Human Resource Management in a Project - SSWM

1 FEATURED PAPER Human Resource Management in a Project By Sujit Mishra Definition The Human Resource Management includes the processes required to coordinate the Human resources on a Project . Such processes include those needed to plan, obtain, orient, assign, and release staff over the life of the Project . Functions Development of Human Resource plan Acquiring staff Measuring the Performance of staff Release of staff at the end Introduction As we know that people are an important part of a Project s success. The projects are Resource constrained. The Management of the Human resources on a Project has a major impact on the Project s success or failure. Of course, this article has taken a general view, Human Resource processes are strongly influenced by the Human Resource policies and procedures of the delivery organization.

2 Much has been written about dealing with people in the operations of an ongoing enterprise; leading, communicating, delegating, motivating, team building, recruiting, appraising, etc. Much of that knowledge is directly applicable to leading and managing people in a Project environment and the Project manager should be familiar with it. However, the Project manager must also be sensitive to the unique needs of the Project environment and as to how this general knowledge is applied in a different way than in the operational environment of the ongoing enterprise. The temporary nature of projects means that personal and organizational relationships generally will also be temporary and, quite often, new. Staff-related Project Management processes must address these transient relationships.

3 Both the nature and number of people involved in a Project change as the Project moves through its life cycle. For example initially there will be limited number of staff in the Project and as we move along we induct more staff into the Project . Staff Management processes must recognize and address these changing needs. Published in PM World Today - July 2007 (Vol. IX, Issue VII)PM World Today is a free monthly eJournal. Free subscriptions available at: 1 Human Resource Management activities are often split between Project Management and other managers within the performing organization. The scope of responsibility of the Project manager may lie somewhere between: o An extended responsibility, including the selection of sourcing organizations, obtaining staff and performance assessment.

4 O A limited responsibility focused on coordination with the permanent roles outside the Project such as the functional manager, the Resource deployment manager and/or the people development manager . All the parties must understand and carefully adhere to the division of responsibilities that is in force. All the processes here must be carefully interpreted based on the actual distribution of responsibilities between the Project manager and the other roles. In some companies there may be a two managers for a team member one the Project manager who takes care of the day-to-day work of the team member and provides feedback to others, second a people manager who takes care of the people development aspects of the team member like promotion, salary hike, career needs/interest.

5 Ideally to my view a team member should have only one Manager who should take care of everything ( Project Management and people Management ) and should have no more than 14 people directly reporting to him. Again it depends on many factors company policies, location, style of functioning and Project needs Development of Human Resource Plan Process(es) Create Human Resource plan Expand Human Resource plan Define Project team structure Introduction A Human Resource category (for example, consultant, programmer, etc.) is a way of classifying skills that is useful in matching Resource requirements to particular people when developing the Human Resource plan for a Project . The Human Resource plan contains for each Human Resource category, information such as: The number of staff required.

6 Costing information and assumptions. When the staff are needed and for how long. Any special skills required over and above those that people in the category would normally be expected to have, as well as the required level of proficiency and the relative importance of these skills. Published in PM World Today - July 2007 (Vol. IX, Issue VII)PM World Today is a free monthly eJournal. Free subscriptions available at: 2 Training requirements needed specifically for the Project , for example in a new technology. Office and materiel requirements Plans for team-building activities.(Motivation Management ) The following column shows a sample portion of the Human Resource plan for a Project .

7 O Human Resource category o Number of staff o Cost assumptions o When needed o Till what date the staff is needed o Special skills, if any o Special needs, if any o Training needs, if any o Office and material equipment The Human Resource plan supports staff planning, staff acquisition, allocating resources to staff, and supervising Project specific training activities. A summary Human Resource plan is created for the entire Project and managed by the Project manager. The formality with which the Human Resource plan is created and documented is a reflection of the size and complexity of the Project . Typically, small projects do not require a formal plan.

8 On the other hand, large, multiyear, multilevel projects with many participants may require multiple formal plans. The HRM plan is based on the Project schedule. The Project Management schedule includes a summary of the effort by Human Resource category (expressed in person hours, person days, etc.) that will be required to perform defined work units, as well as the time frames during which the work units will be performed. For example, the Project Management schedule might indicate that 2000 hours of application programmer skills are needed between 2 February and 31 December. The Human Resource plan uses the requirement for Human resources to develop a plan for staff acquisition. There is usually iteration between the development of the Project Management schedule and the Human Resource plan as reality is applied during development of the Human Resource plan during the different phases of the Project .

9 For example, for a very large Project , it may be known that it is impossible to obtain the 200 programmers specified in the Project Management schedule during a particular time period. Therefore, the Project Management schedule will need to be changed to reflect this. Published in PM World Today - July 2007 (Vol. IX, Issue VII)PM World Today is a free monthly eJournal. Free subscriptions available at: 3 The Human Resource plan may be revised when changes in the Project Management schedule for a Project organizational unit result in a change in staffing requirements. Also, the results of recruiting activities could impact the Human Resource plan Creation of Human Resource plan Introduction This process may be used at several levels in the Project organization.

10 Each Project organizational unit that has a responsibility for staffing, controlling and allocating staff related resources may create a Human Resource plan. Steps Review the Project definition, the Organizational breakdown structure (OBS), and the Technical environment plan to understand the situation for which the Human Resource plan will be created Review the Project documentation describing procedures for recruiting and staffing to determine the Human Resource categories to be used and expected utilization factor for the Project . Estimates are usually focused on Project productive work and do not account for the overheads that, to some extent, depend on the constituency. The utilization factor is used to take overhead due to meetings, administration tasks etc.