With most projects, success can ultimately be attributed to the project team. Using the right people for the job and managing them well can be one of the biggest skills of a project manager. You can’t put a value on knowing your project team is going to get the job done right, on time, and under budget. The Project Management Body of Knowledge contains processes to acquire, develop, and manage project teams.
The processes in this knowledge area are:
- Plan Human Resource Management
- Acquire Project Team
- Develop Project Team
- Manage Project Team
Plan Human Resource Management
Before any project can proceed, the project team needs to be defined. The main part of this initial planning step involves identifying the number of people that are required and writing out their job descriptions. Also, the Project Human Resource Management Plan, a component of the overall Project Management Plan, contains human resource issues like how performance will be assessed, where the project team will work, how to handle conflicts, and so forth.
Inputs
- Project management plan
- Activity resource requirements
- Enterprise environmental factors
- Organizational process assets
Tools & Techniques
- Organization charts and position descriptions
- Networking
- Organizational theory
- Expert judgment
- Meetings
Outputs
- Human resource management plan
Acquire Project Team
Obtaining workers is often a time-intensive activity. Whether obtaining project team member internally or externally, the tasks involved in advertising jobs, interviewing candidates, and making hiring decisions fall under this process within the Project Execution process group. Upon their hiring, a resource calendar is developed for each new project team member, which specifies their time available to work on the project and/or certain project tasks.
Inputs
- Human resource management plan
- Enterprise environmental factors
- Organizational process assets
Tools & Techniques
- Pre-assignment
- Negotiation
- Acquisition
- Virtual teams
- Multi-criteria decision analysis
Outputs
- Project staff assignments
- Resource calendars
- Project management plan updates
Develop Project Team
It isn’t enough to hire a project team and expect them to know everything they need to know to execute the project to perfection. Developing the project team should be seen as a constant activity, but it doesn’t include just taking courses. It includes performance reviews, team building activities, recognition and rewards.
Inputs
- Human resource management plan
- Project staff assignments
- Resource calendars
Tools & Techniques
- Interpersonal skills
- Training
- Team-building activities
- Ground rules
- Colocation
- Recognition and rewards
- Personal assessment tools
Outputs
- Team performance assessments
- Enterprise environmental factors updates
Manage Project Team
Many books have been written on the subject of managing project teams. But it is clear that project success is heavily dependent on managing the changing roles and responsibilities and performance criteria of the team. Project issues test the competence of the project manager and project team, and threaten to undermine the success of the project. The reactions of the project manager and project team to these issues is essential to ensuring a successful project.
Inputs
- Human resource management plan
- Project staff assignments
- Team performance assessments
- Issue log
- Work performance reports
- Organizational process assets
Tools & Techniques
- Observation and conversation
- Project performance appraisals
- Conflict management
- Interpersonal skills
Outputs
- Change requests
- Project management plan updates
- Project documents updates
- Enterprise environmental factors updates
- Organizational process assets updates
