Project Human Resources Management: Notes for PMP Exam (based on PMBOK5)

Note:

These all  articles are dedicated to my teachers, my seniors, colleagues, internet bloggers, online technical material, reference books from where I learned all these. There are chances that the material presented here is duplicated somewhere on the web. If anything is replicated anywhere, I sincerely give proper credits to the contributor.

What is Human Resource Management for a project?

 

Project Human Resource Management includes the processes that organize, manage, and lead the project team. The project team is comprised of the people with assigned roles and responsibilities for completing the project. Project team members may have varied skill sets, may be assigned full or part-time, and may be added or removed from the team as the project progresses. Project team members may also be referred to as the project’s staff. Although specific roles and responsibilities for the project team members are assigned, the involvement of all team members in project planning and decision making is beneficial. Why? This is to get their buy in and they feel more responsible and committed for their work. Participation of team members during planning adds their expertise to the process and strengthens their commitment to the project.

Points to note:

• Project managers often don’t have position authority over team members, such as in a functional or matrix organization. In these situations, project managers must use their influence and negotiation skills to accomplish work.
• Project managers must operate with the utmost integrity, demonstrate ethical and professional behavior at all times (no compromise with this), and require their team members to do the same.
• Promised resources won’t always be available, skill sets don’t always match what you need, and some projects might have higher priority. Project managers have to be flexible and adaptable while not losing sight of the end goal.

So, HR management is all about the team. What you can do with the team. Of course first you have to plan, then you have to get (acquire) the team, then you may need to develop the team and once you have a developed team, you need to manage the team you have (that’s why you are a project manager, right?)

See, we got all the 4 processes of Human Resources Management in just one paragraph above:

1.  Plan Human Resource Management—The process of identifying and documenting project roles, responsibilities, required skills, reporting relationships, and creating a staffing management plan.
2. Acquire Project Team—The process of confirming human resource availability and obtaining the team necessary to complete project activities.
3. Develop Project Team—The process of improving competencies, team member interaction, and overall team environment to enhance project performance.
4. Manage Project Team—The process of tracking team member performance, providing feedback, resolving issues, and managing changes to optimize project performance.

Note: Above definitions are taken from PMBOK 5 of PMI.

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Plan Human Resource Management:

Plan Human Resource Management is the process of identifying and documenting project roles, responsibilities, required skills, reporting relationships, and creating a staffing management plan. The key benefit of this process is that it establishes project roles and responsibilities, project organization charts, and the staffing management plan including the timetable for staff acquisition and release.

      Inputs:                                       Tools and Techniques                Outputs

                   

Human Resource Management Plan is plan to organize and lead the project team. It include roles and responsibilities (identify resources that can take up the responsibilities) as documented (ownership of deliverables) in RAM (Responsibility Assignment Matrix) in the form of RACI chart (matrix) or in a chart/text form,

Organization charts - an organizational breakdown structure (OBS) and staffing management plan (staff acquisition, release, resource calendar, resource histogram, training, rewards, compliance & safety requirements)

The OBS displays organizational relationships and then uses them for assigning work to resources in a project (WBS)

Networking is a useful tool for understanding skills of individuals and the political and interpersonal factors within the organization

What is RACI?

RACI stands for Responsible, Accountable, Consult and Inform. Please note that Accountable is one and only one person.

 

What is resource histogram as per PMBOK?

It is a graph used by the project management team as a means of providing a visual representation of resources allocation to all interested parties. This chart illustrates the number of hours a person, department, or entire project team that will be needed each week or month over the course of the project.

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Acquire Project Team:

Acquire Project Team is the process of confirming human resource availability and obtaining the team necessary to complete project activities. The key benefit of this process consists of outlining and guiding the team selection and responsibility assignment to obtain a successful team.

Inputs                                     Tools and Techniques                     Outputs

                        

 

• Pre-assignment is the selection of certain team members in advance. Like a packet comes with project.
• You have to negotiate for best resources. This negotiation is generally done with Functional Managers (real bosses of project team.
• Acquisition is to acquire resources from outside through hiring consultants or subcontracting which includes bringing on contractors / consultants
• Halo effect: a cognitive bias (if he is good at one thing, he will be good at everything). Means Technical people are generally made Project Managers.
• Multi-criteria Decision Analysis: to select team members based on a no. of factors: availability, cost, experience, ability, knowledge, skills, attitude, etc.
• Virtual teams are not co-located teams. Team members work from different geographical locations.

Project Staff Assignments

The project is staffed when appropriate people have been assigned to the team. The documentation of these assignments can include a project team directory, memos to team members, and names inserted into other parts of the project management plan, such as project organization charts and schedules.

Resource Calendars

Resource calendars document the time periods that each project team member is available to work on the project.

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Develop Project Team:

Develop Project Team is the process of improving competencies, team member interaction, and overall team environment to enhance project performance. The key benefit of this process is that it results in improved teamwork, enhanced people skills and competencies, motivated employees, reduced staff turnover rates, and improved overall project performance.

Project managers should continually motivate their team by providing challenges and opportunities, by providing timely feedback and support as needed, and by recognizing and rewarding good performance. This is part of developing the project team.

What are the objectives of developing project team?

• Improving knowledge and skills of team members to increase their ability to complete project deliverables, while lowering costs, reducing schedules, and improving quality;

• Improving feelings of trust and agreement among team members to raise morale, lower conflict, and increase team work; and

• Creating a dynamic, cohesive, and collaborative team culture to (1) improve individual and team productivity, team spirit, and cooperation and (2) allow cross training and mentoring between team members to share knowledge and expertise.

Inputs                                     Tools and Techniques         Outputs

                     

    

 

• Main purpose of developing the project team is enhancing and improving overall team performance
• Offer feedback, support, engage team members, manage conflicts, facilitate cooperation
• team performance assessments : assess team performance as a whole vs project performance appraisals: individual performance
• Remember – Team Performance Assessments is an output, while Project Performance Appraisals in a Tool and Technique.
• Training cost can be set within the project budget or supported by the organization.
• PM Authority: Legitimate (assigned in project charter), reward, penalty, expert (need to be earned from own efforts so people refer you as an expert, not necessarily technical expert), referent (charisma and likable that means people like you),
• Expert > Reward are best forms of power. Penalty is worst.
• Tuckman Model of team development: Forming – Stroming – Norming – Performing – Adjourning
• Cultural difference should be considered when determining Reward and recognition.
• Team building is important throughout the whole project period.
   
  Note: I do not see mentioning the Motivations theories and Leadership theories is a worth as what is known from experience and believe me it is true, PMP exam is heavily based on PMBOK and this guide never mentions about these theories. These theories can be an answer choice in the exam, but that should not be the correct answer in most of the cases. However, it is my own believe and you may refer these theories.

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Manage Project Team:

Now you have acquired your project team and developed them for effectively working on your project. But still, you have a big task to do. You have to manage the team. If you don’t do that the efforts put in acquiring and developing the team will go waste and team will not be able to perform.

Manage Project Team is the process of tracking team member performance, providing feedback, resolving issues, and managing team changes to optimize project performance. The key benefit of this process is that it influences team behavior, manages conflict, resolves issues, and appraises team member performance.

 

Managing the project team requires a variety of management skills for fostering teamwork and integrating the efforts of team members to create high-performance teams. Team management involves a combination of skills with special emphasis on communication, conflict management, negotiation, and leadership. Project managers should provide challenging assignments to team members and provide recognition for high performance

Inputs                                     Tools and Techniques         Outputs

                  

 

When managed properly, differences of opinion can lead to increased creativity and better decision making

Issue log is an output of  Manage Stakeholder Engagement – used to understand who is responsible for resolving specific issues.

Conflict management: conflicts force a search for alternatives, need openness, not personal, focus on present and future.

Conflicts: schedule, project priority, resources, technical opinions, administrative overhead (too much administration work), cost, personality.

Interpersonal skills: Leadership, influencing, effective decision making.

Conflict resolution:

• collaborate/problem solving /confrontation (best technique)
• compromise/reconcile (give-and-take, temporary/partially resolve)
• force/direct (worst/short-lived)
• smooth/accommodate (emphasis common grounds and avoid/touch lightly the
  disagreements for harmony/relationship)
• withdraw/avoid (other leads to lose-lose)
   
  compromise is lose-lose, nobody wins here.
  Forcing would only provide a temporary solution

 

Conflict should be addressed early and usually in private, using a direct, collaborative approach. If disruptive conflict continues, formal procedures may be used, including disciplinary actions.

Award decisions are made during the process of project performance appraisals monitoring and controlling is typically performed by functional managers/HR for functional organization.