Chapter 9: 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. It includes all project stakeholders: sponsors, customers, project team members, support staff, suppliers supporting the project, and so on. There are four processes for human resource management such as human resource planning, acquiring the project team, developing the project team, and managing the project team.

Human resource planning involves identifying and documenting project roles, responsibilities, and reporting relationships. Key outputs of this process include roles and responsibilities, an organizational chart for the project, and a staffing management plan.

Acquiring the project team involves getting the needed personnel assigned to and working on the project. The project team can be acquired by resource assignment, resource loading, and resource leveling. Key outputs of this process are project staff assignments, resource availability information, and updates to the staffing management plan.

Developing the project team involves building individual and group skills to enhance project performance. Project team can be developed by training, team building activities, and reward and recognition systems. The main output of this process is assessing team performance.

Managing the project team involves tracking team member performance, motivating team members, providing timely feedback, resolving issues and conflicts, coordinating changes to help enhance project performance. Outputs of this process include requested changes, recommended corrective and preventive actions, updates to organizational process assets, and updates to the project management plan.

Managing people can be handled by motivation theories like Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, Herzberg’s Motivation-Hygiene Theory, McClelland’s Acquired-Needs Theory, and McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y. Besides, it also can be solved by Thamhain and Wilemon’s Influence and Power and Covey and Improving Effectiveness.

There are several tools and techniques available to assist in managing project teams such as observation and conversation, project performance appraisals, conflict management and issue logs

Spreadsheets and project management software such as Microsoft Project 2007 can help project managers to produce responsibility assignment matrixes, create resource histograms, identifying over allocated resources, level resources, and provide various views and reports related to project human resources management.