Chapter 9. Managing Project Human Resources

Your project relies on people to get the work done. Those people, your project team, look to you, the project manager, to provide leadership, direction, motivation, and your general management skills to help them know what their project assignments are, get their work done, and resolve issues and dilemmas within the project.

It's a blast! Okay, that's a bit of sarcasm. In reality, and on your Project Management Institute (PMI) examination, the resources involved with the project know what is expected of them by the project manager, management, and the stakeholders, and then they complete those expectations. And if they don't? Then it's up to the project manager, the functional managers, and even the other project team members to enforce the project's ground rules so that all team members work toward the requirements in the project scope statement.

The type of organizational structure, from functional to projectized, will also influence how the project manager may discipline, motivate, and manage the project team. In a functional environment, the project manager won't have much autonomy to discipline or offer rewards beyond what management has deemed appropriate. In a projectized structure, for example, the project manager has much more autonomy to both discipline and reward.

A subset of the project team is the project management team—you've seen this term already in this book. The project management team is the core group of project team members that help with the project management decision. Sometimes, this bunch of folks may also be called the core, executive, or leadership team. Your pal, the project sponsor, works directly with you, the project manager, and the project management team to help the team make the best decisions and to keep the project moving forward.

For your PMI examination, you'll need to know some vital facts about managing the project team. We'll cover these vital facts in this chapter.