IST 302 Ch 9

Before assigning work, three project steps should be completed. What are they?

1. Finalizing the project requirements 2. Defining how the work will be accomplished 3. Breaking down the work into manageable elements 4. Assigning work responsibilities

The larger the project, the more likely a staffing management plan is necessary (especially if hiring and/or contract employees are involved). Why?

A staffing management plan describes when and how people will be added to the project team and taken off it. The level of detail may vary based on the type of project. For example, if an IT project is expected to need 100 people on average over a year, the staffing management plan would describe the types of people needed to work on the project, such as Java programmers, business analysts, and technical writers, and the number of each type of person needed each month. The plan would also describe how these resources would be acquired, trained, rewarded, and reassigned after the project.

Daniel Pink's book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us promotes autonomy, mastery, and purpose as true motivators for outstanding performance. What do you think?

Autonomy: People like to be self-directed and have freedom in their work. Maslow, Herzberg, and other researchers also found that people are motivated by autonomy. Pink gives an example of how an Australian software company called Atlassian lets people decide what they want to work on, and with whom, for one day every quarter. Workers show the results of their work that day in a fun meeting. This one day of total autonomy has produced a large number of new products and fixes to problems. Mastery: People like to improve their skills, such as playing an instrument, participating in a sport, writing software, and mastering work-related activities. Pink states that several products like UNIX, Apache, and Wikipedia were created because people enjoyed the challenge and mastery involved. Purpose: People want to work for a good purpose. When the profit motive is separated from the purpose motive, people notice and do not perform as well. Many great products were created for a purpose. For example, the founder of Skype wanted to make the world a better place, and Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple, wanted to put a "ding in the universe."11

Why are the two additional processes of develop and manage so important to project resource management?

Developing the project team involves building individual and group skills to enhance project performance. Team-building skills are often a challenge for many project managers. The main outputs of this process are team performance assessments, change requests, and updates to several documents. Managing the project team involves tracking team member performance, motivating team members, providing timely feedback, resolving issues and conflicts, and coordinating changes to help enhance project performance. Outputs of this process include change requests, project management plan updates, project documents updates, and organizational process assets updates.

How do agile project management processes such as daily stand-ups help encourage accountability and open team communication?

On agile projects, however, team members are usually fully dedicated to a single team. Relationships are based on trust, and collaboration is continuously improved using regular feedback loops. Each delivery of usable product at the end of a sprint, for example, reduces uncertainty and builds team confidence. Another difference with agile teams is that some do not use project managers. They might be self-directing teams, or they might use a Scrum master. Daily stand-up meetings are designed to increase the frequency of interaction among project team members, while making these frequent meetings as short as possible and focused on the topic at hand. The co-location of users with development teams is an important form of social needs satisfaction. Communication between the development team and user group is likely to be too little and needs to be encouraged by co-location.

Resource loading helps project managers understand the resource requirements of their projects over time. What actions should project managers consider if resource loading reveals individual overallocation?

Overallocation can happen for many reasons. Many people don't use the resource assignment features of project management software properly. You also need to provide good estimates of how many hours are required to accomplish work. Resource loading helps project managers understand the demands of a project on the organization's resources and on individual people's schedules. Project managers often use resource histograms, like the one shown in Figure 9-6, to depict period-by-period variations in resource loading. A resource histogram can be very helpful in determining resource needs or in identifying staffing problems.

Many project knowledge areas include process like plan, estimate, and control.

Planning resource management involves deciding how to estimate, acquire, manage, and use project resources. The main outputs are a resource management plan, team charter, and project documents updates. Estimating activity resources involves estimating human and physical resources needed to complete project work. Outputs include resource requirements, basis of estimates, a resource breakdown structure, and project documents updates. Controlling resources ensures that a project's physical resources are available as planned, monitoring the planned versus actual resource utilization, and taking corrective action when needed. Outputs include work performance information, change requests, and updates to the project management plan and project documents.

New project managers too often rely on which of the following "power" types: coercive power, legitimate power, expert power, reward power, referent power.

Thamhain and Wilemon found that projects were more likely to fail when project managers relied too heavily on using authority, money, or penalty to influence people. When project managers used work challenge and expertise to influence people, projects were more likely to succeed. Thamhain published a study of 72 global project teams, and the results again showed that people issues have the strongest impact on project performance. New project managers often overemphasize their position—their legitimate power or authority influence—especially when dealing with project team members or support staff. They also neglect the importance of reward power or work challenge influence. People often respond much better to a project manager who motivates them with challenging work and provides positive reinforcement for doing a good job. Project managers should understand the basic concepts of influence and power, and should practice using them to their own advantage and to help their teams.

How can conflict help your project team perform at its best? (e.g., counteract groupthink)

To master conflict, he suggests that teams practice having unfiltered, passionate debates about important issues. Project managers must also realize that not all conflict is bad. Conflict often produces important results, such as new ideas, better alternatives, and motivation to work harder and more collaboratively. Project team members may become stagnant or develop groupthink—conformance to the values or ethical standards of a group— if there are no conflicting viewpoints on various aspects of a project.

Extrinsic motivation

causes people to do something for a reward or to avoid a penalty. For example, some young children would prefer not to play an instrument, but they do because they receive a reward or avoid a punishment for doing so

Intrinsic motivation

causes people to participate in an activity for their own enjoyment. For example, some people love to read, write, or play an instrument because it makes them feel good.

Why do you think that emotional intelligence is shaping the way companies are hiring?

emotional intelligence—knowing and managing one's own emotions and understanding the emotions of others for improved performance. EI is also becoming a more sought-after characteristic. According to a CareerBuilder.com survey of over 2,600 U.S. hiring managers and human resource professionals, • 71 percent said they value EI in an employee more than IQ. • 59 percent said they would not hire someone who has a high IQ but low EI. • 75 percent said they are more likely to promote an employee with high EI than an employee with a high IQ.22

adjourning

involves the break-up of the team after it successfully reaches its goals and completes the work.

forming

involves the introduction of team members, either at the initiation of the team or as new members are introduced. This stage is necessary, but little work is actually achieved.

reward power

involves using incentives to induce people to do things. Rewards can include money, status, recognition, promotions, and special work assignments. Many motivation theorists suggest that only certain types of rewards, such as work challenge, achievement, and recognition, truly induce people to change their behavior or work hard.

expert power

involves using personal knowledge and expertise to get people to change their behavior. People who perceive that project managers are experts in certain situations will follow their suggestions. For example, if a project manager has expertise in working with a particular IT supplier and its products, the project team will be more likely to follow the project manager's suggestions on how to work with that vendor and its products.

coercive power

involves using punishment, threats, or other negative approaches to get people to do things they do not want to do. This type of power is similar to Thamhain and Wilemon's influence category called penalty. For example, a project manager can threaten to fire workers or subcontractors to try to get them to change their behavior. If the project manager really has the power to fire people, he or she could follow through on the threat. Recall, however, that influencing by using penalties is correlated with unsuccessful projects. Still, coercive power can be very effective in stopping negative behavior. For example, if students tend to hand in assignments late, an instructor can have a policy in the syllabus for late penalties, such as a 20 percent grade reduction for each day an assignment is late.

How can resource leveling help both the project manager and individual project team members?

is a technique for resolving resource conflicts by delaying tasks. It is a form of network analysis in which resource management concerns drive scheduling decisions (start and finish dates). The main purpose of resource leveling is to create a smoother distribution of resource usage. Resource leveling has several benefits. First, when resources are used on a more constant basis, they require less management. For example, it is much easier to manage someone who is scheduled to work 20 hours per week on a project for the next three months than it is to manage the same person for 10 hours one week, 40 the next, 5 the next, and so on. Second, resource leveling may enable project managers to use a just-in-time inventory type of policy for subcontractors or other expensive resources. For example, a project manager might want to level resources for work that must be done by particular subcontractors such as testing consultants. Third, resource leveling results in fewer problems for project personnel and accounting departments. Increasing and decreasing labor levels and human resources often produce additional work and confusion. Finally, resource leveling often improves morale. People like to have stability in their jobs.

norming

is achieved when team members have developed a common working method, and cooperation and collaboration replace the conflict and mistrust of the previous phase.

referent power

is based on a person's own charisma. People who have referent power are held in very high regard; others will do what they say based on that regard. People such as Martin Luther King, Jr., John F. Kennedy, and Bill Clinton had referent power. Very few people possess the natural charisma that underlies referent power.

legitimate power

is getting people to do things based on a position of authority. This type of power is similar to the authority basis of influence. If top management gives project managers organizational authority, they can use legitimate power in several situations. They can make key decisions without involving the project team, for example. Overemphasis on legitimate power or authority also correlates with project failure.

storming

occurs when team members have different opinions for how the team should operate. People test each other, and there is often conflict within the team.

performing

occurs when the emphasis is on reaching the team's goals rather than working on team process. Relationships are settled, and team members are likely to build loyalty toward each other.

Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a widely accepted theory for explaining motivation. Understanding its core concept is an important element of people management.

the idea that human beings were not the masters of their destiny and that all their actions were governed by unconscious processes dominated by primitive sexual urges. states that people's behaviors are guided or motivated by a sequence of needs. At the bottom of the hierarchy are physiological needs. Once physiological needs are satisfied, safety needs guide behavior. Once safety needs are satisfied, social needs come to the forefront, and so on up the hierarchy. The order of these needs and their relative sizes in the pyramid are significant. Maslow's hierarchy conveys a message of hope and growth. People can work to control their own destinies and naturally strive to satisfy higher needs. Successful project managers know they must focus on meeting project goals, but they also must understand team members' personal goals and needs to provide appropriate motivation and maximize team performance.

team development

to help people work together more effectively to improve project performance.