Project Resource Management

Project Resource Management

• Good human resource management aids project success

Project Human Resource Management

• Includes defining and managing processes for effective people utilization

Managing People: Key Concepts

• Motivation theories are important for managing people
• Leaders use influence and power
• Teams and individual work effectiveness must be considered
• Emotional intelligence and leadership qualities are key

Resource Management Planning

• Involves creating a human resource plan
• Requires project organizational charts
• Needs responsibility assignment matrices
• Histograms of resources are essential

Estimating Activity Resources

• This is a key component of planning

Resource Acquisition

• This may involve resource assignments, resource loading, and resource leveling

Team Development

• Supported through training, team-building, and rewards

Team Management

• Tools and techniques are needed to manage project teams effectively

Resource Control

• This must be summarized

PM Software

• Project management software facilitates project resource management

Agile/Adaptive Environments

• These necessitate specific considerations

Importance of People

• Corporate executives say people are their most important asset
• The success or failure of organizations/projects hinges on its people

Global IT Workforce

• Good IT workers are always in demand
• There were almost 3 billion internet users by the end of 2014
• There were 2.3 billion mobile-broadband subscriptions by the end of 2014
• ICT spending is projected to grow to $5 trillion by 2020
• Project management ranked fourth on Computerworld's hottest skills for 2023
• PMI projects a nearly 33% increase in project management-related jobs by 2030

Future of IT HR

• Proactive organizations address workforce needs by:
  • Improving benefits
  • redefining work hours and incentives
  • Finding future workers

Global Issues in Remote Work

• Yahoo's 2013 memo banned working from home which caused controversy
• Diebold recruited employees who want to work from home
• Huffington Post believes telecommuting has prevailed

Skills Gap

• CompTIA found a gap between the IT skills employers desired and the skills workers possessed in 2014
• IT firms face difficulties finding new staff as 68% report challenges
• 58% of businesses worry about the quality/quantity of IT talent for hiring
• The #1 strategy to handle understaffing is requiring workers to put in more hours

Project Resource Management Definition

• Effective use of people involved in a project

Project Resource Management

• Includes planning resource management processes
• Includes estimating resource needs, acquiring resources, and managing/using them
• Main outputs include the resource management plan, team charter, needs and project document updates

Estimating Activity Resources

• Estimating involves human and physical resources for project work
• Resource requirements and the organizational breakdown structure are the main outputs

Acquiring Resources

• Acquiring Resources involves obtaining personnel, facilities, equipment, materials, and supplies
• Main output is project team assignments and resource calendars
• Change requests and document updates are a main output

Developing Project Team

• Developing a project team means building individual and group skills to enhance performance
• Team performance reviews, change requests, and document updates are main outputs

Managing Project Team

• Managing Project Team means tracking/motivating members, resolving conflicts, and coordinating changes
• Updates to project documents and organizational assets are a main output

Controlling Resources

• Controlling Resources include ensuring availability, monitoring use, and taking corrective actions
• Change requests and changes to project documents are main outputs

Managing and Leading People

• Requires understanding:
  • Motivation theories
  • Influence and power
  • Emotional intelligence
  • Leadership

Intrinsic Motivation

• Causes participation for enjoyment

Extrinsic Motivation

• Causes action based on reward or avoiding a penalty

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

• Abraham Maslow argued that humans can make independent choices to control destiny
• People's behaviors are guided/motivated by a sequence of needs

Herzberg's Motivation

• Frederick Herzberg distinguished between motivational and hygiene factors
• Achievement, recognition, and responsibility are motivational factors to produce job satisfaction
• Salary and supervision are hygiene factors

Pink's Motivators

• Managers should focus on:
  • Autonomy
  • Mastery
  • Purpose

McClelland's Acquired-Needs Theory

• Achievement: Achievers like challenging projects, achievable goals, and feedback
• Affiliation: Harmonious relationships, acceptance by others, and cooperative work environments
• Power: People with needs for personal or institutional power should be provided with management opportunities

McGregor's Theories

• Theory X assumes workers dislike and avoid work; managers use coercion
• Theory Y assumes individuals consider work natural and enjoy the satisfaction of esteem
• Theory Z is based on a Japanese approach that emphasizes trust, quality, collective decision making and cultural values

Ways to Have Influence on Projects

• Authority: hierarchical right to issue orders
• Assignment: the ability to influence a worker's later assignments
• Budget: Manager's ability to authorize others' use of discretionary funds
• Promotion: the ability to improve a worker's position
• Money: the ability to increase a worker's pay and benefits
• Penalty: the manager's ability to cause punishment
• Work challenge: Assigning work that capitalizes on a worker's enjoyment
• Expertise: special knowledge others deem important
• Friendship: establish personal relationships

Projects succeed when influence involves:

• Expertise and work challenge

Projects fail when reliance is too heavy on:

• Authority, money, and penalty

Potential to Influence Behavior

• Is to get people to do things they would not otherwise do

Types of Power

• Coercive
• Legitimate
• Expert
• Reward
• Referent

Improve Effectiveness

• Apply Covey’s 7 habits of success
• Be proactive
• Begin with the end in mind
• Put first things first
• Think win/win
• Seek first to understand, then to be understood
• Synergize
• Sharpen the saw

Empathic Listening

• Requires you to understand and have rapport
• Rapport is a relation of harmony, conformity, accord, or affinity
• Mirroring helps establish rapport
• IT professionals need people skills to improve relationships

Emotional Intelligence (EI)

• Requires knowing and managing emotions with understanding of others for improved performance
• 71% of U.S. hiring managers value EI more than IQ.

Leadership

• There is no one best way
• Best leaders adapt to the situation
• Six leadership styles: visionary, coaching, affiliative, democratic, pacesetting and commanding

PMI introduced the Talent Triangle

• The Triangle emphasized the need for technical & non-technical skills for project managers in 2015
• The Talent Triangle includes technical project management, strategic and business management, and leadership skills

Resource Management and Team Charter

• Requires identifying and communicating project roles
• A Human Resource Management Plan includes project organizational charts, a staffing management plan, a team charter, responsibilities, etc.
• Includes physical resource management

Responsibilities

• A responsibility assignment matrix (RAM) maps work to people responsible
• RAM can be designed to meet project needs

Staffing Management Plans

• These plans describes when and how people will be added/removed from a project team

Resource Histogram

• A resource histogram is a column chart showing the # of resources assigned over time

Team Charter

• Team Charter helps facilitate teamwork
• Team Charter help clarify team communications
• Team Charter aka as team contract (PMBOK 7th ed.)

Topics in a Team Charter:

• Team values
• Communication guidelines
• Decision-making
• Conflict resolution
• Meeting guidelines
• Team agreements

Estimating of Activities Resources

• Requires difficulty assessment
• Addresses uniqueness in scope and policies in resource constraints
• Involves outsourcing

Acquiring Resources

• Acquiring qualified people is crucial
• It’s important to assign the appropriate type and number of people to work on projects

Resource Assignment

• Good hiring procedures and staffing plans are important
• Enrollment in STEM programs has dropped
• CIO's researchers should rethink hiring practices and offer incentives to retain talent

Best Practices

• Best practices can be applied to include the best places for people to work
• Google has been named one of the best companies to work for by multiple magazines
• Rankings judge best practices as employers

Resource Loading

• Resource loading refers to how an existing schedule utilizes individual resources

Understanding Project Demands

• Project managers must develop a general understanding of demands of the organization's schedules

Overallocation

• Occurs when more resources than available are assigned to perform work

Resource Leveling

• Resource leveling is a technique for resolving any resource conflicts via delaying tasks

Purpose

• To create smoother resources and reduce overallocation by using the network diagram

Float

• Float is the amount of time a project can be delayed

Free Float (FF)

• Is the amount of time that a schedule activity can be delayed without delaying the early start date of any successor
• FF = (Lowest ES of successors) - EF

Total Float (TF)

• TF represents the amount of time that a schedule activity can be delayed or extended from its early start date without delaying the project finish date or violating a schedule constraint
• TF = LS - ES

Developing the Project Team

• Is to help people efficiently.
• It takes teamwork to successfully complete projects

Tuckman Model

• Team's phases in development of the team:
  • Forming
    • Storming
      • Norming
    • Performing
  • Adjourning

Team Development Tools

• Training
• Team-building activities
• Reward and recognition systems

Training

• Training courses can improve individual/team development
• Training can help people understand themselves/each other to work better in teams

Team-Building

• TB must understand individuals' pasts, needs, and limitations
• Team building activities can include challenges and psychological preference tools

3 Common Mental TB

• Myer's-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
• Wilson Learning Social Style Profile
• DISC Profile

MBTI

• MBTI determines personality preferences and can help teammates to understand each other
• Has four dimensions: E/I, S/N, T/F, and J/P
• NTs/rationals are attracted to technology fields
• IT people may vary population being extroverted/sensing

Social Styles Profile

• Determines level of assertiveness and responsiveness

People behave in zones:

• drivers
• expressives
• analyticals
  • amiables
• Those in driving and amiable corners may have difficulties with each other

DIIC Profiles

• DISC profiles reveals behavioral tendencies under certain situations

Four-Dimensional Model

• Dominance
• Influence
• Steadiness/ Stability
• Compliance/ Conscientiousness
• Opposites can have problems with each other

Rewards programs should:

• Rewards should be team based
• These programs should focus on teamwork with certain goals
• Allow them to mentor each other to create human resources

Managing the Project Team

• Managers need to lead teams and know if changes must be done

Information needed includes:

• Changes
• actions
• Updates

Conflict Resolution Modes

• Confrontation: Directly face a conflict using a problem-solving approach
• Compromise: Use a give-and-take approach
• Smoothing: De-emphasize areas of difference and emphasize areas of agreement
• Forcing: The win-lose approach
• Withdrawal: Retreat or withdraw from an actual or potential disagreement
• Collaborating: Decision makers incorporate different viewpoints and insights to develop consensus/commitment

Groupthink Development

• Values of a group

Good for:

• New ideas
• Motivation

Bad For:

• Team performance if there's an emotional conflict

The Five Dysfunctions

• Absence of trust
• The fear of conflict
• A lack of commitment
• Avoidance of accountability
• Inattention to results

Advice

• Be patient and gentle
• Establish meeting to resolve problems
• Allow time for teams to go through stages
• Keep teams to 3-5 members

More Advice for Social

• Plan activities to build
• Build identity and nurture members Utilize team members

HR Management (Software)

• Producing RAMS
• Produce resources
• Includes assigning potential resources

More Needed Than Software

• Project managers must
• Treat people respectfully and understand who they are
• Enable team members to their best work