UNIT-5

 Staffing in Software Projects :

 Managing people
 Organizational behavior
 Best methods of staff selection
 Motivation – The Oldham – Hackman job characteristic model
 Stress – Health and Safety
 Ethical and Professional concerns
 Working in teams
 Decision making
 Organizational structures
 Dispersed and Virtual teams
 Communications genres – Communication plans
 Leadership.
 Staffing
Staffing in software projects is a critical aspect of project management. It involves
not just hiring individuals but selecting the right personnel with the necessary
technical skills and the ability to work well within a team. The process includes
defining requirements for personnel, recruiting, interviewing, and selecting
candidates. It’s important for completing the project work effectively.
 Staffing Process
The process of staffing consists of several interrelated activities, such as
planning for human resources requirements, recruitment, selection, training
development, remuneration, and so on. These activities together make the
staffing process. Therefore, these are called elements or steps of the staffing
process.
1. Manpower Planning
Human resource management is a process of determining the number and type
of personnel required for filling the vacant job in an organization. Manpower
requirements involve two kinds of analysis, i.e., workload analysis and
workforce analysis. Workload analysis involves determining the number and
type of employees required to perform various jobs and achieve
organizational objectives. Workforce analysis shows the number and type of
human resources available with an organization.
The difference between workload and workforce is calculated to determine
shortage and surplus of manpower. Excess workload indicates understaffing,
i.e., the need of appointing more people and excess workforce indicates
overstaffing, i.e., need to remove or transfer some employees to other
places.
2. Recruitment
After estimating manpower requirements, the second step in the process of staffing is
recruitment. Recruitment refers to a process of searching for prospective employees
and encouraging them to apply for jobs in the organization. It involves identifying
various resources of human force and attracting them to apply for the job. The main
purpose of a requirement is to create a pool of applicants by a large number of
qualified candidates. Recruitment can be done by both internal and external sources of
recruitment. Internal sources may be used to a limited extent, and to get fresh talent
and a wider choice, external sources can be used.
3. Selection
Selection is the process of choosing and appointing the right candidates for various job
positions in the organization. It is treated as a negative process because it involves the
rejection of some candidates. There are many steps involved in the process of
employee selection. These steps include preliminary screening, filling-in application,
written test, interviews, medical examination, checking references, and issuing a letter
of appointment to the candidates. The most suitable candidates who meet the
requirement of the vacant job are selected. The process of selection serves two
important purposes, firstly, it ensures that the organization gets the best among the
available candidates, and secondly, it boosts ups the self-esteem and prestige of the
candidates.
4. Placement and Orientation
After selection, an appropriate job is assigned to each selected person. Placement is the process
of matching the candidates with the jobs in the organization. Under this process, every
selected candidate is assigned a job most suitable for him. The purpose of placement is to fit
the right person to the right job so that the efficiency of work is high and the employees get
personal satisfaction. Correct placement helps to reduce labour turnover and absenteeism.
Here, orientation means introducing new employees to the organization. It is the process of
introducing and familiarizing newly appointed candidates with their job, work groups and the
organization so that they may feel at home in the new environment.
5. Training and Development
People are in search of careers and not jobs. Every individual must be given a chance to rise to
the top. The most favourable way for this to happen is to promote employee learning. For
this, organizations either provide training themselves within the organization or through
external institutions. This is beneficial for the organization as well. If the employees are
motivated enough, it will increase their competence and will be able to perform even better
for the organization with greater efficiency and productivity. By providing such opportunities
to its employees for career advancement, the organization captivates the interest and holds
on of its talented employees. The majority of the organization has a distinct department for
this purpose, that is, the Human Resource Department. Though in small organizations, the
line manager has to do all the managerial functions viz, planning, organizing, staffing,
controlling, and directing. The process of staffing further involves three more stages.
6. Performance appraisal
After training the employees and having them on the job for some time, there should be an evaluation done
on their performance. Every organization has its means of appraisal whether formal or informal.
Appraisal refers to the evaluation of the employees of the organization based on their past or present
performance by some pre-decided standards. The employee should be well aware of his standards and
his superior is responsible for proving feedback on his performance. The process of performance
appraisal, thus includes specifying the job, performing appraisal performance, and providing feedback.
7. Promotion and Career planning
It has now become important for all organizations to deal with career-related issues and promotional routes
for employees. The managers should take care of the activities that serve the long-term interests of the
employees. They should be encouraged from time to time, which will help the employees to grow and
find their true potential. Promotions are an essential part of any employee’s career. Promotion refers to
the transferring of employees from their current positions to a higher level increasing their
responsibilities, authority and pay.
8. Compensation
Every organization needs to set up plans for the salary and wages of the employees. There are several ways
to develop payment plans for the employees depending upon the significance of the job. The worth of
the job needs to be decided. Therefore, all kinds of payments or rewards provided to the employees is
referred to as compensation. The compensation may be in the form of direct financial payments, such as
salary, wages, bonuses, etc., or indirect payments like insurance or vacations provided to the employee.
• Direct financial payments are of two kinds, that is, performance-based and
time-based. In a time-based payment plan, the salary or wages are paid daily,
weekly, monthly, or annually, whereas, the performance-based payment plan
is the payment of salary or wages according to the set task. There are many
ways in which the compensation of the employee based on their performance
can be calculated. There are also plans, which are a combination of both time-
based and performance-based. There are a few factors that affect the payment
plan, such as legal, company policy, union, and equity. Thus, staffing is the
process that includes possession, retention, promotion, and compensation of
the human capital, that is, the most important resource of the organization.
There are several factors such as the supply and demand of specific skills in the
labour market, legal and political considerations, the company’s image, policy,
unemployment rate, human resource planning cost, labour market conditions,
technological developments, general economic environment, etc., that may
affect the execution of recruitment, selection, and training.
 Components of Staffing

There are three aspects or components of staffing, namely, recruitment,

selection, and training. They are defined below:
Recruitment: It is the process of finding potential candidates for a particular
job in an organization. The process of recruitment involves persuading
people to apply for the available positions in the organization.
Selection: It is the process of recognizing potential and hiring the best people
out of several possible candidates. This is done by shortlisting and choosing
the deserving and eliminating those who are not suitable for the job.
Training: It is the process that involves providing the employees with an idea
of the type of work they are supposed to do and how it is to be done. It is a
way of keeping the employees updated on the way of work in an
organization and the new and advanced technologies.
Motivation – The Oldham – Hackman job characteristic
model
It states that there are five core job characteristics (skill variety, task identity, task significance,
autonomy, and feedback) which impact three critical psychological states (experienced
meaningfulness, experienced responsibility for outcomes, and knowledge of the actual
results), in turn influencing work outcomes (job satisfaction, absenteeism, work motivation,
etc.). The five core job characteristics can be combined to form a motivating potential score
(MPS) for a job, which can be used as an index of how likely a job is to affect an employee’s
attitudes and behaviors.
Hackman and Oldham’s job characteristics theory proposes that high motivation is related to
experiencing three psychological states whilst working:
Meaningfulness of work
That labour has meaning to you, something that you can relate to, and does not occur just as a
set of movements to be repeated. This is fundamental to intrinsic motivation, i.e. that work is
motivating in an of itself (as opposed to motivating only as a means to an end).
Responsibility
That you have been given the opportunity to be a success or failure at your job because
sufficient freedom of action has given you. This would include the ability to make changes and
incorporate the learning you gain whilst doing the job.
Knowledge of outcomes
This is important for two reasons. Firstly to provide the person knowledge on how successful
their work has been, which in turn enables them to learn from mistakes. The second is to
connect them emotionally to the customer of their outputs, thus giving further purpose to the
work (e.g. I may only work on a production line, but I know that the food rations I produce are
used to help people in disaster areas, saving many lives).
• The work must be experienced as meaningful (his/her contribution significantly
affects the overall effectiveness of the organization). This is derived from:
– Skill variety
Using an appropriate variety of your skills and talents: too many might be overwhelming,
too few, boring.
– Task Identity
Being able to identify with the work at hand as more whole and complete, and hence
enabling more pride to be taken in the outcome of that work (e.g. if you just add one nut
to one bolt in the same spot every time a washing machine goes past it is much less
motivating than being the person responsible for the drum attachment and associated
work area (even as part of a group).
– Task Significance
Being able to identify the task as contributing to something wider, to society or a group
over and beyond the self. For example, the theory suggests that I will be more motivated
if I am contributing to the whole firm’s bonus this year, looking after someone or making
something that will benefit someone else. Conversely I will be less motivated if I am only
making a faceless owner wealthier, or am making some pointless item (e.g. corporate
give-away gifts).
• Responsibility
Responsibility is derived from autonomy, as in the job provides substantial
freedom, independence and discretion to the individual in scheduling the work
and in determining the procedures to be used in carrying it out)
• Knowledge of outcomes
This comes from feedback. It implies an employee awareness of how
effective he/she is converting his/her effort into performance. This can be
anything from production figures through to customer satisfaction scores.
The point is that the feedback offers information that once you know, you
can use to do things differently if you wish. Feedback can come from
other people or the job itself.
• Knowing these critical job characteristics, the theory goes, it is then
possible to derive the key components of the design of a job and redesign
it:
• Varying work to enable skill variety
• Assigning work to groups to increase the wholeness of the product
produced and give a group to enhance significance
• Delegate tasks to their lowest possible level to create autonomy and
hence responsibility
• Connect people to the outcomes of their work and the customers that
receive them so as to provide feedback for learning
 Stress in the workplace
• Stress in the workplace can arise when the demands
placed on employees exceed their resources and
support. Ethical stress is particularly common in
professions with frequent ethical dilemmas, like nursing
or social work. Toxic workplaces may involve legal
offenses such as harassment or discrimination, or other
issues like bullying and unreasonable workloads. Health
and safety concerns also include mental hazards that
can lead to burnout, anxiety, or worse. It’s important for
organizations to address these issues to maintain a
healthy, safe, and ethical work environment.
 Work stress, mental health, and employee
performance
• Work-related stress is the response people may have when presented with
work demands and pressures that are not matched to their knowledge and
abilities and which challenge their ability to cope. Stress occurs in a wide
range of work circumstances but is often made worse when employees feel
they have little support from supervisors and colleagues, as well as little
control over work processes. There is often confusion between pressure or
challenge and stress, and sometimes this is used to excuse bad
management practice.
• Pressure at the workplace is unavoidable due to the demands of the
contemporary work environment. Pressure perceived as acceptable by an
individual may even keep workers alert, motivated, able to work and learn,
depending on the available resources and personal characteristics.
However, when that pressure becomes excessive or otherwise
unmanageable it leads to stress. Stress can damage an employees' health
and the business performance.
Stress can be reduced by good project management
Good project management should lead to:
• Reasonable estimates of effort
• Good project control leading fewer unexpected crises
• Making clear what is expected of each team member
– reduces role ambiguity
• Reduced role conflict where a person is torn between
conflicting responsibilities
Bullying tactics are a symptom of incompetent project
management.
 Health and safety
Apart from stress, health and safety less likely to be
an issue compared to other engineering projects.
• …but sometimes IT infrastructure may be set up
as other building work is going on
• UK law lays down that organizations employing
over 5 staff should have a written safety policy
• Management of safety should be embedded in
project management.
• Top management must be committed to health
and safety (H&S) policy
• Delegation of responsibilities relating to H&S
should be clear
• Job descriptions should include H&S related
responsibilities
• Need to ensure those given H&S
responsibilities should understand and accept
them
• There should be a designated safety officer
• Staff, particularly knowledgeable technical
specialists, should consulted about safety
• There should be an adequate H&S budget
 Ethical and professional concerns
• Ethical and professional concerns Ethics
relates to the moral obligation to respect the
rights and interests of others – goes beyond
strictly legal responsibilities Three groups of
responsibilities:
• Responsibilities that everyone has
• Responsibilities that people in organizations have
• Responsibilities relating to your profession or
calling
• Ethical concerns are related to values, beliefs,
and principles that guide human actions. They
include:Questions about practical decision-
making.
• The nature of ultimate value.
• Standards for judging right or wrong behavior.
• Translating ethical concerns into principles for action
• The practice of ethics has not traditionally been a part of software
development. Software didn't always have a direct impact on daily
life, and the pace of development was slow. In modern society,
people encounter software in all aspects of life, and big data and
data analytics have real ramifications for individuals.
• Although software developers work primarily behind the scenes in
businesses, their decisions in the course of a project can have an
outsized impact in the world -- for better or worse. Everyone in the
industry should be aware of social and ethical issues in software
development. Here are five examples of ethical issues and how
developers can address them:
– addictive design;
– corporate ownership of personal data;
– algorithmic bias;
– weak cyber security and personally identifiable information (PII)
protection; and
– overemphasis on features.
• As long as social media companies profit from
outrage, confusion, addiction and depression,
our well-being and democracy are at risk,"
argue critics like Tristan Harris of the Center
for Humane Technology. Harris notably went
viral while at working Google, with a
presentation about the push for addictive
technology design and companies' moral
responsibility in society
• Technology can amplify existing biases. "One of the
more pressing ethical issues facing today's
developers is bias," said Spencer Lentz, principal, AI
and digital process automation, digital customer
experience, at consulting firm Capgemini.
• Anaconda, a data science platform, conducts the
"State of Data Science Survey" and in 2020 found
that 27% of data practitioners thought the biggest
problem to tackle in AI and ML was the social
impact from bias in data and models.
 Organizational ethics
• There are some who argue that ethical
organizational ethics are limited:
• Stockholder theory (e.g. Milton Friedman). An
employee’s duty is to the owners of the business
(which often means the stakeholders) above all
others – although legal requirements must be met.
• Competitive relationships between businesses.
Competition may cause you to do things that could
have a negative impact on the owners or employees
of competitive businesses
 Exercise
• Identify some of the possible objections and
criticisms that can be made of the stockholder
business ethics model described above.
 Professional ethics
• Professionals have knowledge about the
technical domain that the general public does
not
• Ethical duty of the expert to warn lay people of
the risks involved in a particular course of
action
• Many professions, or would be professions,
have codes of conduct for their members e.g.
 Working in teams
Five basic stages of development:
– Forming
– Storming
– Norming
– Peforming
– Adjourning
Classification associated with Tuckman and
Jensen Dr
 Balanced teams
• Tried putting the ‘best’ people together in
teams
 Management team roles
The co-ordinator – good at chairing meetings
• The ‘plant’ – an idea generator
• The monitor-evaluator – good at evaluating
ideas
• The shaper – helps direct team’s efforts
• The team worker – skilled at creating a good
working environment
 What is Decision-making?

• According to the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary,

the term decision-making means deciding about
something important, especially in a group of people or
organizations.
• Decision-making requires choosing a course of action
from two or three potential options to find a solution to
a given problem.
• For management, decision-making is an integral part.
Making sound decisions is essential, so leaders or
managers give special attention while making any
business decision.
• The decision-making mechanism can be seen as a power and balance
system that keeps the business expanding upward and linear. This means
that the decision-making process seeks a target. The goals are pre-set
corporate objectives, the company's mission, and its vision.
• To achieve these objectives, businesses can face various barriers in
administrative, organizational, marketing, and operational fields. A
systematic decision-making mechanism resolves these topics.
• 5 Steps To Effective Decision-making
• 1. Identification
• 2. Gather All The Information
• 3. Consider The Pros And Cons
• 4. Decide
• 5. Review your Decision
• Think a thousand times before taking a
decision. But after taking the decision, never
turn back even if you get a thousand
difficulties. ~Adolf Hitler
• Identifying the Decision: The process begins by recognizing that a decision needs to be made. This could
be triggered by a problem, opportunity, or need for improvement.
• Defining the Goals: Clearly articulate the objectives or outcomes you want to achieve through the
decision-making process. Understanding what you’re trying to accomplish helps in evaluating alternative
courses of action.
• Gathering Information: Collect relevant data and information that will aid in understanding the situation
and potential alternatives. This could involve research, analysis, consultations with experts, and
accessing relevant resources.
• Identifying Alternatives: Brainstorm and generate a range of possible options or solutions to address the
decision at hand. It’s essential to explore diverse alternatives to ensure a comprehensive evaluation.
• Evaluating Alternatives: Assess the pros and cons of each alternative against the defined goals and
criteria. Consider factors such as feasibility, risks, costs, benefits, timeframes, and potential impact.
• Making the Decision: After careful analysis, choose the most suitable alternative. This could involve
selecting one option or a combination of options, depending on the complexity of the decision.
• Implementing the Decision: Once the decision is made, put the chosen alternative into action. Create a
strategy for execution, assign necessary resources, and inform pertinent stakeholders of the decision.
• Monitoring and Evaluating: Continuously monitor the implementation of the decision and its outcomes.
Evaluate its effectiveness against the defined goals and criteria. This feedback loop helps in learning from
the decision-making process and making adjustments as necessary.
• Iterating (if needed): If the decision doesn’t achieve the desired results or circumstances change, be
prepared to revisit the decision-making process. This may involve reassessing alternatives, gathering new
information, and making adjustments to the chosen course of action.
 Dispersed and Virtual teams – Communications genres –

Communication plans – Leadership .

• A virtual team is a group of workers who communicate and work together using
digital tools. While they can be located in the same physical space, virtual teams are
often distributed, working remotely in different parts of the city, state or country—
even on the other side of the world!
• Examples of Virtual Teams
• Not all virtual teams are the same. There are several varieties, which depend on the
lifespan, objective, goals and roles of the team members. Leading different types of
teams requires different team management approaches.
• Networked Teams
• A networked team is made up of cross-functional team members who are assembled
because of their experience and skills on a specific issue. The team is open to new
members as needed, and those already on the team are removed after their role is
completed.
• Parallel Teams
• A parallel team comes from the same organization and is tasked to develop
recommendations on a process or system. They are usually only together for a short
time, with all members staying on board until they’ve achieved their assigned goal.
• Product Development Teams
• A product development team is a group that is brought together because of their expertise
in accomplishing a specific goal. The members of this team get clearly defined roles and
work independently, with their collective work combined to achieve the end goal. While not
always a virtual team, when those experts are situated in different states or countries, they
become virtual.
• Service Teams
• A service team is made up of members who occupy different time zones. They work
independently. However, their shifts overlap to offer continual service. So, for example,
when one shift is complete on the East Coast, the West Coast team takes over their duties.
• Management Teams
• A management team is a collection of managers from the same organization. While they
often work under the same roof, if they work in different places, they become a virtual
team. Management teams work together to develop corporate strategies based on
organizational goals and objectives.
• Action Teams
• An action team is put together for a short duration and is tasked with responding to an
immediate problem. Once that problem has been resolved, the team is dissolved. As with
the last example, an action team is not exclusively virtual. But as people become more
familiar with working with virtual teams, their use of them increases beyond the traditional
use.
• In general, communication within a team is so
natural for us that we usually don’t pay attention
to how we communicate. And we tend to transfer
common communication habits to other work
situations – from the office
environment to a virtual team. We often start to
think about the ways how we communicate when
it all fell apart. Many managers believe that just
introducing some collaboration tools would be
enough to ensure good collaboration and
communication in a virtual team. This
is a popular misconception.
• Tip 1: Building context – making everything
available in one place in a clear and structured way
• Tip 2: Set priorities correctly
• Tip 3: Select suitable communication channels
• Tip 4: Switch on webcam
• Tip 5: Know the advantages and disadvantages of
asynchronous and synchronous communication
• Tip 6: Report on what you have been working
• Tip 7: Create space for informal communication
Leadership
• A leader is an individual who guides, inspires, and
influences others toward shared objectives or visions.
They embody traits like integrity, empathy, resilience,
and decisiveness. Leaders not only set direction but
also foster collaboration, empower team members, and
motivate them to excel. Effective leadership entails
communication, problem-solving, adaptability, and the
capacity to make difficult decisions. Leaders emerge in
diverse settings, such as business, politics, and
community organizations, driving constructive change
and advancement.