CHAPTER 9

Managing Project Resources

In this chapter, you will

•Plan for resource management

•Estimate activity resources

•Acquire the project resources

•Develop the project team

•Manage the project team

•Control project resources

Your project relies on people doing the work, but these people need the correct tools, equipment, software, materials, and other necessary resources to complete the project work. You cannot install meters and meters of electrical wiring without the correct people, tools, and equipment. This chapter on resource management addresses both the human resources and the physical resources needed in project management.

First, people—specifically those on your project team—look to you, the project manager, to provide leadership, direction, and motivation. Your job is 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 you should know this for your PMI exam—the people involved with the project will know what is expected of them by the project manager, management, and the stakeholders, and they’ll attempt to meet or exceed 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 stated in the project scope statement.

VIDEO For a more detailed explanation, watch the Human Resource Theories video now.

Next, physical resources are needed for the project team to do their work. It’s frustrating for everyone involved when the project team is ready to do the work, but the equipment, tools, or materials aren’t available. It means wasted time and money for the project—and it’s not helping the project be successful. The project manager must make certain that she understands what physical resources are needed and then deliver those resources to ensure that the project moves forward as expected. In addition, it’s critical to get the correct physical resources—the resources that are actually needed, that meet the quality expected, and that are available on time. Availability, with regard to materials, can often mean inventory: too much inventory and your funds are tied up in resources; too little inventory and you’re waiting for resources to be replenished. Having the right resources available at the right time is often more difficult than it may seem.

The type of organizational structure—from functional to projectized—will 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, the project manager has much more autonomy both to discipline and to reward. The project management approach, whether adaptive or predictive, will also affect how you manage the project.

You must also consider the culture of the organization in which the agile project is being implemented. The culture may see the speed of agile projects as a deterrent to effective quality management. Or the culture may see the change-friendly approach to agile as a threat to the team actually hitting a deadline. The culture of the organization will affect the rigidity of the project approach, the flexibility of the product requirements, and how you, as the project manager, oversee the agile project. Culture isn’t just about resource management; it affects all areas of the project. And an organization’s culture is driven by the people within the organization.

Your project team may be assigned to you, or you may have to build the team one person at a time. Chances are, you’ll have a core project team at the beginning of the project and then more and more team members will join as the project scope is defined and the activities are identified. Adding people to the project team can influence how you do the work and can introduce new risks and opportunities—based on their interest in the project, experience levels, and, frankly, their competency regarding the project work. An analysis of the project team can help you plan your team development approach.

As the project manager, you’ll need to manage and lead the project—yes, there is a difference between management and leadership. Management is about getting things done. Leadership is about aligning, motivating, and directing people. I believe that people will work harder, smarter, and better for someone they want to work for than they will for someone they are required to work for. As you lead and manage your team, you must maintain a professional and ethical demeanor. Avoid playing favorites, balance the tasks among the project team, and get involved in the work when the team needs your help.

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

Planning for Resource Management

Here we go again. Have you noticed that every knowledge area for your PMI examination starts with a planning process? Hmmm, I hope so. Planning is an iterative process that begins early in the project and continues throughout the project management life cycle. Planning for project resources is vital to a successful project. After all, you’ve got to plan how the project work will be completed and which resources will complete that work.

NOTE Don’t get overwhelmed with all the planning activities you’ll read about in this chapter. Every project requires some planning, but not every project needs an in-depth plan. You’ll learn about the differences between planning for adaptive projects and planning for predictive projects in this chapter.

When it comes to planning resources, the project manager should consider several facets of the project. Specifically, the planning process answers the following questions:

Phew! That’s a bunch of questions the project management team must answer during this portion of planning. The good news is that you can answer some of these questions when you’re doing other project management planning exercises, such as time and cost estimating. All of the answers to these questions are documented in the resource management plan. The resource management plan is the primary output of the human resources planning process.

Identifying Organizational Approach for Managing Resources

Project management is becoming more and more about empowering the project team members to make decisions rather than the project manager making all the project decisions. This collaborative approach fosters trust, shared ownership, and a reliance on experts on the project team. You’ll need to know which approach your organization prefers, and for your PMP exam, you should be familiar with these trends in managing resources:

The resource management process can be tailored to fit your project and organization. The project manager will consider the diversity of the project team and the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) that the diverse group may bring to the project. When work is completed by virtual teams, the physical location of each team member is also evaluated for how best to manage the resources.

Your industry may require special resource considerations, such as unions or inspectors. All project managers, regardless of the industry, will have to follow the organization’s policies for acquiring and managing the project team. Finally, the project life cycle can affect how you manage project team members. Specifically, you’ll consider the peaks and valleys of team utilization depending on the type of work that’s taking place in the project at any given time.

Relying on Enterprise Environmental Factors

You’ve seen “enterprise environmental factors” mentioned over and over throughout this book. When it comes to relying on the good ol’ enterprise environmental factors for resource planning, the focus is on how the organization identifies and utilizes roles and responsibilities and how the organization interacts with the project management team. When planning resources, the project manager needs to identify which departments will be involved in the project. The team considers how the project will interact with these different departments, as well as what relationships exist among the departments, the project team, and management.

Have you ever worked with project team members who were located around the world? What about project team members who were all within footsteps of other team members? The logistical interface considers just that—the logistics of the project team and the stakeholders—and how they affect your ability to manage the project. You’ll also consider any physical resources that need to be located close to where the project is happening. Think of materials that must be shipped, equipment that is being utilized on other projects, and other physical resources that will affect the timing, cost, and planning of your project. The project manager must consider geographical locales, time zones, countries, and any other logistical concerns that may affect the project.

Here are three common constraints that may affect your resource planning:

NOTE Contracts and grievances with unions are constraints. The unions themselves, however, are stakeholders.

Using the Organizational Process Assets

In many organizations, new projects may be similar to past projects. For example, an architecture firm designs buildings, an IT consultancy designs software or networks, and a manufacturer assembles products. For projects in these types of organizations, past project records, lessons learned, and even past resource management plans can be adapted for a current project.

Organizational process assets provide for resource planning—you should know these for your PMI exam:

Referencing the Project Management Plan

The project management plan must include several considerations regarding staffing the project and utilizing physical resources for the project. Let’s take a quick peek at each subsidiary plan, elements within the project management plan, and how they may affect what resources the project manager will require for the project team.

Here are the elements of the project management plan for a predictive project:

EXAM TIP Remember the differences between project types. Predictive projects plan in-depth. Adaptive projects plan throughout the project but don’t create tons of documentation. Hybrid projects can combine the documented plans of predictive life cycles and the iterative approaches in adaptive life cycles. Hybrid projects are a mishmash of what works for an organization, so hybrid project team members can do pretty much whatever they want, if it works.

Charting the Human Resources

Lots of charts can help the project manager and the project management team determine required resources, existing responsibilities, reporting relationships, accountability concerns, and plenty more within a project. The PMP examination will quiz you on these “schmancy” charts and how they’re used. Don’t worry—they’re not difficult. Let’s have a look.

Using a Hierarchical Chart

A hierarchical chart shows the relationships among superior and subordinate employees, groups, disciplines, and even departments. You’ve already seen one hierarchical chart: the WBS.

When it comes to human resource planning, consider the following five types of charts:

Networking Human Resources

My buddy Rick and I do an exaggerated used-car salesman thumbs-up whenever one of us mentions networking. We know networking works—it’s a great way to meet new people, find new business, and make friends. Attending networking events—such as your PMI chapter meetings and luncheons, where you can work the room—can help you move your project forward by furthering your understanding of how your organization deals with political and interpersonal relationships.

Basically, networking supports the old adage that people like to do business with people they like. If people don’t know you, they won’t get a chance to like you. Networking functions, especially those internal to your organization, are great places to meet and greet others and share news about your projects. Attending networking events on an ongoing basis is effective. Some project managers fall into the trap of networking only at the launch of a project; however, steady networking builds relationships.

Networking means more than selling things. If you work in a large company, the organization may schedule internal networking events, where you can meet colleagues and share what you’re doing in the organization. This is a great way to meet others, learn about opportunities, and, if your organization is trending toward agile projects, discuss agile and how it works.

Identifying Roles and Responsibilities

Human resource planning accomplishes wonderful things. It communicates information about the resources the project will need, the project team’s roles and responsibilities, the structure of the project team, and more. One of the fundamental things that human resource planning does for the project is to identify the attributes of the project team. You’ll need to know these four attributes for your PMI examination:

Creating a Project Organization Chart

Another output of the human resource planning process for your project is a project organization chart. This chart, as its name implies, illustrates the organization of the project, the project team members, and all the associated reporting relationships. The level of detail of the project organization chart is relative to the size of the project team and the priority of the project. In other words, organizing a massive international project with 3,000 project team members around the globe will likely require a higher level of detail than organizing a 20-person project team to create a new piece of software.

Creating a Team Charter

A team charter document is typically created by the project team to define the values, agreements, and ground rules for the project. In some organizations, the team charter may be developed for the project team, though the charter works best when the project team creates its own document—or at least has a part in creating it. Agile projects typically have a team charter rather than a project charter. The team charter includes the following:

When ground rules are created and agreed upon, it’s up to all project team members to enforce them. The team charter helps to establish the values and agreement as to how the project team will operate and abide by the ground rules. We can see this in agile projects as the team is self-led and self-organizing, and team members hold one another accountable through pair programming, retrospectives, and transparency.

Estimating the Activity Resources

Resources include materials, equipment, and people. After the project manager and the project team have worked together to determine the sequence of the activities, they must determine which resources are needed for each activity, as well as how much of each resource is needed. As you can guess, resource estimating goes hand in hand with cost estimating. After all, if you need a metric ton of pea gravel, that’s a resource estimate, but someone’s got to pay for that gravel.

To estimate the demand for the project resources, you’ll need several inputs:

Using Expert Judgment

The project manager and the project team have worked together to create the WBS, the activity list, and the sequence of activities, so it makes sense that they’ll continue to work together to create the resource estimates. And they do. According to the PMBOK Guide, the project management team may work with experts to help make the best decisions. This is using the old standby “expert judgment,” when the project manager relies on someone more knowledgeable to help make the best decision.

Using Bottom-Up Estimating

Every time I mention bottom-up estimating in one of my seminars, someone snickers and pantomimes drinking a shot of booze. Ha-ha.

Bottom-up estimating is the most accurate time-and-cost estimating approach a project manager can use. This estimating approach starts at “the bottom” of the project and considers every activity, its predecessor and successor activities, and the exact amount of resources needed to complete each activity. Bottom-up estimating accounts for all of the resources needed to complete all of the project work. Although it is the most accurate estimating approach, it is also the most time consuming.

EXAM TIP To complete bottom-up estimating, especially for costs, a WBS must be present. Bottom-up estimating for costs is also known as “creating the definitive estimate.”

Relying on Analogous Estimating

Recall that analogous estimating relies on historical information from similar projects to predict duration and cost in the current project. With estimating activity resources, an analogous estimate will consider a past project to examine the types of resources utilized, the amount of resources, the cost of resources, and even the duration of the activities for which the resources were utilized. This is a quick estimating approach, and its accuracy is dependent on the accuracy of the historical information the estimate is based upon. Analogous estimating is sometimes called a top-down estimate.

Utilizing Parametric Estimating

Parametric estimating uses a parameter, such as cost per square foot or eight hours of labor per fixture, to predict resource utilization and cost. The parameter must be well established and agreed upon, such as the eight hours of labor per fixture. If the parameter isn’t well established, the estimate is likely going to be flawed. For example, if your project team has 2,500 fixtures to install, and your team estimates that it’ll take four hours to install each fixture, but they’ve never installed even one of these fixtures before, that’s a risky estimate. The better the data the estimate is based upon, the more reliable the estimate will be.

Identifying Alternatives

As the project management team determines what resources are needed, there will be plenty of opportunities to determine which solution is the best solution for the project. Whenever more than one solution is presented, this is called alternative analysis. Alternative analysis is a type of data analysis and comes in many different flavors. Here are some examples:

EXAM TIP The term “alternative analysis” is used throughout the PMBOK Guide, so you’ll likely see this term on the PMP exam. Whenever you have two feasible choices for a component in your project, you’re working with alternative analysis.

Relying on Published Estimating Data

If you are a project manager in construction, you know that the cost of the labor you use, the materials you routinely work with, and seasonal factors you consider for each project typically vary, depending on what part of the country, or even the world, your project is operating within. Many companies provide estimating data on the resources your project can purchase based on the project’s geographic locale, resource supply and demand, and the season of your purchases. Published estimating data helps the project management team determine the exact cost of the resources the project will utilize.

Building an Agile Project Team

Members of agile project teams, like all teams, need the right knowledge and skillsets to get the work done. Agile teams are ideally collocated, and team members work on one project all the time rather than hopping from project to project. Agile project teams shouldn’t be too big—just three to nine members is the recommended maximum—because a smaller team makes it easier to see who’s doing what and enables the team to self-manage its approach and decisions, while also controlling the work in progress. Agile teams follow the rules of the approach, be it Scrum, XP, Lean, or some other flavor, and they want servant leaders to support their decisions and remove impediments.

Agile project teams begin with dedicated people working on a single project. Agile teams are often described as a group of generalizing specialists who specialize in one or more technologies, are knowledgeable about software development and the business domain in which they work, and actively seek new skills in a variety of areas. Specialists have specific expertise and generalists are flexible in taking on different assignments and roles.

Regardless of the agile methodology an organization embraces, you should recognize the following three basic roles for your exam:

Specialists in agile communities are often categorized into two kinds of people: I-shaped people and T-shaped people. I-shaped people have depth in a specific subject matter, but not much cross-functionality. T-shaped people have depth, too, but they can also collaborate and contribute in more than one area. Agile projects want T-shaped people who can do more than one role and who can contribute throughout the project. I-shaped people can become bottlenecks if they’re the only person on the team who can perform a specific role.

Examining the Activity Resource Estimates

So what do you get when the project manager, the project team, and experts estimate the required activity resources? This is not a trick question! You get the requirements for all the project resources. The activity resource estimation process enables the project manager, the project team, management, and your key stakeholders to determine the resources needed to complete each work package in the WBS. Specifically, at the end of this process, you’ll have the following:

Acquiring the Project Team

Have you ever managed a project in which the resources you wanted were not available? Or a project in which the resources you were assigned weren’t the best resources to complete the project work? To complete the project work successfully, you must acquire the appropriate resources, and you need to be familiar with the policies and procedures of the performing organization to obtain these resources by using negotiation, communication, and political savvy.

Examining the Staffing Pool

Sometimes the project manager doesn’t have any say over which project team members are assigned to the project team. In other instances, the project manager can influence the decision-makers to acquire the best team members. Your project team may also include contractors that you’ll have to manage. These are all part of the enterprise environmental factors—how an organization operates.

To put together a team, the project manager should always ask about the following things:

If the project manager cannot acquire the correct or most appropriate resources for the project, the schedule, costs, and quality of the project can be affected. A failure to secure the correct resources can introduce risks and even delays for the project—and in a worst-case scenario, not having the correct resources can cause the project to be cancelled altogether.

An alternative resource can be used, however, when a resource you need (or want) isn’t available. For example, you may prefer to work with a specific piece of equipment, but if it’s already assigned to another project, you’ll have to work with a less efficient piece of equipment. That logic works with people, too: you’d like the senior engineer to be on your project, but she’s already booked, so you’ll bring on the junior engineer instead.

Negotiating for Resources

Most projects require that the project manager negotiate with functional managers to obtain the needed resources to complete the project work. The functional managers and the project manager may struggle over an employee’s time because of demands from ongoing operations, other projects, and desires to use resources effectively. In other instances, functional managers may want to assign underutilized resources on projects to consume their otherwise idle employees’ time.

Project managers may also have to negotiate with other project managers to share needed resources among projects. Scheduling the needed resources between the project teams will need to be coordinated so that both projects may complete successfully.

Working with Preassigned Staff

Project team members are often preassigned to a project for a number of reasons:

Whatever the reasoning behind the assignment of the staff to the project, the project manager should evaluate the project team for skill gaps, availability to complete the project work, and expectations of the project team members. The project manager must address any discrepancies between the requirements of the project work and the project team’s ability to complete the work.

Procuring Staff

In some instances, the project manager may have no alternative but to look outside the organization to procure the project team or individuals to complete the project work. (I’ll talk all about procurement in Chapter 12.) The project manager may use this alternative for reasons such as the following:

Managing a Virtual Team

Placing all of the project team members in one geographical location is ideal for many project managers. In theory, having all of the project team members in one location enables the team members to communicate quickly, work together, and generally work better as a team. In reality, however, colocation is not always possible: Team members may be working around the globe, space may not be available in one locale, and other logistics can prevent bringing all of the project team together in a project war room. (And, yes, there’s no fighting in the war room.)

Virtual teams are likely in today’s world. Collaboration software, Internet tools, phone calls, and e-mails can help increase communications and the sense of a colocated team without the expense and improbability of a colocated team. Virtual teams enable the organization to do the following:

The negative side to virtual teams is that communication can be more difficult, and costs can be incurred from coordinating and managing the needed communication among the virtual team members.

EXAM TIP Remember that colocated teams are located in the same physical area. Colocated teams are also known as a tight matrix. Virtual teams working in separate locations are sometimes called non-colocated.

Utilizing a Multicriteria Decision Analysis Process

A “multicriteria decision analysis” process may sound very formal, scientific, and scary, but it’s simply a method to rank a potential project team member on several factors to determine whether the person should be included on the project team. To use this approach, you’d identify several factors, assign scores to the different factors, and then measure each team member by those factors. Here’s a quick example I made up with scoring:

Using such simple factors, you could measure and compare each potential team member and make a determination of each of their scored values to the project. You can add as many factors as needed and perhaps create a minimum threshold of points that the person must have to be invited onto your project team.

Assembling the Project Team

With the project team assembled, the project manager can continue planning, assigning activities, and managing the project progression. Project team members can be assigned to the project on a full- or part-time basis, depending on the project conditions. Once the project team is built, a project team directory should be assembled. The project team directory should include the following information about each team member:

It should also include the following:

Creating Agile Team Workspaces

Ideally, as mentioned, agile teams work in one physical location so that they can communicate better, collaborate, and easily access information. In most collaborative workspaces, teams aren’t tucked away in offices or cubes, but are all working together in one open space. However, people often need time to focus or work on problems alone, so there may be quiet nooks or offices for people to sequester themselves for a time period. Sometimes this open space and quiet nook mentality is called caves and commons—commons are the common spaces and nooks are the caves.

When colocation isn’t a reality, virtual teams are the norm. The team can leverage technology using web collaboration software, webcams, and apps to work together. Virtual teams can do their daily standup meetings online, but attendees will need to consider time zones and possibly language differences. It’s always a good idea to get all the team members together for face-to-face, in-person meetings throughout the project if that’s possible.

TIP For large projects with multiple teams working together across multiple time zones, a “follow-the-sun” approach can be implemented. This means the work is passed onto the next team each day, from one location to the next, east to west, across the globe. The work days in times zones overlap, so that as the work day ends at one site, the work day at the next site begins. Both teams may attend a meeting at the transfer point to discuss progress, daily plans, and roadblocks.

Fishbowl windows can also be used when workers are not colocated. At the beginning of the day, the team starts a video conference that’s shared with all the virtual team members. Each team member has a “window” into the other team members as they work. The idea is that all team members are working “together,” can view other team members, and can communicate quickly, no matter where the other workers are located. This approach prevents the lag time that virtual teams sometimes experience when trying to communicate with other remote workers through more conventional means.

For agile projects using the paired programming approach, such as XP, remote pairing can be used among programmers in different locations. In this approach, two programmers at different locations can work together via web collaboration to share screens, make edits, and communicate as if they were working in the same physical location.

VIDEO For a more detailed explanation, watch the Agile Team Space video now.

Developing the Project Team

The project manager develops the project team by enhancing the competencies of the individual project team members and promoting the interaction of all the team members. Throughout the project, the project manager must strive to involve and develop the team members as individuals completing project work, and as team members completing the project objectives together.

In matrix organizations, the project team members are accountable to the project manager and to their functional managers. Developing such a project team can prove challenging, because team members may feel pulled between multiple bosses.

Being a Servant Leader

Another major aspect of team development in an agile project is your role as a servant leader. Servant leadership means that you serve the project to make certain the team has everything it needs to create a successful product. Sometimes, this is described as “carrying food and water,” though you’re not literally carrying food and water—you’re doing whatever it takes to get the team the right information, to protect the team from interruptions, and to remove impediments for the team by removing waste, freeing bottlenecks, and doing whatever you can to support the team.

Servant leadership also means having and promoting self-awareness and emotional intelligence. You’re helping the team grow, coaching the team and stakeholders, and promoting safety, respect, and trust. Your goal is to empower the team to make decisions without fear of retribution, to be self-organized, and to be self-led. As a servant leader, you’re doing much more coaching and a lot less controlling than a project manager may do in a predictive environment. The focus is on collaboration, getting the team to work together to solve problems, and facilitating interaction over processes and tools.

Preparing for Team Development

Team development is a natural process, but it’s also a process that the project manager can usher along. If you’re the project manager and you want team members to work together, get along, and focus on completing the project rather than focusing on who’s really in charge of the project, you’ll need these inputs:

Relying on Interpersonal Management Skills

As a project manager, you need interpersonal skills to lead the project team. You may know these as soft skills or emotional intelligence—it’s about understanding what motivates people, determining how you can lead people, and knowing how to listen to people on your project team. Though the bottom line in project management is about getting things done, you’re dealing with people who have issues, concerns, stresses, anxieties, and lives beyond your project. You need to listen to team members’ concerns, empathize with them as needed, and help them manage their project work and assignments. An experienced project manager can shift from the manager role to see the project from the perspectives of the team members.

Specifically, the project manager relies on the following:

EXAM TIP Although agile teams are self-led, they still need leadership from their coach or scrum master. The central role of project management in adaptive projects is to help the team, especially in the early stages of the project, to make decisions and get organized, and to walk the team through the rules of the agile approach. As the team becomes more and more experienced, they’ll work more independently of the scrum master or coach.

Creating Team-Building Activities

Team-building activities encourage cooperation and trust among the team members through facilitated events. The goal of team-building exercises is to enable the project team to learn about one another, rely on one another, and work cohesively together. Activities can include the following:

A theory of team development that was created by Dr. Bruce Tuckman in 1965 posits that a project team goes through its own natural development process. This process can shift, linger, and even stall, based on the dynamics of the project team. Here are the five phases of team development, called the Tuckman ladder, from bottom to top:

NOTE Tuckman originally used only the first four stages of team development, but he added adjourning to the model in the 1970s. If a team has worked together in the past, they may skip a stage. Some teams may get stuck in a stage or even move down the ladder instead of advancing.

Establishing Project Ground Rules

Creating ground rules for the project team is part of the team charter. Ground rules establish the project expectations for the project team and define what is and is not acceptable behavior by all of the project team members, including the project manager. When all of the project team members agree to abide by the defined ground rules, misunderstandings diminish while productivity increases. Once ground rules are defined in the team charter, it’s the responsibility of all the project team members to enforce them.

EXAM TIP Remember that ground rules are enforced by the project team, not just the project manager.

Rewarding the Project Team

When discussing human resource planning, I mentioned that you, the project manager, should create a rewards and recognition system. This system is part of team development and encourages the behavior you want from your project team—that is, the behavior that promotes the project to completion and meets the project scope statement. Performance appraisals tell the project manager, and sometimes functional management, which team members should be rewarded based on the confines of the reward system.

Obviously, positive behavior should be rewarded. If a project team member willingly agrees to work overtime to ensure that the project will hit its schedule objective, that should be rewarded or recognized by the project manager. However, if a project team member has to work overtime because he has wasted time or resources, a reward is not in order.

Win-lose awards, sometimes called zero-sum awards, should be avoided, because they can hurt the project team’s cohesiveness. Any award for which only some project team members qualify shouldn’t be given. For instance, I once worked on a project where the project manager awarded a bonus to the software developer who created the most code every month. Well, since I wasn’t a software developer, I could never qualify for that bonus. (Thanks a lot, Ron! Ron was my boss then, and oh what sweet printed vengeance this is. Just kidding…. He dropped the bonus program when he realized the trouble with his plan.)

TIP Your rewards and recognition system should also consider cultural differences. Creating team rewards in a culture that encourages individualism can be difficult. In other words, the reward system must mesh with the culture within which the project manager is operating.

Assessing the Project Team

You want your project team to be the best unit of people possible. You want them to rely on one another, help one another, and communicate without fear of retribution. You also want the project team to be competent in the project work and execution of the project management plan. Personnel assessment tools, such as exams and surveys, can help you gain some insight into the project team and determine where each person’s strengths and weaknesses lie. This can help you determine the best ways to manage the project team, improve performance, and gain insight into what motivates team members.

The assessments of the project team can measure all sorts of factors, but there are some common measurements that can result from an assessment program:

Project team members’ performance is reviewed and tied to their overall performance on the project team. Performance appraisals can be in the form of a 360-degree appraisal, where a project team member is reviewed in all directions by the project team, the project manager, stakeholders, and even vendors, where appropriate.

Managing the Project Team

Once the project manager has planned for the human resources and developed the project team, she can focus on managing the project team. This process involves tracking each team member’s performance, offering feedback, taking care of project issues, and managing those pesky change requests that can affect the project team and its work. The staffing management plan may be updated based on lessons learned and changes within the team management process.

In a matrix environment, where the project team members are accountable both to the project manager and a functional manager, team management is a tricky business. The project manager and the functional managers need to work together to communicate the utilization of the project team member in both operations and on the project. The project team’s demand for dual reporting to the project manager and the functional manager also has to be considered—and is often the responsibility of the project manager rather than the functional manager or project team member.

In an agile project, the project manager role isn’t as clearly defined as the role in a predictive project. This is because the different types of adaptive project management use different titles for the role of the project manager. You may be called a coach, a facilitator, scrum master, team lead, or another title. It’s not the title that’s important; instead, it’s the actions you take to ensure that the team has what they need to be successful, that you’re communicating with stakeholders on how the agile approach works, and protecting the team from interruptions. You want to create a safe environment for the team to be successful and then trust them to do their work without hovering or interfering with team decisions.

CAUTION Beware multitasking! Multitasking is task switching, and that’s considered wasteful in an adaptive project. Singularity of purpose, the ability to focus and do deep work, is valued and promoted in agile project work.

Preparing for Team Management

Managing the project team is based on many conditions and scenarios within the project. Management of the project team is really about one thing: getting the project work done as promised in the project scope statement. There are many inputs to project team management:

All of these inputs feed directly into the actual process of managing the project team. The project manager and the project management team will use these inputs to manage the team better and move the project toward successful completion.

Dealing with Team Disagreements

In most projects, the project team, management, and other stakeholders may disagree on the progress, decisions, and proposed solutions within the project. It’s essential for the project manager to keep calm, lead, and direct the parties to a sensible solution that’s best for the project. Here are seven reasons for conflict, listed from most common to least common:

EXAM TIP You can expect questions on these areas of conflict on the exam. Don’t be duped into thinking personality conflicts are the biggest problem with conflict resolution. They are the least important. Agile teams may look more to the project management role to help make decisions and resolve conflicts early in the project, then as the team becomes more interdependent, they’ll make their decisions and take actions without relying so much on the project management role.

So what’s a project manager to do with all the potential for strife in a project? Of course, not all conflicts are important. Some are petty, childish, and part of the nonsense that project managers have to deal with. Other conflicts, however, are more serious and require some thought and a delicate approach. Here are five considerations for conflict management before acting on the conflict:

Once you’ve a good grasp on the conflict, the people involved, and how it’ll affect the project, you’ll consider these five different approaches to conflict resolution:

Creating an Issue Log

It’s okay to have issues within a project as long as the issues are recorded in the issue log. An issue, technically, is something that may be preventing the project team from reaching the project objectives. Typically, issues are identified and recorded in the issue log. Each issue is assigned an owner who needs to find a method that will resolve the issue by a given date. Each issue should also be identified as to its status and possible resolution. Common issues include the following:

EXAM TIP Be familiar with the concept of emotional intelligence, which is the ability to recognize and manage your emotions, other people’s emotions, and the emotions of groups involved in the project. Emotional intelligence recognizes that emotions are real, can affect the project success, and can affect relationships with the project team, stakeholders, and the project manager.

Examining the Outputs of Team Management

Team management begins as soon as the project team comes together, and it ends as soon as the project is closed. Throughout the project, different conditions and scenarios will affect how the project manager and the project management team will manage the project and the resources within it.

There are four outputs of managing the project team:

Relating to Organizational Theories

You can expect to see some of these topics on your exam, so let’s have a look at these theories in more detail.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

According to American psychologist Abraham Maslow, people work to take care of a hierarchy of needs. The pinnacle of their needs is self-actualization. People want to contribute, prove their worth, and use their skills and abilities. Figure 9-3 shows the pyramid of needs that all people try to ascend by fulfilling each layer, one at a time.

Figure 9-3 Maslow’s theory states that people ultimately work for self-actualization.

Maslow’s five layers of needs, from lowest to highest, are

Herzberg’s Theory of Motivation

According to Frederick Herzberg, a psychologist and authority on the motivation of work, there are two catalysts that affect workers’ motivation:

Herzberg’s Theory posits that the presence of hygiene factors will not motivate people to perform because these are expected attributes. However, the absence of these elements will demotivate performance. For people to excel, the presence of motivating factors must exist. Figure 9-4 illustrates Herzberg’s Theory of Motivation.

Figure 9-4 Hygiene agents do nothing to motivate, but their absence will cause performance and morale to decline.

EXAM TIP Use Herzberg’s Theory to prepare for your exam. Find some things that will motivate you to excel so you can pass your exam: a career advancement, a day off work, new clothes, or some other reward. Create an incentive that means something to you. After all, part of Herzberg’s Theory is that the motivating agents have to interest the person who’s being motivated.

McGregor’s Theory of X and Y

Professor and author Douglas McGregor’s theory states that, from their perspective, management believes there are two types of workers, bad (X people) and good (Y people). Theory X workers are lazy and uninterested in doing the project work, and they must be micromanaged and coerced to do the work. Theory Y workers are good, self-directed, and able to do the work that’s assigned to them, see Figure 9-5.

Figure 9-5 In this theory, management believes that X people are bad and Y people are good.

Ouchi’s Theory Z

American author and professor William Ouchi’s theory is based on the Japanese participative management style. This theory suggests that workers are motivated by a sense of commitment, opportunity, and advancement. Workers in an organization subscribing to Theory Z learn the business by moving up through the ranks of the company.

EXAM TIP If you need a way to keep McGregor’s X and Y and Ouchi’s Z theories separate in your mind, think of this: X is bad, Y is good, Z is the best.

Ouchi’s theory also credits the idea of lifetime employment. Workers will stay with one company until they retire because they are dedicated to the company, which is in turn dedicated to them.

NOTE Mary is a good software developer, so she would be a good project manager of software development projects, right? Not necessarily. This is the halo effect—when you make a judgment about a person based on seemingly related characteristics. Just because Mary is skilled in one area doesn’t mean she’ll also be skilled in another, somewhat related, area.

Vroom’s Expectancy Theory

Business professor Victor Vroom’s Expectancy Theory posits that people will behave based on what they expect as a result of their behavior. In other words, people will work in relation to the expected reward of the work. If the attractiveness of the reward is desirable to the worker, she will work to receive it. In other words, workers expect to be rewarded for their efforts.

McClelland’s Theory of Needs

American psychologist David McClelland developed his acquired-needs theory based on his belief that a person’s needs are acquired and develop over time. These needs are shaped by circumstance, conditions, and life experiences for each individual. McClelland’s Theory of Needs is also known as the Three Needs Theory, because each individual has three main needs; depending on the person’s experiences, the order and magnitude of each need shifts:

McClelland developed the Thematic Apperception Test to determine what needs are driving individuals. The test is a series of pictures that the test-taker must create a story about. Through the storytelling, the test-taker will reveal which need is driving his or her life at that time.

Controlling Resources

Controlling resources is about monitoring and controlling resource allocation for the project, tracking the cost and utilization of resources, communicating any problems with resources, and managing changes when they occur in the project. Changes to resources can result from vendor issues; conflicts with other people utilizing the resource, such as equipment or facilities; and issues that happen because of defects in the project work. When defects happen, you’ll likely need to submit a change request to order more materials, and this means the cost of the project increases.

Of course, in adaptive projects, controlling resources is not as confined. Early in the project, the team will likely need more coaching and direction, but as the project moves forward, the team should become more independent. The team will learn to determine who does what work for the iteration, and team members will learn how to keep one another accountable for getting the work done. The sprint retrospective, for example, is an opportunity for the team to discuss what’s worked well in the project and what hasn’t worked. It’s not an opportunity to place blame; comments should be respectful, but also open and transparent. Then the team should make adjustments for the next iteration to work better as a team.

Preparing to Control Resources

To control resources, you’ll rely on five inputs to this straightforward process:

Reviewing the Tools and Techniques to Control Resources

Data analysis is used with controlling resources to examine alternatives analysis. When a resource is not available—perhaps a vendor can’t deliver the physical resource as promised—alternatives analysis is used to determine whether another resource could work or a different vendor could deliver the solution. Analysis can also involve an examination of what the late delivery would mean to the project schedule and whether the project team can work on other tasks while waiting for the delivery of the resource from the vendor.

Performance reviews are also part of controlling resources. The project manager can compare the actual performance of physical resources to the planned performance of the resources. If the performance of a planned resource is not meeting expectations, the project manager can use cost-benefits analysis to determine whether changing vendors, materials, or both is cost efficient.

The final data analysis technique you can use to control resources is trend analysis. Trend analysis will enable you to examine how well physical resources have performed and to identify trend lines in the analysis to plan for future work. For some materials or equipment, the trend line may reflect the learning curve of using the resource. If the project team members have never used a material before, for example, it will likely take some time for the team to learn the best application of the material, develop an approach to doing the work, and master the use of the material. A trend line can track this progress over time.

Project managers in adaptive projects want to promote the idea that a team is working full time on a project, rather than switching between tasks among multiple projects. Agile project teams focus on one project, ideally, and communicate face-to-face daily. The project manager role also wants to break down the idea of silos in projects and have team members that are cross-functional and serve as generalizing specialists.

Problems with materials are common issues for the project manager or experts on the project team. When materials aren’t performing as expected, you’ll need to create a solution to keep the project moving forward. Problems can come from inside the organization, such as equipment damaged by a team member, or from outside the organization, such as a vendor that can’t deliver, bad weather, or other external issues. When problem-solving, use methodical, logical steps to find a solution:

Reviewing the Results of Controlling Resources

Controlling resources is an ongoing need throughout the project. The first output of the process, work performance information, provides useable data about the performance of the physical resources in the project. This information can help the project manager determine whether a change request is needed for the materials. Change requests are the second output of this process; all change requests must be submitted to the project’s integrated change control process.

The project management plan could need to be updated as a result of controlling resources. When the project management plan is updated, a change request should be submitted as well. Changes can occur to the project management plan as a result of controlling resources such as the following:

The process of controlling resources can also require that several project documents be updated:

Chapter Summary

The project manager has to plan for the human resources needed to complete the project work and for the physical resources the project will need. In addition, the project manager plans for how the human resources will be managed, trained, motivated, and led throughout the duration of the project. The project team works to identify their roles and responsibilities within the project, including the activities needed to complete the project work. The key output of planning for human resources is the resource management plan, which defines how the project team will be acquired, managed, trained, rewarded for the work, and then released from the project team. The resource management plan also identifies the physical resources needed in the project, along with the acquisition process and management of resources.

The project team is acquired as specified in the resource management plan. The team, however, isn’t always selected—it’s often preassigned to the project. Sometimes, the project manager can negotiate with the functional managers and other project managers to get the best possible resources for the project. When the resources aren’t available inside the organization, the project manager may deal with contracted help, which means procurement.

Adaptive project teams are self-organizing and self-led. This means that the team members will determine who’ll do what work in the sprint backlog, will hold one another accountable, and will work transparently, with trust and with confidence to experiment and sometimes fail. Early in the project, the team may need more coaching from the scrum master, coach, or project manager in a hybrid approach, but with experience, the team will become more independent and able to work together to get things done.

In some teams, team members all work together at one locale and may periodically huddle in the project’s war room. The idea of a colocated team supports ad hoc conversations, team cohesiveness, and project performance. However, in many cases, the project team is not colocated and a virtual team is created. Virtual teams enable people with mobility handicaps or travel issues, as well as home office workers, to be actively involved in the project—and they save expenses for travel and office space. Adaptive projects utilize caves and commons; commons are the public work area and caves are isolated nooks to use when focused work is needed.

Whatever conditions affect the project team, the project manager must work to develop the team. Team development centers on building team cohesiveness through team-building exercises, training, and team involvement. One team development tool and technique is the creation of ground rules. Ground rules are created and agreed upon by the project team to promote performance within the project. Once ground rules are created, it’s up to the project team to enforce them.

Through conversations, observations, performance appraisals, conflict management, and the issue log, the project manager will manage the project team. The goal of team management is getting the project done—which is all about results. The project manager needs interpersonal skills, sometimes called the soft skills of project management, to communicate and effectively manage the project team. Controlling the project resources, which also involves using interpersonal skills, focuses on controlling human resources and physical resources.

Human resource theories, such as Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, McGregor’s Theory of X and Y, Ouchi’s Theory Z, and Vroom’s Expectancy Theory, all seek to determine what motivates an employee to complete project tasks. Project managers can use these theories to determine the best approach to motivate or inspire a project team member to elicit the behavior the project manager expects.

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