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BEC 3324: PROJECT MANAGEMENT YEAR III SEMESTER II SESSION 8

FMSC - USJ

By: H K Amarasinghe

Project Human Resource Management

Lecture Outline Develop Human Resource Plan The process of identifying and documenting project roles, responsibilities, and required skills, reporting relationships, and creating a staffing management plan. Acquire Project Team The process of confirming human resource availability and obtaining the team necessary to complete project assignments. Develop Project Team The process of improving the competencies, team interaction, and the overall team environment to enhance project performance. Manage Project Team The process of tracking team member performance, providing feedback, resolving issues, and managing changes to optimize project performance.

Introduction
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The project management team is a subset of the project team and is responsible for the project management and leadership activities such as initiating, planning, executing, monitoring, controlling, and closing the various project phases. This group can also be referred to as the core, executive, or leadership team. For smaller projects, the project management responsibilities can be shared by the entire team or administered solely by the project manager. The project sponsor works with the project management team, typically assisting with matters such as project funding, clarifying scope, monitoring progress, and influencing others in

Teams
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Managing and leading the project team also includes, but is not limited to:
Influencing

the project team.

Being aware of, and influencing when possible, those human resource factors that may impact the project. This includes team environment, geographical locations of team members, communications among stakeholders, internal and external politics, cultural issues, organizational uniqueness, and other such people factors that may alter the project performance.
Professional

and ethical behavior.

The project management team should be aware of, subscribe to, and ensure that all team members follow

Develop Human Resource Plan

Develop Human Resource Plan is the process of identifying and documenting project roles, responsibilities, and required skills, reporting relationships, and creating a staffing management plan. Human resource planning is used to determine and identify human resources with the necessary skills required for project success. The human resource plan documents project roles and responsibilities, project organization charts, and the staffing management plan including the timetable for staff acquisition and release. It may also include identification of training needs, team-building strategies, plans for recognition and rewards programs, compliance considerations, safety issues, and the impact of the staffing management

Develop Human Resource Plan Inputs/ Outputs

Human Resource Plan

The human resource plan, a part of the project management plan, provides guidance on how project human resources should be defined, staffed, managed, controlled, and eventually released. The human resource plan should include, but not be limited to, the following:
Roles

and Responsibilities Project organization charts. Staffing management plan

Acquire Project Team

Acquire Project Team is the process of confirming human resource availability and obtaining the team necessary to complete project assignments. The project management team may or may not have direct control over team member selection because of collective bargaining agreements, use of subcontractor personnel, matrix project environment, internal or external reporting relationships, or other various reasons.

Important to Consider
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The project manager or project management team should effectively negotiate and influence others who are in a position to provide the required human resources for the project. Failure to acquire the necessary human resources for the project may affect project schedules, budgets, customer satisfaction, quality, and risks. It could decrease the probability of success and ultimately result in project cancellation. If the human resources are not available due to constraints, economic factors, or previous assignments to other projects, the project manager or project team may be required to assign alternative resources, perhaps with lower competencies, provided there is no violation of legal, regulatory, mandatory, or other specific criteria.

Acquire Project Team

Pre-Assignment
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When project team members are selected in advance they are considered pre-assigned. This situation can occur if the project is the result of specific people being promised as part of a competitive proposal, if the project is dependent upon the expertise of particular persons, or if some staff assignments are defined within the project charter.

Negotiation
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Staff assignments are negotiated on many projects. For example, the project management team may need to negotiate with: Functional managers to ensure that the project receives appropriately competent staff in the required time frame, and that the project team members will be able, willing, and authorized to work on the project until their responsibilities are completed,

Other project management teams within the performing organization to appropriately assign scarce or specialized human resources, and External organizations, vendors, suppliers, contractors, etc., for appropriate, scarce, specialized, qualified, certified, or other such specified human resources. Special consideration should be given to external negotiating policies, practices, processes, guidelines, legal, and other such criteria.

Acquisition
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When the performing organization lacks the inhouse staff needed to complete a project, the required services may be acquired from outside sources. This can involve hiring individual consultants or subcontracting work to another organization.

Virtual Teams
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The use of virtual teams creates new possibilities when acquiring project team members. Virtual teams can be defined as groups of people with a shared goal who fulfill their roles with little or no time spent meeting face to face. The availability of electronic communication such as e-mail, audio conferencing, web-based meetings and video conferencing has made such teams feasible. The virtual team format makes it possible to:

Form teams of people from the same company who live in widespread geographic areas, Add special expertise to a project team even though the expert is not in the same geographic area, Incorporate employees who work from home offices, Form teams of people who work different shifts or hours, Include people with mobility limitations or disabilities, and Move forward with projects that would have been ignored due to travel expenses.

Outputs
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Project Staff Assignments The project is staffed when appropriate people have been assigned through the previously described methods. The documentation of these assignments can include a project team directory, memos to team members, and names inserted into other parts of the project management plan, such as project organization charts and schedules. Resource Calendars Resource calendars document the time periods that each project team member can work on the project. Creating a reliable schedule depends on having a good understanding of each persons schedule conflicts, including vacation time and commitments to

Develop Project Team

Develop Project Team is the process of improving the competencies, team interaction, and the overall team environment to enhance project performance. Project managers should acquire skills to identify, build, maintain, motivate, lead, and inspire project teams to achieve high team performance and to meet the projects objectives. Teamwork is a critical factor for project success, and developing effective project teams is one of the primary responsibilities of the project manager. Project managers should create an environment that facilitates teamwork. Project managers should continually motivate their team by providing challenges and opportunities, by providing timely feedback and support as needed, and by recognizing and rewarding good performance.

Cont
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High team performance can be achieved by using open and effective communication, developing trust among team members, managing conflicts in a constructive manner, and encouraging collaborative problem-solving and decision-making. The project manager should request management support and/or influence the appropriate stakeholders to acquire the resources needed to develop effective project teams

Objectives of Developing a Project Team

Improve knowledge and skills of team members in order to increase their ability to complete project deliverables, while lowering costs, reducing schedules, and improving quality Improve feelings of trust and agreement among team members in order to raise morale, lower conflict, and increase team work Create a dynamic and cohesive team culture to improve both individual and team productivity, team spirit, and cooperation, and to allow crosstraining and mentoring between team members to share knowledge and expertise

Develop Project Team Inputs/ Outputs

Tools and Techniques

Interpersonal Skills These are sometimes known as soft skills, and are particularly important to team development. Training Training includes all activities designed to enhance the competencies of the project team members. Team-Building Activities Team-building activities can vary from a five-minute agenda item in a status review meeting to an off-site, professionally facilitated experience designed to improve interpersonal relationships. The objective of team-building activities is to help individual team members work together effectively. One theory states that there are five stages of development that teams may go through.

Forming Storming Norming Performing Adjourning

Cont
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Ground Rules Ground rules establish clear expectations regarding acceptable behavior by project team members. Co-location Co-location involves placing many or all of the most active project team members in the same physical location to enhance their ability to perform as a team. Co-location can be temporary, such as at strategically important times during the project, or for the entire project. Recognition and Rewards Part of the team development process involves recognizing and rewarding desirable behavior.

Team Performance Assessment

The performance of a successful team is measured in terms of technical success according to agreed-upon project objectives, performance on project schedule (finished on time), and performance on budget (finished within financial constraints). High-performance teams are characterized by these taskoriented and results-oriented outcomes. They also exhibit specific job-related and people-related qualities that represent indirect measures of project performance. The evaluation of a teams effectiveness may include indicators such as:

Improvements in skills that allow individuals to perform assignments more effectively, Improvements in competencies that help the team perform better as a team, Reduced staff turnover rate, and Increased team cohesiveness where team members share information and experiences openly and help each other to

Manage Project Teams

Manage Project Team is the process of tracking team member performance, providing feedback, resolving issues, and managing changes to optimize project performance. The project management team observes team behavior, manages conflict, resolves issues, and appraises team member performance. As a result of managing the project team, change requests are submitted, the human resource plan is updated, issues are resolved, input is provided for performance appraisals, and lessons learned are added to the

Manage Project Teams

Conflict Management
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Conflict is inevitable in a project environment. Sources of conflict include scarce resources, scheduling priorities, and personal work styles. Team ground rules, group norms, and solid project management practices like communication planning and role definition, reduce the amount of conflict. Successful conflict management results in greater productivity and positive working relationships. Factors that influence conflict resolution methods include:
Relative importance and intensity of the conflict, Time pressure for resolving the conflict, Position taken by players involved, and

General Techniques to Resolve Conflicts

There are six general techniques for resolving conflict. As each one has its place and use, these are not given in any particular order: Withdrawing/Avoiding.
Retreating from an actual or potential conflict situation.

Smoothing/Accommodating.
Emphasizing areas of agreement rather than areas of difference.

Compromising.
Searching for solutions that bring some degree of satisfaction to all parties.

Forcing.
Pushing ones viewpoint at the expense of others; offers only win-lose solutions.

Collaborating.
Incorporating multiple viewpoints and insights from differing perspectives; leads to consensus and commitment.

Confronting/Problem Solving.
Treating conflict as a problem to be solved by examining alternatives; requires a give-and-take attitude and open dialogue.

Issue Log
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Issues arise in the course of managing the project team. A written log documents and helps monitor who is responsible for resolving specific issues by a target date. Issue resolution addresses obstacles that can block the team from achieving its goals.

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End of Session 08

Thank You