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Project Human Resource Management. 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
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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.
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.
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
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
Keys to Managing People • 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.
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)
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 main motivation.
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 project!
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
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
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
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
RACI Charts • 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).
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
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 loading and resource leveling
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.
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 schedule delay.
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
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
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 more concrete, detailed explanations while discussing the person’s task assignment.
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 difficulties getting along
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
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
Five Dysfunctions of a Team • “Teamwork remains the one sustainable competitive advantage that has been largely untapped” • The five dysfunctions of teams are: • Absence of trust • Fear of conflict • Lack of commitment • Avoidance of accountability • Inattention to results
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
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
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
