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Chapter 8:

Project Human Resource

Management

adopted from PMI’s PMBOK 2000 and

Textbook : Information Technology Project Management

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Contents

• Importance of Human Resource Management

• Project human resource management processes

– Organizational planning

– Staff acquisition

– Team development

• Keys to Managing People

– motivation: Hierarchy of Needs (Maslow), Motivational and Hygiene Factors (Herzberg), Theory X and Y (McGregor)

– succeed factors and fail factors

– influence and power: types of power

– effectiveness: 7 habits for highly effective persons

• Organizational Planning

• using software to assist in HRM

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The Importance of Human

Resource Management • People determine the success and failure of

organizations and projects

• Despite the downturn in the economy in 2001,

there is still a shortage of good IT workers

– ITAA calculated that there were over 844,000 openings

for IT jobs in 2000

– 1 in 14 American workers are involved in IT jobs

– Although women represent 47 percent of the work

force, they make up only 29 percent of IT jobs

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What is Project Human

Resource Management?

• Project human resource management includes the processes required to make the most effective use of the people involved with a project.

• Processes include

– Organizational planning <= planning phase

– Staff acquisition <= planning phase

– Team development <= execution phase

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Keys to Managing People

• Psychologists and management theorists have devoted much research and thought to the field of managing people at work

• Important areas related to HR management include

– motivation theory

• Marlow, Herzberg and McGregor

– influence and power

– effectiveness of manager

• Stephen Covey

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Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

• Abraham Maslow developed a hierarchy of needs

to illustrate his theory that people’s behaviors are

guided by a sequence of needs

• Maslow argued that humans possess unique

qualities that enable them to make independent

choices, thus giving them control of their destiny

• Human needed to be satisfied starting from the

lowest level and move upward

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Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

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Herzberg’s Motivational and

Hygiene Factors

• Frederick Herzberg wrote several famous books

and articles about worker motivation. He

distinguished between

– motivational factors: achievement, recognition, the

work itself, responsibility, advancement, and growth,

which produce job satisfaction

– hygiene factors: cause dissatisfaction if not present,

but do not motivate workers to do more. Examples

include larger salaries, more supervision, and a more

attractive work environment

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McGregor’s Theory X and Y

• Douglas McGregor popularized the human relations approach to management in the 1960s

• Theory X

– assumes workers dislike and avoid work, so managers must use coercion, threats and various control schemes to get workers to meet objectives

• Theory Y

– assumes individuals consider work as natural as play or rest and enjoy the satisfaction of esteem and self-actualization needs

• Usually, many managers use of mixture of these theories to their day-to-day work to motivate team members

• Theory Z

– introduced in 1981 by William Ouchi and is based on the Japanese approach to motivating workers, emphasizing trust, quality, collective decision making, and cultural values

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Improving Effectiveness -

Covey’s 7 Habits • Project managers can apply Covey’s 7

habits to improve team effectiveness on projects

– Be proactive

– Begin with the end in mind

– Put first things first

– Think win/win

– Synergize

– Seek first to understand, then to be understood

– Sharpen the saw

intrapersonal

skill

interpersonal

skill

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Organizational Planning

• 12th of 21 planning phase process

• It involves identifying, documenting, and assigning project roles, responsibilities, and reporting relationships

– The assignment can be internal or they may come from outside.

– Internal groups are usually composed of specific functional departments, such as IT, engineering, marketing, or account.

– HR is an important area because people are the project’s most valuable resource.

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Inputs to Organizational

Planning • Project interfaces

– organizational interfaces – formal and information report relationships among different organizational units; Technical interfaces: formal and informal reporting relationships among technical disciplines; formal and information reporting relationship among different individual working on the project

• Staffing requirements

– define skills required of individuals or groups and the desired time frame within which they’ll be needed.

• Constraints

– factors such as organizational structure, collective bargaining agreements with unions or other employee group, preferences of the project team, expected staff assignments.

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Tools and techniques

• Templates

– help to define roles and responsibilities or reporting relationships

• HR practices

– help to plan the structure of project team

• Organizational theory

– help to structure the organization (see other descriptions)

• Stakeholder analysis

– help to ensure stakeholders’ needs and expectations are met.

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Outputs from Organizational

Planning • Role and responsibility assignments

– assignment of roles and responsibilities

• Staffing management plan

– describe when and how HR will join and leave the project team.

– Resource histograms that show resource requirements, their usage, and availability along a timeline are often incorporated into the staff management plan. It is part of the project plan.

• Organization chart

– displays the reporting relationships in a graphic format.

• Supporting details

– includes organizational impact, job descriptions, training needs.

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Staff acquisition

• 13th of 21 planning phase process

• It involves getting the people resources needed

assigned to and working on the project.

• The project manager doesn’t not always have

direct control over these resources because many

of them will be assigned to the project team by

other managers

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Staff acquisition

• Staffing plans and good hiring procedures are important

in staff acquisition, as are incentives for recruiting and

retention

– Some companies give their employees one dollar for every hour a

new person they helped hire works

– Some organizations allow people to work from home as an

incentive

– Research shows that people leave their jobs because they don’t

make a difference, don’t get proper recognition, aren’t learning

anything new, don’t like their coworkers, and want to earn more

money

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Inputs to Staff acquisition

• Staff management plan

– describe when and how HR will join and leave the project team. Resource histograms that show resource requirements, their usage, and availability along a timeline are often incorporated into the staff management plan. It is part of the project plan. It is the main Organizational planning output.

• Staffing-pool description

– includes the characteristics of potential staff, their experience, interests, characteristics, and availability.

• Recruitment practices

– include various organizational policies, guidelines, and procedures governing staff assignment. These are a constraint on staffing.

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Tools and techniques

• Negotiations

– ensure that there are appropriate resources at the required time. It is the role of project manager negotiate with functional managers or others (e.g. other project managers)

• Pre-assignment

– in some cases, staff were promised the assignment before the project started. It is an internal practice in many organizations.

• Procurement

– recruiting people outside the organization. This technique entails hiring consultants and contractors

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Outputs from Staff acquisition

• Project staff assignments

– indicate who will work on the project full-

time, part-time, or variably.

• Project team directory

– lists all project team members and key

stakeholders. It can be a simple, informal list

or very detailed.

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Sample Organizational Chart for a

Large IT Project

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Resource Loading and Leveling

• Resource loading

– refers to the amount of individual resources an existing project

schedule requires during specific time periods

– Resource histograms show resource loading

– Over-allocation means more resources than are available are

assigned to perform work at a given time

• Resource leveling

– a technique for resolving resource conflicts by delaying tasks

– The main purpose of resource leveling is to create a smoother

distribution of resource usage and reduce over-allocation

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Sample Resource Histogram for

a Large IT Project

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Resource Leveling Example

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Team Development

• 3rd of 7 executing phase process

• The project manager must enhance the team to function as a coordinated unit

– it takes teamwork to successfully complete most projects

– This is critical on uncertain projects, such as risky research and development (R&D) project

• It is necessary to develop each person in both managerial and technical areas.

– Training can help people understand themselves, each other, and how to work better in teams

• Team building activities include

– physical challenges

– psychological preference indicator tools Chapter 8

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Inputs to Team Development

• Project staff

– It is an output of Staff Acquisition process, where it is project staff assigned.

– The key is that particular skill sets for individuals and the team are available to support the project.

• Project plan

– incorporates the integrated documents that provide the baseline for controlling changes.

• Staffing management plan

– It is the main Organizational planning output

• Performance reports

– alert the project team to issues that can cause problems in the future. Status reports describe the project’s current standings. Progress reports describe the team’s accomplishments.

• External feedback

– criticism from outside the project helps the project team make periodic measures of performance.

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Tools and techniques

• General management skills

– include leadership, communication, negotiation skills, problem solving, and influencing the organization.

• Reward and recognition system

– motivates people through intrinsic factors like responsibility, promotions, and achievement, as well as extrinsic factors like pay raise, and working conditions.

– If rewards are given in a timely and public manner, they promote desired behavior.

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Tools and techniques (2)

• Collocation

– despite the fact that various communications technologies can bring people together easily, it is still generally a good idea to places team members in the same physical location. It can help to develop the team

• Training

– it help to enhance team skills, knowledge, and capabilities. Training costs need to be considered in developing the project

• Team-building activities

– any actions that improve team performance

• Other tools: Social Styles Profile, Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator

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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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Social Styles Profile

• People are perceived as behaving primarily in one of four zones, based on their assertiveness and responsiveness:

– Drivers

– Expressives

– Analyticals

– Amiables

• People on opposite corners (drivers and amiables, analyticals and expressives) may have difficulties getting along

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Social Styles

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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)

– Sensation/Intuition (S/N)

– Thinking/Feeling (T/F)

– Judgment/Perception (J/P)

• NTs or rationals are attracted to technology fields

• IT people vary most from the general population in not

being extroverted or sensing

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Outputs from Team Development

• Performance improvements

– includes anything that improves individual skills, enhances the ability of the team to function as a team, or identifies more efficient methods of working.

• Input for performance appraisals

– comprises evaluations of each staff member’s contribution to the project

– Project manager can use periodic evaluations and/or annual performance reviews according to the organization’s HR policy.

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General Advice on Teams

• Focus on meeting project objectives and producing positive results

• Fix the problem instead of blaming people

• Establish regular, effective meetings

• Nurture team members and encourage them to help each other

• Acknowledge individual and group accomplishments

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Using Software to Assist in

Human Resource Management

• Software can help in producing RAMS and resource histograms

• Project management software includes several features related to human resource management such as

– viewing resource usage information

– identifying under and over-allocated resources

– leveling resources

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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

• Goal is to enable project team members to

deliver their best work

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Summary

• Importance of Human Resource Management

• Project human resource management processes

– Organizational planning

– Staff acquisition

– Team development

• Keys to Managing People

– motivation:

• Hierarchy of Needs (Maslow)

• Motivational and Hygiene Factors (Herzberg)

• Theory X and Y (McGregor)

– succeed factors (expertise and work challenge)

– fail factors (heavily on authority, money and penalty)

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Summary 2

– influence and power: types of power

• Coercive, Legitimate, Expert, Reward, Referent

– effectiveness: 7 habits for highly effective persons

• Organizational Planning

– identifying, documenting, and assigning project roles,

responsibilities, and reporting relationships

– project organizational charts

– work definition and assignment process

– responsibility assignment matrixes

– resource histograms

• using software to assist in HRM

Chapter 8