Project Human Resource Management is a process of organizing the project team which is made of people who have been assigned roles and responsibilities to complete the project. It includes the following:

a) Human Resource Planning

b) Acquire Project Team

c) Develop Project Team

d) Manage Project Team

When project managers set their sights on deadlines on deliverables, tight time schedules and within budget, they must select and manage a team of experienced and competent professionals who can meet the challenge. This requires that project managers understand the Project Human Resource Management processes of planning, selecting, developing, and managing a project team. Such an understanding enables project managers to lead the project team to project completion and success.

Human Resource Planning process helps organization in developing staffing management plan, determines project roles, responsibilities and reporting responsibilities. The staffing plan details how and when team members will be acquired, determining if a training need exists, and if it does what training is required to fill the gap, recognition and rewards and safety plans. Project roles are designated for persons or groups from inside or outside the organization. It also includes compliance considerations time of acquirement of resources and the criteria for reading them the project.

There are various formats available to document team member roles and responsibilities and most fall into the three types: hierarchical, matrix and text oriented.

Hierarchical Type Charts

The traditional chart structure can be used to show positions and relationships in a graphic, top-down format. Work Breakdown Structures (WBS) show how project deliverables are broken down into work packages and become one way to show high level areas of responsibility. The Organizational Breakdown Structure (OBS) can be shown similar to WBS, which is arranged according to an organization’s existing departments, units, or teams allowing any operational department to see all of its Project responsibilities by looking at its portion of the OBS. The Resource Breakdown Structure (RBS) is another hierarchical chart that is used to break down the project by types of resources. The RBS can contain resource categories other than human resources.

Mixed-based charts

A Responsibility Assignment Matrix (RAM) is used to illustrate the connections between project team members and work that needs to be done. RAM's can be developed at various levels like a high level RAM can define project team group or unit is responsible for each component of the WBS. Lower-level RAM's are used within the group to designate roles, responsibilities, and levels of authority for specific activities. The matrix format, which is also called table, allows a person to see all activities associated with one person or to see all people associated with one activity.

Text-oriented formats

Text-oriented formats are used to specify team member responsibilities that require detailed descriptions. Usually in outline form, the documents provide information such as responsibilities, authority, competences, and qualifications. These descriptions and forms make excellent templates for future projects, especially when the information is updated throughout the current project by applying lessons learned.

Other sections of the project management plan

Other sections of the project management plan contains some responsibilities related to managing the project, such as the risk register contains risk owners, the communication plan contains team members responsible for communication activities, and the quality plan designates people responsible for carrying out quality assurance and quality control activities.

Organizational theory

It provides information regarding the behavior of people, teams, and organizational units. By applying proven principles, the amount of time needed to create the Human Resource Planning outputs can be shortened. It also improves the likelihood that the planning will be effective.

Staffing Management Plan

It is a subset of the project management plan that describes when and how human resource requirements will be met. As per the needs of the project, staffing management plan can be formal or informal, highly detailed or broadly framed. The plan is updated continually during the project to direct ongoing team member acquisition and development actions. Information in the staffing management plan varies by application area and project size, but items to consider include the following.

Staff Acquisition

While planning the acquisition of project team members, many questions need to be answered, like will the human resources come from within the organization or from external, contracted sources? Will the team members need to work in a central location or can they work from distant locations? What are the costs associated with each level of expertise needed for the project? How much assistance can the organization’s human resource department provide to the project management team?

Timetable

Timetable is the necessary time frames for individual and collective project team members. It also describes when acquisition activities such as recruiting should start. A tool that can be used for charting human resources is a resource histogram that illustrates the number of hours a person, department or entire project team will be needed each week or month over the course of the project. The chart can include a horizontal line that represents the maximum number of hours available from a particular resource.

Pre- assignment

Sometimes, project team members are pre-assigned which means they are known in advance. This situation may occur if the project is the result of specific people being promised as part of a competitive proposal, if the project is dependent on the expertise of particular persons, or if some staff assignments are defined within the project charter.

Negotiation

Negotiations may happen on many projects. To ensure that the project receives appropriately competent staff in the required time frame and that project team members will be able to work on the project until their responsibilities are completed, the project management team needs to negotiate with functional managers. The project management team may also need to negotiate with other project management teams within the performing organization to appropriately assign scarce or specialized resources.

While negotiating staff assignments, the project management team’s ability to influence others plays an important role, as do the politics of the organizations involved. For example, a functional manager will weigh the benefits and visibility of completing projects when determining where to assign exceptional performers that all project teams' desire.

Acquisition

Sometimes required services can be acquired from outside sources if the performing organization lacks the in-house staff needed to complete the project. This can involve hiring individual consultants or subcontracting work to another organization.

Virtual Teams

While acquiring project team members, the use of virtual teams, which can be defined as groups of people with a shared goal, creates new possibilities. Virtual teams can also be defined as those who fulfill their roles with little or no time-spent meeting face to face. The availability of electronic communication, such as e-mail and video conferencing, has made such teams feasible. The virtual team format makes it possible too.

Project Staff Assignments

When appropriate people have been assigned to work on it, the Project is staffed. Documentation can include a project team directory, memos to team members, and names inserted into other parts of the project management plan, such as project organization charts and schedules.

Resource Availability

It documents the time periods each project team member can work on the project. Creating a reliable final schedule depends on having a good understanding of each person’s schedule conflicts, including vacation time and commitments to other projects.

Updates in Staffing Management Plan

Staffing management plan may need some changes because people seldom fit the exact staffing requirements that are planned, as sometimes-specific people are required to fill the project roles and responsibilities. Other reasons for changing the staffing management plan include promotions, retirements, illnesses, performance issues, and changing workloads.

General Management Skills

Soft skills or interpersonal skills are particularly important to team development. The project management team can greatly reduce problems and increase cooperation by understanding the sentiments of project team members, anticipating their actions, acknowledging their concerns and following up on their issues. Skills such as empathy, influence, creativity, and group facilitation are valuable assets when managing the project team.

Training

It includes all formal or informal activities designed to enhance the competencies of the project team members. Examples of training methods include classroom, online, computer based, on-the-job training from another project team member, mentoring and coaching.

Part of the project work can include development of necessary management or technical skills project team members do not have. Scheduled training takes place as stated in the staffing management plan. Unplanned training takes place as stated in staffing management plan. Unplanned training takes place as a result of observation, conversation, and project performance appraisals conducted during the controlling process of managing the project team.

Team-Building Activities

This varies from an agenda item, has a very short duration, is in a status review meeting to an off-site, and professionally facilitates an experience designed to improve interpersonal relationships. Some group activities, such as developing the WBS, may not be explicitly designed as team building activities, but can increase team cohesiveness when that planning activity is structured and facilitated well. It also is important to encourage informal communication and activities because of their role in building trust and establishing good working relationships. Teambuilding strategies are particularly valuable when team members operate virtually from remote locations, without the benefit of face-to-face contact.

Ground Rules

Ground rules clearly specify the expected acceptable behavior by project team members. Early commitment to clear guidelines decreases misunderstandings and increases productivity. The process of discussing ground rules allows team members to discover values that are important to one another. All project team members share responsibility for enforcing the rules once they are established.

Co-Location

It involves enhancing people’s ability to perform as a team by placing many or all of the most active project team members in the same physical location. During the project, team members can be collocated temporarily at strategically important times or for the entire project. Co-Location strategy can include a meeting room, sometimes a war room, with electronic communication devices, places to post schedules, and other conveniences that enhance communication and a sense of community. While co-location is considered a good strategy, the use of virtual teams will reduce the frequency that team members are located together. Recognizing and rewarding desirable behavior is an important part of the team development process. Reward and recognition plan takes shape while doing the human resource planning. Award decisions are made, formally or informally, during the process of managing the project team through performance appraisals. Only desirable behavior should be awarded.

Observation and conversation

Observation and conversation are used to stay in touch with the work and attitudes of project team members. The project management team monitors indicators such as progress towards deliverables, accomplishments that are a source of pride for team members, and interpersonal issues.

Project Performance Appraisals

The length and complexity of the project, organizational policy, labor contract requirements, and the amount and quality of regular communication determines the need for formal or informal project performance appraisals. Project team members receive feedback from the people who supervise their project work. Evaluation information also can be gathered from people who interact with project team members by using 360-degree feedback principles, which means that feedback regarding performance is provided to the person being evaluated from many sources, including superiors, peers, and subordinates. Objectives include defining roles and responsibilities, structuring time to ensure team members resolve unknown or unresolved issues, developing individual training plans, and the establishing specific goals for future time periods.

Conflict Management

Greater productivity and positive working relationships are the results of successful conflict management; where as scarce resources, scheduling priorities, and personal work styles are major sources of conflicts. Team ground rules, group norms, and solid project management practices, like communication planning and role definition, reduce the amount of conflict. If differences of opinion are managed properly then they can be healthy and can lead to increased creativity and better decision-making. When the differences become a negative factor, project team members are initially responsible for resolving their own conflicts. The project manager should help facilitate a satisfactory resolution incase conflict escalates. Conflict should be addressed early and usually in private, using a direct, collaborative approach. If disruptive conflict continues, increasingly formal procedures will need to be used, including the possible use of disciplinary actions.

Issue Log

A written log can document persons responsible for resolving specific issues as and when they arise in the course of managing a project team by a target date which helps the project team monitor issues until closure. Issue resolution addresses obstacles that can block the team from achieving its goals. These obstacles can include factors such as differences of opinion, situations to be investigated, and emerging or unanticipated responsibilities that need to be assigned to someone on the project team.

Thus, we see that proper and timely staffing is a very important aspect of Project Management. Sometimes there are staffing changes which can affect the project irrespective by choice or uncontrollable events. Staffing changes, additional training and disciplinary are parts of corrective action in human resources management. Preventive action can be developed to reduce the probability and/or impact of problems for the project management team identifies potential or emerging human resources issues, especially as human resources are one of the most important aspects for the project to be delivered on time and within budget.