Transcript In Search Of Excellence In Project Management

Chapter 4 and 5
Organizing And Staffing
The Project
Office And Team
1
Human Resources Issues in PM
• Identify, document project roles, responsibilities,
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and reporting relationships
Develop a “staffing management plan”
– How and when project team members will be
acquired
– How to release them from projects
– Identification of training needs
– Rewards
– Safety issues
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Project Personnel
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A project manager
An assistant project manager
A project (home) office (PMO)
A project team
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Human Resource tools and
techniques
• Hierarchical-type organizational Chart
• Resource Breakdown Structure (RBS)
– Helpful in tracking cost
– It is used to breakdown the project by type of
resources
• Ex: welders welding equipment  for metal
sheets
4
• Matrix Based charts
– Responsibility Assignment Matrix
5
Definitions
• Authority is the right of an individual
to make the necessary decisions
required to achieve his objectives or
responsibilities.
• Responsibility is the assignment for
completion of a specific event or
activity.
• Accountability is the acceptance of
success or failure.
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Responsibility Assignment Matrix
Raw Material Procurement
Prepare bill of materials
Contact vendors
Visit vendors
Prepare purchase orders
Authorize expenditures
Place purchase orders
Inspect raw materials
Quality control testing
Update inventory file
Prepare inventory report
Withdraw Materials
LEGEND
General Management responsibility
Specialized Responsibility
Must be consulted
May be consulted
Must be notified
Must approve
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Staffing Questions
• Who should be a member of the project team?
– Internal
– External
– Contracted
• Who should be a member of the project office?
• What problems can occur during recruiting
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activities?
What can happen downstream to cause the loss
of key team members?
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Project Manager
Selection
• A project manager is given a license to
cut across several organizational lines.
• A leader
• General management has selected and
appointed him.
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Project Manager
Responsibilities
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To “negotiate”
To resolve all conflicts, if possible
To produce the end-item
To make all required decisions
To meet contractual profit objectives
10
“Accidental” Project Managers
• Neither well defined nor well-understood
career path
• Responsibilities by happenstance
• No formal procedure for selecting and
training project managers
• Loosely defined bosses
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What Information was PM never given that
could have made the job easier?
• Understand the context of project
management
• Recognize project team conflict as
progress
• Understand who the real stakeholders are
• Accept the political nature of organizations
and use it to your advantage
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Lead from the front; the view is better!
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• Understand what “success” means
• Build and maintain a cohesive team
• Enthusiasm and Despair are both
infectious
• One look forward is worth two looks back
• Remember what you are trying to do
• Use time carefully or it will use you
• Above all, plan, plan, plan
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Communications
Defined
• Effective project communication is
needed to ensure that we get the right
information to the right person at the
right time using the right media and the
right format and in a cost-effective
manner.
15
PM Communications
Responsibility
• The project manager must know:
– What kind of message to send
– To whom to send the message
– How to translate the message into a
language that all can understand
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“ Teamwork is a lot of people doing what I
say.”
Anonymous Boss
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Acquiring Project Team
• Process of obtaining the human resources
needed to complete the project
– Availability
– Ability
– Experience
– Interests
– Cost
18
Team Skills
• Team members committed to the program
• Good interpersonal relations and team
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•
•
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spirit
The necessary expertise and resources
Clearly understood goals and program
objectives
Involved and supportive
Open communication among team
members and support organizations
19
Tools to acquire project team
• Pre-assignment
• Negotiation with
– Functional managers
– Other project teams
• Consultants, subcontracting (in case of
lack of expertise)
• Virtual teams
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Virtual Teams
• Teams of people from the same company
live in widespread geographic areas
• Add special expertise to a project team
• Incorporate employees who work from
home offices
• Teams with different shifts or work hours
• Reduce cost of traveling
• Requires technology
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Tools for managing project
teams
• Observation and conversation
– Progress towards project deliverable
– Accomplishments
– Interpersonal issues
• Project performance appraisals
– 360-degree feedback regarding performance
• From superiors, peers and subordinates
• Conflict management (scarce resources,
scheduling priorities, work styles)
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Projects progress quickly until
they become 90% complete:
then they remain 90% complete
forever.
23
Documentation
• Individually oriented media: These
include letters, memos, and reports.
• Legally oriented media: These include
contracts, agreements, proposals,
policies, directives, guidelines, and
procedures.
• Organizationally oriented media: These
include manuals, forms, and brochures.
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Lessons Learned documentation
• Documentation of knowledge learned
during the implementation of a project
– Procedures, documents, drawings, plans,..
– Skills
– Mistakes
– Issues
– Task descriptions, memos, meeting minutes,
etc.
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Conflict Resolution
Skills
• Understand interaction of the
organizational and behavioral
elements in order to build an
environment conducive to their
team’s motivational needs.
• Communicate effectively with all
organizational levels regarding both
project objectives and decisions.
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Conflict Resolution
Skills (Continued)
• Recognize the determinants of conflict
and their timing in the project life cycle.
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Meetings
• Meetings can be classified according
to their frequency of occurrence:
– The daily meeting where people work together
on the same project with a common objective
and reach decisions informally by general
agreement.
– The weekly or monthly project meeting where
members work on different but parallel
projects and where there is a certain
competitive element and greater likelihood
that the chairmen will make the final decision
by himself/herself.
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Meetings (Continued)
– The irregular, occasional, or “special
project” meeting, composed of people
whose normal work does not bring them
into contact and whose work has little or
no relationship to the others.
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How to Train Project Managers
• Experiential learning (60%)
• Formal education and courses (20%)
• Professional activities, seminars (10%)
• Readings (10%)
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Special Requirements
• Part-time versus full-time assignments
• Several projects assigned to one
project manager
• Projects assigned to functional
managers
• The project manager’s role retained by
the general manager
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Risks
• The greater the project manager’s
technical expertise, the higher the
propensity that he will overly involve
himself in the technical details of the
project.
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Risks
(Continued)
• The lower the project manager’s
technical expertise, the more likely it is
that he will overstress the nontechnical project functions
(administrative functions).
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Special Problems
• Personnel connected with project forms of
organization suffer more anxieties about
possible loss of employment than
members of functional organizations.
• Individuals temporarily assigned to matrix
organizations are more frustrated by
authority ambiguity than permanent
members of functional organizations.
34
Special Problems
(Continued)
• Personnel connected with project forms of
organization worry more about being set
back in their careers than members of
functional organizations.
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