HR Management in Projects

Constitutes:-
 Human Resources Planning
 Creating a staff management plan that identifies project roles,
responsibilities, and reporting relationships
 Acquiring the Project Team
 Putting together a project team with the right mix of skills and
experiences
 Developing the Project Team
 The technical, organizational, and interpersonal skills of team
members may need to be augmented through training
 Also includes creating the team environment

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 Project Stakeholders
• Project staff constitutes individuals, groups, or
even organizations that have a say in the project’s
outcome.

•In HR management, it is important to know all

project stakeholders and their roles

•Apart from the technical project team, other

stakeholders can make or break the project

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 Stakeholder Analysis Process (SAP)
SAP helps to create an HR Management Plan
Steps:-
1. Develop a list of stakeholders, those with an interest
in the successful or unsuccessful outcome of the
project
2. Identify the stakeholder’s interest in the project, use:
“+1” for positive interest
“0” for neutral
“-1” for negative interest
3. Determine the degree of influence each stakeholder
has on a scale of 0 (no influence) to 10 (can terminate
the project)
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 Stakeholder Analysis ct’d
4. Assess potential conflict among the stakeholders –
i.e., one stakeholder may want to increase system
functionality which will increase the budget and time
while other stakeholders may want to limit the
budget
5. Define a role for each stakeholder – e.g., champion,
consultant, decision maker, ally, rival, foe, etc.
6. Identify an objective for each stakeholder – e.g.,
provide resources, guidance, expertise, acceptance,
approval, etc.
7. Identify a strategy for each stakeholder – e.g., build,
maintain, improve, re-establish the relationship; See
example SAP overleaf. 4
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pleased that this project possible project sponsor’s
 The Project Team
 In addition to creating a stakeholder plan, there is
need to create a technical development team.
 The software development team composition is
dependent on the methodology in use
 Various roles require skills and competencies to be
successfully executed
 In these slides we focus on key roles necessary for the
success of a software development project
 The project team is those people directly involved in
the project development.

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I. The Project Manager
 A well-established role in traditional project
management
 Determines the success or failure of a project
 Main roles of a project manager include:
 Developing the project plan.
 Developing functional specifications.
 Planning, estimating, and managing resources and the
project budget.
 Keeping track of the project progress.
 Identifying necessary adjustments to the plan.
 Providing regular updates to the senior management.
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 Characteristics/ Qualities of a good
project manager
 Team building expertise
 Good leadership skills
 Good communication skills
 Problem-solving abilities
 Person of integrity
 Motivational skills
 Able to delegate

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 II. The Scrum Master
 Team leader who plays the project management role in the Agile
environment. Originally associated with Scrum Projects
Characteristics of a Good Scrum Master
 A facilitator able to serve the Agile team to make sure that they follow
Agile values and implement the correct methodology.
 Able to lead, plan, and follow up on all Agile meetings.
 Teach the team about all the best practices and concepts of the Agile
methodology in use.
 Acts as a buffer between the team and the Product Owner or any
outside participator.
 Follow up on team impediments and clears obstacles.
 Help the product owner maintain product backlogs.
 Help the team to focus on the most valuable activities and results
avoiding external interruptions and distractions.

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III. DevOps Engineer
 DevOps is a mode of development that combines development and
operations to continuously deliver working software on the
operations side
 DevOps is an improvement of the Agile environment that thrives on
continuous software delivery.
 Software is frequently released in small increments while
incorporating any feedback received to constantly improve products.
 A DevOps engineer connects development and operations teams, thus
has both the development and operations knowledge

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DevOps Engineer Responsibilities
 Analysis of the current system in use and developing plans for
enhancements and improvements.
 Cloud deployment and management
 Performance assessment, monitoring, and recommending
performance enhancements
 Infrastructure management
 Continuous testing at different stages of the development cycle
 Helping to implement a DevOps culture

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IV. Software Architects
Software architects define the complete architecture system of a
project. They make high-level design choices based on non-functional
requirements
They dictate coding standards, tools, and development platforms.
Main Responsibilities
 Define the technical and functional architecture of the overall
system.
 Guide developers in the design and implementation of the solution.
 Develop the most critical components of the system.
 Make suggestions about the best alternatives, considering engineering
and business aspects.

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 V. UX/UI Designers

➢ User eXperience (UX) Designer: Makes sure that end users have the
best possible experience while using an application.
➢ User Interface Designer: Focuses on transferring content, style, and
graphics that connect a client or product to a system presentation
layer.
➢ **In most cases, an individual possesses both capabilities**

Main responsibilities of UX/UI Designers

➢ Define the information architecture and navigation model.
➢ Generate prototypes for the validation of the proposal throughout the
design process.
➢ Participate in the implementation of web and desktop interfaces.
➢ Document every interface design decision.
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 VI. Software Developers
Usually form the bulk of the development team, can be viewed as three main
groups:
Full-Stack Developer: They are programmers not specialized in any particular
area of the software architecture, and can implement software on any
architectural layer of the system.
Front-end Developer: They act as a bridge between the end client (user) and the
delivered business solution. They focus mainly on the view layer of the software
product (i.e., the interface), and they are responsible for the communication
within the business logic layers.
Back-end Developer: This is a programmer who writes code for the business logic
and data layers.

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SW Developers
Main Responsibilities
 Develop the software features using the project language of choice
 Update the status of the software project to the Project Manager or
team leader.
 Estimate the amount of time needed to deliver a given task
 Responsible for identifying and fixing all software bugs

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Success Factors for Project Team management
Project managers/ team leaders work with various types
of people. The following are key for success:
 Consistency
 Team members should all be treated in a comparable way
without favourites or discrimination.
 Respect
 Different team members have different skills and these
differences should be respected.
 Inclusion
 Involve all team members and make sure that people’s views
are considered.
 Honesty
 You should always be honest about what is going well and what
is going badly in a project.

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 Motivating people
 An important role of a project manager/ team leader is
to motivate the people working on a project.
 Motivation is a complex process, there are different
types of motivation based on:
 Basic needs (e.g. food, sleep, etc.);
 Personal needs (e.g. respect, self-esteem);
 Social needs (e.g. to be accepted as part of a
group).
 Various motivational theories exist.

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Maslow’s Human needs hierarchy

Self-
realisa tion needs

Esteem n eeds

Social n eeds

Safety needs

Physio logical needs

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 Need satisfaction
Physiological and safety needs may be trivial for s/w
engineers, but they may worry about these needs:
 Social
 Provide communal facilities;
 Allow informal communications.
 Esteem
 Recognition of achievements;
 Appropriate rewards.
 Self-realization
 Training- people want to learn more;
 Responsibility.

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 Personality types
 The needs hierarchy is almost certainly an over-
simplification of motivation in practice.
 Motivation should also take into account different
personality types such as:
 Task-oriented;

 Self-oriented;

 Interaction-oriented.

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 Personality types
 Task-oriented.
 The motivation for doing the work is the work itself;
 Self-oriented.
 The work is a means to an end which is the achievement of
individual goals - e.g. to get rich, to play tennis, to travel etc.;
 Interaction-oriented
 The principal motivation is the presence and actions of
co-workers. People go to work because they like to go to
work.

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 Managing groups
 Mostly, software engineering is a group activity
 The development schedule for most non-trivial software
projects is such that they cannot be completed by one
person working alone.
 Group interaction is a key determinant of group
performance.
 Flexibility in group composition is limited
 Managers must do the best they can with available
people.

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Group Composition
 Group composed of members who share the
same motivation can be problematic
 Task-oriented - everyone wants to do their own thing;
 Self-oriented - everyone wants to be the boss;
 Interaction-oriented - too much chatting, not enough work.

 An effective group has a balance of all types.

 This can be difficult to achieve software engineers are
often task-oriented.
 Interaction-oriented people are very important as they
can detect and defuse tensions that arise.

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Group Cohesiveness
 In a cohesive group, members consider the group to be
more important than any individual in it.
 The advantages of a cohesive group are:
 Group quality standards can be developed;
 Group members work closely together so shortcomings
caused by ignorance are reduced;
 Team members learn from each other and get to
know each other’s work;
 Egoless design and programming where members
strive to improve each other’s programs can be
practised.

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Developing Cohesiveness
 Cohesiveness is influenced by factors such as the
organisational culture and the personalities in the
group.
 Cohesiveness can be encouraged through
 Social events;
 Developing a group identity and territory;
 Explicit team-building activities.
 Openness with information is a simple way of ensuring
all group members feel part of the group.

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Group Communications
 Good communications are essential for effective group
working.
 Information must be exchanged on the status of work,
design decisions and changes to previous decisions.
 Good communications also strengthens group cohesion
as it promotes understanding.

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Factors Influencing Group communications
 Group size
 The larger the group, the harder it is for people to
communicate with other group members.
 Group structure
 Communication is better in informally structured groups than in
hierarchically structured groups.
 Group composition
 Communication is better when there are different personality
types in a group and when groups are mixed rather than single
sex.
 The physical work environment
 Good workplace organisation can help encourage
communications.

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Working environments vs Project Success
 The physical workplace provision has an important
effect on individual productivity and satisfaction
 Comfort;

 Privacy;

 Facilities.

 Health and safety considerations must be taken

into account
 Lighting;

 Heating;

 Furniture.
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Environmental factors
 Privacy - each engineer requires an area for
uninterrupted work.
 Outside awareness - people prefer to work in
natural light.
 Personalization - individuals adopt different
working practices and like to organize their
environment in different ways.

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Workspace organisation
 Workspaces should provide private spaces where
people can work without interruption
 Providingindividual offices for staff has been
shown to increase productivity.
 However, teams working together also require
spaces where formal and informal meetings can
be held.

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Conflicts in Projects
 Conflicts arise when people perceive that their
interests and values are challenged or not being
met, may be of 3 forms:
 Conflicts associated with the goals, objectives, or
specifications of the project.
 Conflicts associated with the administration,
management structures, or underlying philosophies
of the project.
 Conflicts associated with the interpersonal
relationships among people based on work ethics,
styles, egos, or personalities
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Dealing with conflicts
 I/ Avoidance—Focuses on retreating, withdrawing or
ignoring conflict. Sometimes, a cooling-off period may
be a wise choice, especially when emotions and tempers
are high. Avoidance may be appropriate when you can't
win, or gaining time is important.
 However, it may not be useful when the immediate,
successful resolution of an issue is required.

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 Dealing with conflicts
 II/ Accommodation/Smoothing—An approach for appeasing
the various parties in conflict.
 Useful when trying to reach an overall goal, when the goal
is more important than the personal interests of the
parties involved.
 Smoothing may also be effective when dealing with an
issue that has low risk and low return or when in a no-win
situation. Because accommodation tends to work only in
the short run, conflict may reappear in another form later
on.

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 Dealing with conflict
 III/ Forcing—Manager uses his/ her dominant authority to
resolve the conflict.
 Often results in a one-sided or win-lose situation in which one
party gains at the other's expense.
 May be effective when no common ground exists, when you
are sure you are right, when an emergency situation exists, or
when time is of the essence.
 May, however, cause the conflict to redevelop later because
people dislike having a decision or someone else's views
imposed upon them.

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 Dealing with conflict
 IV/ Compromise—Includes aspects of both forcing and
accommodation
 It is bargaining—one person or group gives up some thing in
exchange for gaining something else.
 No party actually wins and none actually loses.
 May be useful when attempting to resolve complex problems
that must be settled in a short time and when the risks and
rewards are moderately high.

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 Dealing with Conflict
V/ Collaboration—When the risks and benefits are high,
collaboration may be the best approach for dealing with
conflict.
Problem is confronted & solved by incorporating different
ideas, viewpoints, and perspectives.
The focus of collaboration is learning from others and
gaining commitment, trust, respect, and confidence from
the various parties involved addition, however, may be
time consuming.

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 Summary
 A properly constituted project team is a recipe for
project success
 Group communications are affected by status, group size,
group organisation and the gender and personality
composition of the group
 Working environments should include spaces for
interaction and spaces for private working.
 Conflict should be resolved accordingly for project
success.

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