The Human Side of Project Management

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Human Side of Project Management • Organizational planning : focuses on the roles, responsibilities, and relationships among the project stakeholders.

• Staff acquisition : having policies, procedures, and practices to guide the recruitment of appropriately skilled and experienced staff.

• Team development : involves creating an environment to develop and support the individual team members and the team itself.

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Organizational Planning

• Organizational planning involves identifying, documenting, and assigning project roles, responsibilities, and reporting relationships • Outputs and processes include – project organizational charts – work definition and assignment process – responsibility assignment matrixes – resource histograms 1-3

Organization and Project Planning Organizational Structure 1-4

Organization and Project Planning – The Formal Organization The Functional Organization • based upon organizing resources to perform specialized tasks or activities in order to attain the goals of the organization.

• Projects are managed within the existing functional hierarchy.

• Advantages – Increased flexibility – Breadth and depth of knowledge and experience • Disadvantages – Determining responsibility – Poor response time – Poor integration – Less duplication 1-5

The Functional Organization 1-6

Organization and Project Planning – The Formal Organization The Project Organization • support multiple projects at one time and integrate project management tools and techniques throughout the organization.

• each project is treated as a separate and relatively independent unit within the organization.

• Advantages – Clear authority and responsibility – Improved communication – High level of integration • Disadvantages – Project isolation – Duplication of effort – Projectitis 1-7

The Project Organization 1-8

Organization and Project Planning – The Formal Organization The Matrix Organization • The ability to integrate areas and resources throughout an organization.

• Unity of command is violated.

• Forms – Balanced matrix – Functional matrix – Project matrix • Advantages – High level of integration – Improved communication – Increased project focus • Disadvantages – Higher potential for conflict – Poorer response time 1-9

The Matrix Organization 1-10

The Informal Organization • Bypasses formal lines of communication & authority • Power is determined by how well one is connected in the informal network 1-11

The Project Team • The Roles of the Project Manager – Managerial role – Leadership role • Attributes of a successful project manager – ability to communicate with people – ability to deal with people – ability to create and sustain relationships – ability to organize 1-12

The Project Team • Team Selection and Acquisition – Skills desired in team members • technology skills • business/organization skills • interpersonal skills – Size of team – Source of team members 1-13

Team Organization • Teams are used throughout software production – Especially during implementation • Two extreme approaches to team organization – Democratic teams (Weinberg, 1971) – Chief programmer teams (Brooks, 1971; Baker, 1972) 1-14

Democratic Team Approach • Basic underlying concept—

egoless programming

• Programmers can be highly attached to their code – They even name their modules after themselves – They see their modules as extension of themselves 1-15

Democratic Team Approach (contd) • If a programmer sees a module as an extension of his/her ego, he/she is not going to try to find all the errors in “his”/“her” code – If there is an error, it is termed a

bug

 – The fault could have been prevented if code had been better guarded against the “bug” – “Shoo-Bug” aerosol spray 1-16

Democratic Team Approach (contd) • Proposed Solution • Egoless programming – Restructure the social environment – Restructure programmers’ values – Encourage team members to find faults in code – A fault must be considered a normal and accepted event – The team as whole will develop an ethos, group identity – Modules will “belong” to the team as whole – A group of up to 10 egoless programmers constitutes a

democratic team

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Democratic Team Approach • Difficulties – Management may have difficulty • Difficult to introduce into an undemocratic environment • Strengths – Democratic teams are enormously productive – They work best when the problem is difficult – They function well in a research environment – Problem: • Democratic teams have to spring up spontaneously 1-18

Chief Programmer Teams • Consider a 6-person team – Fifteen 2-person communication channels – The total number of 2-, 3-, 4-, 5-, and 6 person groups is 57 – The team cannot do 6 person-months of work in 1 month 1-19

Chief Programmer Teams (contd) • Six programmers, but now only 5 lines of communication 1-20

Classical Chief Programmer Teams • Basic idea behind the concept – Analogy: chief surgeon directing operation, assisted by • Other surgeons • Anesthesiologists • Nurses • Other experts, such as cardiologists, nephrologists • Two key aspects – Specialization – Hierarchy 1-21

Beyond CP and Democratic Teams • Potential Pitfall • Chief programmer is personally responsible for every line of code. – He/she must therefore be present at reviews • Chief programmer is also team manager, H – He/she must therefore

not

be present at reviews!

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Beyond CP and Democratic Teams (contd) • Solution – Reduce the managerial role of the chief programmer 1-23

Beyond CP and Democratic Teams (contd) • It is easier to find a team leader than a chief programmer • Each employee is responsible to exactly one manager —lines of responsibility are clearly delineated • Team leader is responsible for only technical management • Budgetary and legal issues, and performance appraisal are not handled by the team leader • Team leader participates in reviews—the team manager is not permitted to do so • Team manager participates at regular team meetings to appraise the technical skills of the team members 1-24

Larger Projects • Nontechnical side is similar • For even larger products, add additional layers 1-25

Beyond CP and Democratic Teams (contd) • Decentralize the decision-making process where appropriate • Useful where the democratic team is good 1-26

Sample Organizational Chart for a Large IT Project 1-27

Sample Responsibility Assignment Matrix (RAM) 1-28

RAM Showing Stakeholder Roles 1-29

Sample Resource Histogram 1-30

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 1-31

Staff Selection Factors • Application domain experience • Platform experience • Programming language experience • Educational background • Communication ability • Adaptability • Attitude • Personality 1-32