PMBOK Chapter 9

Project Human Resource Management

And Case Study

Jacob Sandnes
3/30/15
Road Map

• Introduction
• Plan Human Resource Management
• Acquire Project Team
• Develop Project Team
• Manage Project Team
• Case Study
• Conclusion

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Introduction
• Project HRM – the processes that organize,
manage, and lead the project team.
• The project team – those with assigned roles
to complete the project.
• The project management team – responsible
for management and leadership.
• Project HRM can also include.
– Sponsors, clients, support staff, etc.

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Introduction
• Managing and leading involves
– Influencing the project team (human factors)
– Professional and ethical behavior.
• Project HRM processes interact with other
areas knowledge areas.
– Initial team members create WBS
– Additional members may be needed
– Their experience levels may increase or decrease
project risk

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Introduction
• Process areas are
– Plan human resources
– Acquire project team
• Confirm HR availability and obtain team
– Develop project team
• Improve competencies, interaction, and environment
– Manage project team
• Tracking performance and managing changes

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Road Map
• Introduction
• Plan Human Resource Management
• Acquire Project Team
• Develop Project Team
• Manage Project Team
• Case Study
• Conclusion

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Plan Human Resource Management
• Process of:
– Identify/document
• Roles
• Responsibilities
• Required skills
• Reporting
• Relationships

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Plan Human Resource Management
• Key benefits
– Establishes
• Roles
• Responsibilities
• Project org. charts
• Staffing management
plan

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Plan Human Resource Management
• Inputs
– Project management plan
– Activity resource requirements
• Specifically human resources needed.
– Enterprise environmental factors
• Organizational culture and structure.
• Existing human resources.
– Organizational process assets
• Policies, templets, lessons learned, etc.

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Plan Human Resource Management
• Tools and Techniques
– Org. charts and position descriptions
• Hierarchical, matrix, and text-oriented
– Networking
– Organizational theory
– Expert judgment
– Meetings

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Plan Human Resource Management
• Charts

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Plan Human Resource Management
• Outputs
– Human resource management plan
• Defines roles and responsibilities
– Role, authority, responsibility, and competencies
• Project org. charts
• Staffing management plan
– Staff acquisition
– Resource calendars
– Staff release plan
– Training needs
– Recognition and rewards
– Compliance and safety

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Road Map
• Introduction
• Plan Human Resource Management
• Acquire Project Team
• Develop Project Team
• Manage Project Team
• Case Study
• Conclusion

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 Acquire Project Team
• Process of:
– Confirming HR availability
– Obtaining the team.
• Key benefit:
– Outlining & guiding the
team selection and
responsibility assignment.

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Acquire Project Team
• Inputs
– Human resource management plan
– Enterprise environmental factors
– Organizational process assets

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Acquire Project Team
• Tools and techniques
– Pre-assignment
• Selected in advance
– Negotiation
• Functional mangers, other PM teams, and external org
– Acquisition
– Virtual teams
– Multi-criteria decision analysis
• Availability, cost, experience, ability, knowledge, skills,
attitude, international factors

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Acquire Project Team
• Outputs
– Project staff assignments
– Resource calendars
– Project management plan updates

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Road Map
• Introduction
• Plan Human Resource Management
• Acquire Project Team
• Develop Project Team
• Manage Project Team
• Case Study
• Conclusion

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 Develop Project Team
• Process of:
– Improving competencies
– Team member interaction
– Team environment

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 Develop Project Team
• Key benefits:
– Improved teamwork
– Enhanced people skills
– Enhanced competencies
– Motivated employees
– Reduced staff turnover
– Better project performance

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Develop Project Team
• Inputs
– Human resource management plan
– Project staff assignments
– Resource calendars

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Develop Project Team
• Tools and Techniques
– Interpersonal skills
• Emotional intelligence, conflict resolution, negotiation,
influence, team building and group facilitation
– Training
• Classroom, online, on-the-job, etc.
– Team-building activities (Tuckman ladder)
• Forming, storming, norming, performing, adjourning
– Ground rules

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Develop Project Team
• Tools and Techniques
– Colocation
• Meeting rooms (war room), poster boards, etc.
– Recognition and rewards
– Personnel assessment tools
• Surveys, structured interviews, ability tests, and focus
groups

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Develop Project Team
• Outputs
– Team performance assessments
– Enterprise environmental factors updates

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Road Map
• Introduction
• Plan Human Resource Management
• Acquire Project Team
• Develop Project Team
• Manage Project Team
• Case Study
• Conclusion

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 Manage Project Team
• Process of:
– Tracking performance
– Providing feedback
– Resolving issues
– Managing changes

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 Manage Project Team
• Key benefits:
– Influences behavior
– Manages conflicts
– Resolves issues
– Appraises performance

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Manage Project Team
• Inputs
– Human resource management plan
– Project staff assignments
– Team performance assessments
– Issue log
– Work performance reports
– Organizational process assets
• Newsletters, websites, bonus structures, etc.

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Manage Project Team
• Tools and techniques
– Observation and conversation
– Project performance appraisals
– Conflict management
• Withdraw/avoid
• Smooth/accommodate
• Compromise/reconcile
• Force/direct
• Collaborate/problem solve
– Interpersonal skills (leadership, influence, decisive)

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Manage Project Team
• Outputs
– PMP updates
– Project document updates
• Issue log
– Enterprise environmental factors updates
– Organizational process assets updates

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Road Map
• Introduction
• Plan Human Resource Management
• Acquire Project Team
• Develop Project Team
• Manage Project Team
• Case Study
• Conclusion

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Case Study
• Title - “Overcoming Barriers to Self-
Management in Software Teams”
• The team
– Basic work unit
– A small number of people with complementary
skills who are committed to a common purpose,
set of performance goals, and approach for which
they hold themselves mutually accountable.

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Case Study
• Key question- “How should you organize
teamwork for software development”
• Two major types
– Command and control
• Centralized decision authority
• Individual decisions
– Self-managed
• Scrum
• Shared decision making

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Case Study
• Self-managing teams
– Benefits
• Problems dealt quickly and accurately
• Reduce cost, improve quality
• Higher employee satisfaction
• Higher functional redundancies
– Problems
• Team performance is complex
• Depends on competence in managing and executing
• Difficult to implement

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Case Study
• This study examines
– 5 teams
– 3 companies
– 3 years
• All introduced agile into their projects

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Case Study
• Company A, B, and C
– A develops customer specific software on
contract. Specifically for planning and work
coordination
– B manufactures receiving stations for
meteorological and earth observation satellite
data.
– C develops software for maritime, offshore, and
process industries.

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Case Study
• All five teams received
– One day of general intro to scrum.
– One day of tailoring agile practices to their
projects.
• Data gathering methods
– Observation of daily work and meetings (stand-
ups, retrospectives, etc.)
– Conducted interviews
– Inspected documents

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Case study
• Key topic emerged
– Self-Management
• Barriers to self-management
– Team-level
– Organizational-level

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Case study
• Team-level barriers
– Individual Commitment
– Failure to learn
– Individual leadership

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Case study
• Individual commitment
– To much priority to individual goals
• Specialization
• Developers created
– Individual plans, full control over modules
• Team members had less interaction
• What if someone got sick?
– Unrealistic plans
• Too much in one sprint
• Plans were too broad and too flexible

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Case study
• Individual commitment
– Unclear completion criteria
• When is the task done?
– Meetings weren’t engaging
• Scrum tool was distracting
• Scrum master directly addressed developers
• In companies A and B some developers fell asleep!

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Case study
• Failure to learn
– Low team autonomy
• Outside people needs to respect efforts at
improvement.
• Need to affect managerial decisions to improve.
– Symbolic self-management
• In company C product owner distracted team
– New issue/crisis
– Presented new features with uncertainty
– Distracted team from iteration plan.

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Case study
• Failure to learn
– Impression management
• Made project team look good
• Reported unfinished task as finished
• Motivated by competing project resources
• Company A lost trust in team
– Specialization
• Problems with developer owned code unreported

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Case study
• Individual leadership
– Decentralized decision making
• Failure to understand what others are doing
– Company A
• Developer spent 3 days implementing features for
future products.
– Decision hijacking
– Many scrum master didn’t change decision habits.
– Who should be involved in what decision?
• One experienced new hire was left out of decisions.

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Case study
• Organizational barriers
– Shared Resources
– Organizational control
– Specialist culture

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Case study
• Shared resources
– Projects competed for shared HR
• Developers assigned to two projects
• Some scrum masters were allowed to prevent
developers from other projects
• Failure to provide scheduling and cross training
– Culture did not allow changes in organization of
teams.
– No investment in redundancy

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Case study
• Organizational Control
– Company B
• Tool for organizing tasks included information for QA
department.
• Project team ignored information and characterized it
as busy work.
– Company A
• Management interested in number of hours reported
rather than progress.
• Scrum masters told developers to report more hours
than were actually worked.

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Case study
• Specialist Culture
– Generalists needed to be able to fill in.
– Company C
• Chief architect controlled all decisions
– Company B
• Developers protected their knowledge
• Developers became important and could not be fired
– Company A
• Developers afraid to take responsibility for code
• Developers would be stuck with that product

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Case study
• Overcoming the barriers
– Organize cross-training
• Increases responsiveness to change and flexibility
– Collocate the team
• Increases interaction and cooperation
– Appreciate generalists
• Select team members with potential for redundancy
– Build trust and commitment
• Teams’ need for learning should motivate not
management’s control.
• Beware of impression management

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Case study
• Overcoming the barriers
– Align people to one project at a time
• Easier in large organizations
• Must be coordinated by management, not team

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Road Map
• Introduction
• Plan Human Resource Management
• Acquire Project Team
• Develop Project Team
• Manage Project Team
• Case Study
• Conclusion

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Conclusion
• Thank you for your time!
• Questions?

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References
• Moe, N., Dingsøyr, T., & Dybå, T. (2009). Overcoming
Barriers to Self-Management in Software Teams. IEEE
Software, 20-26.
• Project Human Resource Management. (2013). In A
guide to the Project Management Body of
Knowledge (PMBOK guide), fifth edition (5th ed.).
Newtown Square, Pa.: Project Management Institute.

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