SHRI VISHNU ENGINEERING COLLEGE FOR WOMEN::

BHIMAVARAM
(AUTONOMOUS)
DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE AND
ENGINEERING SOFTWARE PROJECT MANAGEMENT
UNIT – III
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.

The Global IT Workforce

 A 2010 study from Digital Planet stated that the global recession of 2009 resulted in a 3
percent decrease in worldwide spending for information and communications technology
(ICT), which caused the researchers to adjust their trend lines. However, the study
predicts that ICT spending will have an annual growth rate of more than 6 percent each
year through 2013, when it will reach almost $5 trillion.

 Thirty-three percent of the world’s population is online, and 45 percent of Internet users
are below the age of 25. Developing countries have increased their share of Internet users
from 44 percent in 2006 to 62 percent in 2011. Internet users in China represent 25
percent of the world’s total Internet users.

 With almost 6 billion mobile-cellular subscriptions, global penetration of cell phones is

87 percent, with 79 percent in the developing world. There are twice as many mobile-
broadband subscriptions as fixed-broadband subscriptions.

 Fortune magazine lists IT as the number one ―hot career for 2012 and beyond‖ in
the United States. About 65 percent of hiring managers said they wanted to add IT staff in
the first half of 2012, and about 27 percent of those respondents said they wanted to
expand their IT headcount by more than 20 percent. Openings for software application
developers are projected to increase by 34 percent by 2018, while companies will hire 20
percent more computer systems analysts. The U.S. Bureau of Labour Statistics reported
that developers of systems software earn an average of $94,180 per year.

 As mentioned in Chapter 1, the 2011 average salary for project management

professionals was $105,000 per year in the United States, not including bonuses. About
44 percent of employers listed project management as a skill they looked for in new
college graduates, behind only communication and technical skills.

Implications for the Future of IT Human Resource Management

 Proactive organizations are addressing workforce needs by

1. Improving benefits.
2. Redefining work hours and incentives.
3. Finding future workers.
What is Project Human Resource Management?

 Making the most effective use of the people involved with a project
 Processes include:

Planning human resource management: 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.

Figure: Project Human Resource Management Summary

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 project management include:
Motivation theories
Influence and power
Effectiveness
Emotional intelligence
Leadership
Motivation Theories:

 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

 Abraham Maslow argued that humans possess unique qualities that enable them to make
independent choices, thus giving them control of their destiny.
 Maslow developed a hierarchy of needs which states that people’s behaviours are
guided or motivated by a sequence of needs.

Figure: Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

 Physiological, safety, social, and esteem—are referred to as deficiency needs.

 Self-actualization, is considered a growth need.
 Successful project managers know they must focus on meeting project goals, but they
also must understand team members’ personal goals and needs to provide appropriate
motivation and maximize team performance.

Herzberg’s Motivational and Hygiene Theory

 Herzberg was the head of Case Western University’s psychology department, and he
wrote the book Work and the Nature of Man in 1966 and a famous Harvard Business
Review article, ―One More Time: How Do You Motivate Employees?‖ in 1968.
 Frederick Herzberg wrote several famous books and articles about worker motivation.
He distinguished between motivational factors and hygiene factors.
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.

Hygiene Factors Motivators

Larger Salaries Achivement
More supervision Recognition
More attractive work environment Work itself
Computer or other required equipment Responsibility
Health benefits Advancement
Training Growth
Table: Examples of Herzberg’s hygiene factors and

motivators McClelland’s Acquired-Needs Theory

 David McClelland proposed that a person’s specific needs are acquired or learned over
time and shaped by life experiences.
 The main categories of acquired needs include
1. Achievement (nAch).
2. Affiliation (nAff).
3. Power (nPow).
 Normally, one or two of these needs are dominant in people.

 Achievement (nAch): Achievers like challenging projects with achievable goals and
lots of feedback.

 Affiliation (nAff): People with high nAff desire harmonious relationships and need to
feel accepted by others, so managers should try to create a cooperative work environment
for them.

 Power: (nPow): People with a need for power desire either personal power (not good) or
institutional power (good for the organization). Provide institutional power seekers with
management opportunities.

McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y

 Douglas McGregor popularized the human relations approach to management, and he is

best known for developing Theory X and Theory Y.
 He explained about Theory X & Theory Y, in his 1960 book ―The Human Side
of Enterprise‖
 Theory X(sometimes referred to as classical systems theory): assumes workers dislike
and avoid work, so managers must use coercion, threats and various control schemes to
get workers to meet objectives.
 Theory Y(sometimes referred to as human relations theory): assumes individuals
consider work as natural as play or rest and enjoy the satisfaction of esteem and self-
actualization needs.
  Theory Z: How American Business Can Meet the Japanese Challenge. 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.

Thamhain and Wilemon’s Influence and Power

 H. J. Thamhain and D. L. Wilemon investigated the approaches that project managers use
to deal with workers and how those approaches relate to project success.
 They identified nine influence bases that are available to project managers:

1. Authority: the legitimate hierarchical right to issue orders.

2. Assignment: the project manager’s perceived ability to influence a worker’s later
work assignments.

3. Budget: the project manager’s perceived ability to authorize others’ use of

discretionary funds.

4. Promotion: the ability to improve a worker’s position.

5. Money: the ability to increase a worker’s pay and benefits.

6. Penalty: the project manager’s perceived ability to dispense or cause punishment.

7. Work challenge: the ability to assign work that capitalizes on a worker’s enjoyment
of doing a particular task, which taps an intrinsic motivational factor.

8. Expertise: the project manager’s perceived special knowledge that others deem
important.

9. Friendship: the ability to establish friendly personal relationships between the

project manager and others.

 Projects are more likely to succeed when project managers influence with
1. Expertise 2. work challenge
 Projects are more likely to fail when project managers rely too heavily on
1. authority
2. money
3. penalty

Power
 Power is the potential ability to influence behavior to get people to do things they would
not otherwise do.
 Types of power include
1. Coercive Power: Involves using punishment, threats, or other negative approaches to
get people to do things they do not want to do.
2. Legitimate Power: It is getting people to do things based on a position of authority.
This type of power is similar to the authority basis of influence.
3. Expert Power: Involves using personal knowledge and expertise to get people to
change their behaviour.
4. Reward Power: Involves using incentives to induce people to do things. Rewards
can include money, status, recognition, promotions, and special work assignments.
5. Referent Power: It is based on a person’s own charisma. People who have referent
power are held in very high regard; others will do what they say based on that regard.
Covey and Improving Effectiveness

Project managers can apply Covey’s seven habits to improve effectiveness on projects, as
follows:
Be proactive. Covey, like Maslow, believes that people have the ability to be proactive and
choose their responses to different situations. Project managers must be proactive in anticipating
and planning for problems and inevitable changes on projects. They can also encourage their
team members to be proactive in working on their project activities.

Begin with the end in mind. Covey suggests that people focus on their values, what they want
to accomplish, and how they want to be remembered in their lives. He suggests writing a mission
statement to help achieve this habit. Many organizations and projects have mission statements
that help them focus on their main purpose.

Put first things first. Covey developed a time management system and matrix to help people
prioritize their time. He suggests that most people need to spend more time doing things that are
important, but not urgent. Such activities include planning, reading, and exercising. Project
managers need to spend a lot of time working on important but not urgent activities, such as
developing various project plans, building relationships with major project stakeholders, and
mentoring project team members. They also need to avoid focusing only on important and urgent
activities—putting out fires.

Think win/win. Covey presents several paradigms of interdependence; think win/win is the best
choice in most situations. When you use a win/win paradigm, parties in potential conflict work
together to develop new solutions that benefit all parties. Project managers should strive to use a
win/win approach in making decisions, but in competitive situations they sometimes must use a
win/lose paradigm.

Seek first to understand, then to be understood. Empathic listening is listening with the intent
to understand. It is more powerful than active listening because you forget your personal
interests and focus on truly understanding the other person. When you practice empathic
listening, you can begin two-way communication. This habit is critical for project managers so
they can understand their stakeholders’ needs and expectations.

Synergize. A project team can synergize by creating collaborative products that are much better
than a collection of individual efforts. Covey also emphasizes the importance of valuing
differences in others to achieve synergy. Synergy is essential to many highly technical projects;
in fact, several major breakthroughs in IT occurred because of synergy. For example, in his
Pulitzer Prize-winning book, The Soul of a New Machine, Tracy Kidder documented the
synergistic efforts of a team of Data General researchers to create a new 32-bit
superminicomputer during the 1970s.
Sharpen the saw. When you practice sharpening the saw, you take time to renew yourself
physically, spiritually, mentally, and socially. The practice of self-renewal helps people avoid
burnout. Project managers must make sure that they and their project teams have time to retrain,
reenergize, and occasionally even relax to avoid burnout.

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.
Emotional Intelligence

 Howard Gardner’s book Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences

introduced the concept of using more than one way to think of and measure human
intelligence.
 Emotional intelligence (EI) is knowing and managing one’s own emotions and
understanding the emotions of others for improved performance.
 71 percent of U.S. hiring managers say they value EI more than IQ.

Leadership

 There is no one best way to be a leader

 Most experts agree that the best leaders are able to adapt their style to needs of the
situation
 Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence and Primal Leadership, describes six
leadership styles:
◦ Visionary
◦ Coaching
◦ Affiliative
◦ Democratic
◦ Pacesetting
◦ Commanding

Developing the Human Resource Plan

 Involves identifying and documenting project roles, responsibilities, and reporting

relationships
 Contents include
◦ project organizational charts.
◦ Responsibility assignment matrixes.
◦ Staffing Management Plans and Resource histograms..

Project Organizational Charts

 The project team members come from different backgrounds and possess a wide variety
of skills.
 It can be very difficult to manage such a diverse group of people, so it is important to
provide a clear organizational structure for a project.
 After identifying important skills and the types of people needed to staff a project, the
project manager should work with top management and project team members to create
an organizational chart for the project.
 Figure: Sample Organizational Chart for a Large IT Project

 In addition to defining an organizational structure for a project, it is also important to

follow a work definition and assignment process.
 It Consists of four steps:
1. Finalizing the project requirements
2. Defining how the work will be accomplished
3. Breaking down the work into manageable elements
4. Assigning work responsibilities.

Figure: Work Definition and Assignment

Process Responsibility Assignment Matrices

 A responsibility assignment matrix (RAM) is a matrix that maps the work of the project
as described in the WBS to the people responsible for performing the work as described
in the OBS
 Can be created in different ways to meet unique project needs
 Figure: Sample Responsibility Assignment Matrix (RAM)

 In addition to using a RAM to assign detailed work activities, you can use it to define
general roles and responsibilities on projects. This type of RAM can include the
stakeholders in the project. Some organizations use RACI charts to show four key roles
for project stakeholders:

Responsibility: Who does the task?

Accountability: Who signs off on the task or has authority for it?
Consultation: Who has information necessary to complete the task?
Informed: Who needs to be notified of task status and results?

Table: Sample RACI

Chart 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. The level of detail may vary based on the type of project.
 A resource histogram is a column chart that shows the number of resources assigned to a
project over time.
 The below Figure an example of a histogram that might be used for a six-month IT project.
Notice that the columns represent the number of people needed in each area—managers,
business analysts, programmers, and technical writers.
 By stacking the columns, you can see the total number of people needed each month. After
determining the project staffing needs, the next steps in project human resource management
are to acquire the necessary staff and then develop the project team.

Figure: Sample Resource Histogram

Acquiring the Project Team

 Acquiring qualified people for teams is crucial.

 The project manager who is the smartest person on the team has done a poor job of
recruiting.
 It’s important to assign the appropriate type and number of people to work on
projects at the appropriate times.

Resource Assignment

� Staffing plans and good hiring procedures are important, 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.
� Enrollment in U.S. computer science and engineering programs has dropped almost in
half since 2000, and one-third of U.S. workers were over the age of 50 by 2010.
� CIO’s researchers suggest that organizations rethink hiring practices and incentives to
hire and retain IT talent.

Best Practice

� Best practices can be applied to include the best places for people to work.
◦ For example, Fortune Magazine lists the ―100 Best Companies to Work For‖
in the United States every year, with Google taking the honors for the sixth time
in 2015.
◦ Working Mothers Magazine lists the best companies in the U.S. for women based
on benefits for working families.
◦ The Times online (www.timesonline.co.uk) provides the Sunday Times list of the
100 Best Companies to Work For, a key benchmark against which UK companies
can judge their Best Practice performance as employers.
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.
 Overallocation means more resources than are available are assigned to perform
work at a given time.

Figure: Sample Histogram Showing an Overallocated Individual

Resource Leveling

 Resource leveling is 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 overallocation.

Figure: Resource Leveling Example

Benefits of Resource Leveling

 When resources are used on a more constant basis, they require less management.
 It may enable project managers to use a just-in-time inventory type of policy for using
subcontractors or other expensive resources.
 It results in fewer problems for project personnel and accounting department.
 It often improves morale.

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.

Tuckman Model of Team Development

The Tuckman model describes five stages of team development:

1. Forming involves the introduction of team members, either at the initiation of the team
or as new members are introduced. This stage is necessary, but little work is actually
achieved.
2. Storming occurs when team members have different opinions for how the team should
operate. People test each other, and there is often conflict within the team.
3. Norming is achieved when team members have developed a common working method,
and cooperation and collaboration replace the conflict and mistrust of the previous phase.
4. Performing occurs when the emphasis is on reaching the team’s goals rather than
working on team process. Relationships are settled, and team members are likely to build
loyalty toward each other. At this stage, the team is able to manage tasks that are more
complex and cope with greater change.
5. Adjourning involves the break-up of the team after it successfully reaches its goals and
completes the work.
Training

 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.

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): This first dimension determines if you are generally extroverted or
introverted. The dimension also signifies whether you draw energy from other people (extrovert)
or from yourself (introvert).

Sensation/Intuition (S/N): This second dimension relates to the manner in which you gather
information. Sensation (or Sensing) type people take in facts, details, and reality and describe
themselves as practical. Intuitive type people are imaginative, ingenious, and attentive to
hunches or intuition. They describe themselves as innovative and conceptual.
Thinking/Feeling (T/F): Thinking judgment is objective and logical, and feeling judgment is
subjective and personal.

Judgment/Perception (J/P): This fourth dimension concerns people’s attitudes toward

structure. Judgment type people like closure and task completion. They tend to establish
deadlines and take them seriously, expecting others to do the same. Perceiving types prefer to
keep things open and flexible. They regard deadlines more as a signal to start rather than
complete a project and do not feel that work must be done before play or rest begins.

 NTs or rationals are attracted to technology fields.

 IT people vary most from the general population in not being extroverted or sensing.

Social Styles Profile

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

Drivers are proactive and task-oriented. They are firmly rooted in the present, and they strive for
action. Adjectives to describe drivers include pushy, severe, tough, dominating, harsh, strong-
willed, independent, practical, decisive, and efficient.

Expressives are proactive and people-oriented. They are future-oriented and use their intuition to
look for fresh perspectives on the world around them. Adjectives to describe expressives include
manipulating, excitable, undisciplined, reacting, egotistical, ambitious, stimulating, wacky,
enthusiastic, dramatic, and friendly.

Analyticals are reactive and task-oriented. They are past-oriented and strong thinkers. Adjectives
to describe analyticals include critical, indecisive, stuffy, picky, moralistic, industrious,
persistent, serious, expecting, and orderly.

Amiables are reactive and people-oriented. They think in terms of the present, past, or future
depending on the situation, and they strongly value relationships. Adjectives to describe amiables
include conforming, unsure, ingratiating, dependent, awkward, supportive, respectful, willing,
dependable, and agreeable.

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

Figure: Social Styles

DISC Profiles

 Also uses a four-dimensional model of normal behavior.

Dominance: Represented by red and emphasizing ―I,‖ dominance traits include

being direct, decisive, assertive, outcome-oriented, competitive, self-assured, controlling,
and wanting to win.

Influence: Represented by yellow and emphasizing ―We,‖ influence traits include

being persuasive, optimistic, outgoing, verbal, enthusiastic, striving to win others over,
and practicing leadership through acclimation.

Steadiness: Represented by green and emphasizing ―You,‖ steadiness traits include

being calm, sincere, cautious, conflict averse, a good listener, and wanting to maintain
stability

Compliance: Represented by blue and emphasizing ―It,‖ compliance traits include being
data driven, risk averse, concerned, working well alone, preferring processes and
procedures, and not being very communicative or social.

 People in opposite quadrants can have problems understanding each other

Figure: The DISC

Profile 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.

Managing the Project Team

 Project managers must lead their teams in performing various project activities.
 After assessing team performance and related information, the project manager must
decide.
◦ if changes should be requested to the project.
 ◦ if corrective or preventive actions should be recommended.
◦ if updates are needed to the project management plan or organizational process
assets.

Tools and Techniques for Managing Project Teams

Several tools and techniques are available to assist in managing project teams:

Observation and conversation: Project managers need to observe team members at work to
assess how they are performing and ask team members how they feel about their work. Many
project managers like to practice ―management by walking around‖ to physically see and
hear their team members at work. Informal or formal conversations about how a project is going
can provide crucial information. For virtual workers, project managers can still observe and
discuss work and personal issues via e-mail, telephone, or other media.

Project performance appraisals: Just as managers provide performance appraisals for their
workers, so can project managers. The need for project performance appraisals and the types
required vary depending on the length of the project, its complexity, organizational policies,
contract requirements, and related communications. Even if a project manager does not provide
official project performance appraisals for team members, it is still important to provide timely
performance feedback. If a team member hands in sloppy or late work, the project manager
should determine the reason and take appropriate action. Perhaps the team member had a death
in the family and could not concentrate. Perhaps the team member was planning to leave the
project. The reasons for the behavior should have a strong impact on the action the project
manager takes.

Interpersonal skills: As you learned in Chapter 1, project managers must possess several
interpersonal skills. To effectively manage teams, it is especially important to focus on
leadership, influencing, and decision-making skills.

Conflict management: Few projects are completed without conflicts. Some types of conflict are
actually desirable on projects, but many are not. It’s important for project managers to
understand strategies for handling conflicts and to proactively manage conflict.

Conflict Handling Modes

Blake and Mouton (1964) delineated five basic modes or strategies for handling conflicts in their
popular managerial grid.

1. Confrontation: Directly face a conflict using a problem-solving approach

2. Compromise: Use a give-and-take approach
3. Smoothing: De-emphasize areas of difference and emphasize areas of agreement
4. Forcing: The win-lose approach
5. Withdrawal: Retreat or withdraw from an actual or potential disagreement.

More recent studies recognize a sixth conflict-handling mode:

6. Collaborating: Decision makers incorporate different viewpoints and insights to develop

consensus and commitment.
 Figure: Conflict Handling Modes
Conflict Can Be Good

 Conflict often produces important results, such as new ideas, better alternatives, and
motivation to work harder and more collaboratively.
 Groupthink: Conformance to the values or ethical standards of a group. Groupthink can
develop if there are no conflicting viewpoints.
 Research suggests that task-related conflict often improves team performance, but
emotional conflict often depresses team performance.

General Advice on Managing Teams

Five Dysfunctions of a Team

 Patrick Lencioni, author of several books on teams, says that ―Teamwork remains the
one sustainable competitive advantage that has been large untapped‖
 The five dysfunctions of teams are
1. Absence of trust
2. Fear of conflict
3. Lack of commitment
4. Avoidance of accountability
5. 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
 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
 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
◦ Assigning resources
◦ Identifying potential resource shortages or underutilization
◦ Leveling resources
 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