general population in not
being extroverted or sensing
If a project manager is N and one of the team members
is S then project manager should take time to provide
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27. Social Styles Profile
People are perceived as behaving primarily in
one of four zones, based on their assertiveness
and responsiveness:
Drivers – proactive and task-oriented in other words
pushy
Expressives – proactive and people-oriented in
other words excitable, reacting, egotistical.
Analyticals – reactive and task-oriented in other
words critical, picky, stuffy.
Amiables – reactive and people-oriented in other
words conforming, dependent, unsure, agreeable.
People on opposite corners (drivers and
amiables, analyticals and expressives) may have
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29. DISC Profiles
Also uses a four-dimensional model of normal
behavior
Dominance
Influence
Steadiness
Compliance
People in opposite quadrants can have problems
understanding each other
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31. Reward and Recognition
Systems
Team-based reward and recognition systems can
promote teamwork
Focus on rewarding teams for achieving specific goals
Allow time for team members to mentor and help each
other to meet project goals and develop human
resources
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32. Five Dysfunctions of a Team
“Teamwork remains the one sustainable competitive
advantage that has been largely untapped”
The five dysfunctions of teams are:
1. Absence of trust
2. Fear of conflict
3. Lack of commitment
4. Avoidance of accountability
5. Inattention to results
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33. General Advice on Teams
Be patient and kind with your team
Fix the problem instead of blaming people
Establish regular, effective meetings
Allow time for teams to go through the basic team-
building stages
Limit the size of work teams to three to seven members
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34. General Advice on Teams (continued)
Plan some social activities to help project team
members and other stakeholders get to know each
other better
Stress team identity
Nurture team members and encourage them to help
each other
Take additional actions to work with virtual team
members
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35. Project Resource Management Involves
Much More Than Using Software
Project managers must:
Treat people with consideration and respect
Understand what motivates them
Communicate carefully with them
Focus on your goal of enabling project team
members to deliver their best work
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