return to model

Project Human Resource Management includes the processes required to make the most effective use of the people involved with the project. It includes all the project stakeholders—sponsors, customers, partners, individual contributors, and others described in Section 2.2. Figure 9-1 provides an overview of the following major processes:

	Organizational Planning — identifying, documenting, and assigning project roles, responsibilities, and reporting relationships.
	Staff Acquisition — getting the human resources needed assigned to and working on the project.
	Team Development — developing individual and group skills to enhance project performance.

  These processes interact with each other and with the processes in the other knowledge areas as well. Each process may involve effort from one or more individuals or groups of individuals based on the needs of the project. Although the processes are presented here as discrete elements with well-defined interfaces, in practice they may overlap and interact in ways not detailed here. Process interactions are discussed in detail in Chapter 3, Project Management Processes.
  There is a substantial body of literature about dealing with people in an operational, ongoing context. Some of the many topics include:

   Leading, communicating, negotiating, and others discussed in Section 2.4, Key General Management Skills.

   Delegating, motivating, coaching, mentoring, and other subjects related to dealing with individuals.

   Team building, dealing with conflict, and other subjects related to dealing with groups.

   Performance appraisal, recruitment, retention, labor relations, health and safety regulations, and other subjects related to administering the human resource function.

  Most of this material is directly applicable to leading and managing people on projects, and the project manager and project management team should be familiar with it. However, they must also be sensitive as to how this knowledge is applied on the project. For example:

   The temporary nature of projects means that the personal and organizational relationships will generally be both temporary and new. The project management team must take care to select techniques that are appropriate for such transient relationships.

   The nature and number of project stakeholders will often change as the project moves from phase to phase of its life cycle. As a result, techniques that are effective in one phase may not be effective in another. The project management team must take care to use techniques that are appropriate to the current needs of the project.

   Human resource administrative activities are seldom a direct responsibility of the project management team. However, the team must be sufficiently aware of administrative requirements to ensure compliance.

  Note: Project managers may also have responsibilities for human resource redeployment and release, depending upon the industry or organization to which they belong.