Project Management

Chapter 13 : Human Resource Management – Building Project Team

Organizational Planning

Traditional Organizational Structures
Pure Product Organizational Structure
Pure Project Organizational Structure
Matrix Organizational Structure
Selecting an Organizational Structure

Selecting the Staff Required

Selecting the Project Manager
Selecting the Core Team Members
Selecting the Contracted Team Members
The Project Office

Teams

Need for Team Building
Project Team Building
The Process of Project Team Building
Establishing Operating Rules
Advantages and Disadvantages of Team Building

Chapter Summary

Project human resource management involves all the processes that are required to make the most effective use of the individuals associated with the project.

Organizational planning is a process of identifying, documenting, and assigning project roles, responsibilities, and reporting relationships. Planning the organizational structure includes finding, documenting and assigning roles, responsibilities and reporting relationships, to individuals or groups who may be a part of the organization or may be external to it. Choosing an appropriate organizational structure facilitates the effective implementation of an organizational plan. Some of the organizational structures that a project manager can consider are i) Traditional Organizational Structure, ii) Pure Product Organizational Structure, iii) Pure Project Organizational Structure, iv) Matrix Organizational Structure.

Traditional organizational structure is developed around the functional aspects of the organization such as engineering, manufacturing, marketing, human resource and information systems. Pure product organizational structure is developed on the basis of managing individual products as functional departments. Organizations working on large and long-term projects usually adopt pure project organizational structure. This type of organizational structure contains functional departments within the individual projects. A matrix organizational structure is formed as a result of combining the advantages of all the aforementioned organizational structures. This structure is suitable for project-driven organizations like software development firms.

Good leaders are essential for the successful management of projects. To effectively manage a project, these leaders require a group of dedicated individuals, committed to achieving project goals. While selecting good staff is important, it is equally important to assign them the right jobs. The project manager plays a key role in the success of a project. Project managers should be able to analyze project risk and uncertainty. Generally, the project organization establishes a committee to screen candidates for the post of project manager.

The project office is the entity in an organization that helps the project manager carry out his tasks. The people in this office are dedicated to the achievement of the project goals. It is also their responsibility to maintain a good working relationship between the project and functional managers.

Team building can be defined as the "process of planning and encouraging working practices that are effective and which minimize the difficulties that obstruct the team's competence and resourcefulness.” Complex projects involve multifunctional tasks that demand a high level of innovation and state-of-the-art technology. Such projects require teams of specialists with diverse skills. The team building process is based on the type of the project, the leadership style of the project manager and on the type of individuals involved in the team.

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