Objective
- Understanding the importance of HR management in Information Technology projects
- Understanding the stages in HR management
- Get to know the tools that can be used in HR management.
The Importance of Human Resource Management
- Human resources determine the success and failure of organizations and projects.
- Statistics on IT workforce:
- The total number of IT workers in the US was over 10.5 million in early 2004, up to 10.3 million in 2003, and 9.9 million in 2002.
- Eighty-nine percent of new jobs come from non-IT companies, such as banking, finance, manufacturing, and transportation.
- Interpersonal skills are the most important soft skill for IT workers.*
Definition of Human Resource Management
- Human resource management in a project is the process of organizing and managing or placing people involved in a project, so that their potential can be utilized effectively and efficiently.
- Human resources in a project include sponsors, customers, project team members, support staff (if any), suppliers, etc.
Stages of Human Resource Management
- Human Resource Planning. Identifying and documenting a person's role in the project, his or her responsibilities and how that person reports to others on the project.
- Project Team Acquisition. Efforts to obtain human resources as needed to complete the project.
- Building Project Teams. Improving the competency and interaction of project team members, both individually and in groups to improve project performance.
- Managing Project Team. Monitoring project team performance by providing input or motivation, solutions or simply coordination in order to improve project performance.
Organizational Planning
- Includes identification and documentation of project roles, responsibilities, and reporting relationships.
- At this stage, things that need to be planned include:
- Responsibilities of each team
- When needed
- Identify whether training is needed for the person.
- Remuneration and reward plan
- How to evaluate someone's performance
- Criteria for how to stop someone
The outputs are: Project organizational structure, Staff management plan, Responsibility matrix, HR histogram.
Responsibility Matrix
Responsibility assignment matrix (RAM), is a matrix that maps project work, as in the WBS, to the people responsible for carrying out the work.
Responsibility Matrix (RAM)
RAM Showing Stakeholder Roles
Staffing Management Plans and Resource Histograms
- The staff management plan describes when and how people will be added and removed from the project team.
- A resource histogram is a column chart that shows the number of resources assigned to a project over a time frame.
Resource Histogram Example
Project Team Acquisition
- Resource Loading refers to the number of human resources available in relation to the project work schedule in a certain period.
- Resource leveling is a technique for resolving resource conflict problems by postponing a job.
- The main goal of resource leveling is to distribute resources more evenly and reduce overallocation.
Building a Project Team
- The main goal of building a project team is so that everyone on the team can work together effectively to improve project performance.
- Training.
Tools and Techniques for Project Team Management
- Observation and conversation
- Project performance assessment
- Conflict management
Keys to Human Resource Management
Important areas related to project management are:
- Motivation theory
- Influence and power
- Effectiveness
Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation
- Intrinsic motivation causes people to participate in an activity for their own satisfaction.
- Extrinsic motivation causes people to do things for rewards or to avoid punishment.
The Influence of Project Managers
Projects are more likely to be successful when project managers influence people by:
- Expertise/expertise
- Job challenges
Projects tend to fail when project managers rely too much on:
- Authority/authority
- Money
- Punishment
Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
MBTI is a tool to determine a person's personality tendencies.
The four dimensions in MBTI are:
- Extrovert/Introvert (E/I)
- Sensation/Intuition (S/N)
- Thinking/Feeling (T/F)
- Judgment/Perception (J/P)
MBTI Psychology Dimensions
- Extrovert/Introvert (E/I). Indicates whether a person has strong personal motivation (I) or needs encouragement from others (E)
- Sensation/Intuition (S/N). Describes how a person obtains information. Type S is a person who needs facts, details, reality and this describes Type S as a practical person. Type N is an imaginative person, has strong intuition, describes someone who is innovative and conceptual.
- Thinking/Feeling (T/F). This dimension is related to how decisions are made. Type T is an objective and logical person, while type F is a subjective and personal person.
- Judgment/Perception (J/P). Dimension related to a person's attitude toward structure. J tends to be highly structured, while P tends to be open and more flexible.
General Advice For A Team
- Focus on the purpose of the meeting and try to deliver positive results.
- Fix the problem, rather than blaming someone
- Conduct regular and effective meetings
- Encourage team members to always work together and help each other.
- Give recognition to individual and group achievements.
Organizational Planning
Planning is the process of determining exactly what an organization will do to achieve its goals. Planning in formal terms can be defined as the systematic development of action programs aimed at achieving agreed business goals by the process of analyzing, evaluating, selecting among predicted opportunities. Organizational planning has two purposes, namely protective purposes and affirmative purposes. The protective purpose is to minimize risk by reducing uncertainty surrounding business conditions and explaining the consequences of related managerial actions. The affirmative purpose is to increase the level of organizational success. The purpose of planning is to form a coordinated effort within the organization. Without coordination in an organization will cause inefficiency. The basic purpose of planning is to help the organization achieve its goals. According to Koontz O'Donnel, the purpose of planning is "to facilitate the achievement of efforts and goals".
Organizing is the process of establishing an orderly use for all the resources in a management system. In essence, each organizational resource represents an investment from which the management system must obtain a return. Proper organization of these resources will increase the effectiveness and efficiency of their use. Henry Fayol has developed sixteen general guidelines that can be used when organizing resources.
- Prepare and implement operational plans wisely.
- Organizing humanitarian and material assets so that they are consistent with the objectives, resources, and needs of the problem.
- Establish a single, competent, energetic and guiding authority (formal management structure).
- Coordinate all activities and efforts.
- Formulate clear, distinct, and precise decisions.
- Arrange for efficient selection so that each department is headed by a competent, energetic manager, and each employee is placed where he can contribute his maximum energy.
- Defining tasks.
- Encourage initiative and responsibility.
- Provide fair and appropriate compensation for services rendered.
- Implementing sanctions against errors and mistakes.
- Maintain discipline.
- Ensuring that individual interests are consistent with the general interests of the organization.
- Recognize the existence of one command.
- Promote material and humanitarian coordination.
- Institutionalize and enforce oversight.
- Avoiding regulations, red tape, and paperwork.
Division of labor can have both advantages and disadvantages for organizations. The first advantage of division of labor is that workers' skills in performing specialized tasks tend to increase. Second, workers do not lose valuable time in moving from one task to another. Since they usually have one job and one place to do it, there is no time lost in changing tools and locations. Third, because workers concentrate on performing only one job, they tend to try to make that job easier and more efficient. Fourth, division of labor creates a situation where workers only need to know how to perform their part of the job and not the entire product process. Therefore, the task of understanding their job is less burdensome. However, it has also been argued that extreme division of labor and specialization are unnecessary. There is also a disadvantage to division of labor, namely that specialized jobs tend to be very boring and therefore usually cause production levels to decline.
Guidelines by which actions taken by a manager are to be followed and accepted. According to Chester Barnard, more and more of a manager's orders will be accepted in the long run if:
- Formal channels of communication are used by managers and are known to all members of the organization.
- Each member of the organization has received formal channels of communication through which he receives orders.
- The line of communication between managers and subordinates is direct.
- A complete chain of command is used to issue orders.
- The manager has adequate communication skills.
- Managers use formal lines of communication only for organizational matters.
- An authentic order does come from the manager.