Preface

Ensuring a good match between the knowledge, skills, and abilities required to carry out project work and the knowledge, skills, and abilities of project team members is an important contributor to overall project success and to a project work experience that enhances employee career development and engagement.  Where projects are relatively straightforward, the Responsibility Assignment Matrix, combined with the workplan, provides an adequate planning tool to achieve these results.  Where projects are more complex, where project teams are larger, where team members are unaccustomed to working together, where teams cast members in unfamiliar roles, such as supervising the work of colleagues, or where teams combine employees and external resources, are among the circumstances in which a more fulsome approach to planning work assignments may be warranted.  The Project Human Resources Plan has been designed to support project managers facing these more challenging human resource management demands.

 

Inputs

Work Breakdown Structure

Preliminary Workplan

Organizational skills inventory or knowledge of the organization`s resident skills capabilities

Analytical assistance from project team members and other internal project stakeholders

 

Outputs

A Project Human Resources Plan

 

Rationale

Research has found that 80% of all project conflict arises from conflicting work priorities and assignments.  To minimize unnecessary conflict and ensure a smoothly functioning team, time spent planning project human resources needs and processes is time well spent.  The needs of relatively straightforward projects, especially those with small teams of staff who have worked together on similar projects in the past, can probably be met through the use of the Responsibility Assignment Matrix and the Workplan.  The ultimate success of more complex projects, however, justifies the additional time and effort required to develop the full Project Human Resources Plan.

 

Procedures

1.    Analyze the Work Breakdown Structure to identify the resources of knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) that will be required to competently complete all project work.  Consult Human Resources and other internal project stakeholders for assistance as necessary.

2.    Identify where within the organization such resources can be found and, if necessary, identify external resources that may or should be called upon to fill gaps in internal capacity.  Again consult Human Resources and other internal stakeholders to identify appropriate measures for recruiting the necessary staff resources and for transitioning team members from their current assignments to the project team.  Be certain to address lead times, availability dates, and time requirements within those dates, ie full time vs. part time.

3.    Consider what means will be required for the team to function together effectively.  These measures may be minimal where people are accustommed to project work, have worked together before, or routinely work together on non-project work.  Where this is not the case, however, more extensive activities should be contemplated both before the project begins and as project work proceeds.

4.    Idenfity those values which all team members should exhibit for smooth team operation and consider means to both communicate and confirm these values with all team members.

5.    Define the organization of the team.  Consider such questions as, for example, will there be sub-team leads and if so what are their reporting and supervisory responsiblities; will the team organization reflect in some way the organization of the work and, if so, how; in the absense of sub-team leads, who reports to directly to the project manager and who reports to someone else, and what is the nature of these subsidiary reporting relationships?

6.    Identify any human resource management practices (within the limits set by any relevant collective agreement) will be required for the success of the project that are different from those of the parent organization, these should also be researched, justified, and clarified.  Consultation with Human Resources is essential here.

Purpose of the Project Human Resources

The Human Resources Plan outlines the principles, approaches, and processes that will be used to secure the human resources essential to the success of the project, to build their effectiveness as a team, and to provide effective management of these resources.  Effective human resources management is understood as ensuring:

• a good match between the knowledge, skill, and abilities requirements of the work to be done and those of the people undertaking the work;

• appropriate opportunities for members of the project team to learn and to increase their knowledge, skills, and abilities;

• a collegial, supportive work environment; and

• appropriate compensation and recognition for the contribution individual team members make to the success of the team.

 

Table of Contents

Purpose

Table of Contents

   1.0  Rationale and Benefits

   2.0  Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities Needs

   3.0  Team Recruitment and Transition

   4.0  Team Building

   5.0  Team Values

   6.0  Team Organization

   7.0  Human Resources Management Practices

Appendices

 

1.0    Rationale and Benefits       

(Outline the problem or opportunity the project is intended to address.Explain how the problem or opportunity came to be recognized, what its key dimensions are, and how the project bears on those key dimensions.Indicate the benefits JI will capture or realize on successful completion of this project.Explain how the new product, service, or result developed through this project will allow the JI to better fulfill its mandate or better serve its clients and other stakeholders.Append a copy of the relevant decision document, if appropriate.)

2.0  Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities Needs

(Identify the project’s particular knowledge, skill, and ability requirements noting, as well, the relevant levels from working-level to expert.  Beyond qualitative considerations, this section should also address quantitative issues – how many people possessing which levels of which requirements will be needed and for how long.)

3.0  Team Recruitment and Transition

(In this section address where project team members are intended to come from – internal sources, external by way of contract, or external by way of recruitment.  It should also address questions associated with team decommissioning on project completion; is it intended, for example, that team members return to their previous jobs and work units or that they transition to operating the project product, service, or result?  Will the experience team members gain on the project be useful to the organization in the future or is this project seen as a unique endeavour with little relevance to the organization’s ongoing operations?  Where team member responsibilities are split among more than one project or a combination of project and operational work, this section should also address how conflicts regarding work priorities will be resolved.)

4.0  Team Building

(This section should address the processes that will be put in place to help team members understand their place within the team and also the means that will be used to build the team’s capacity to work together effectively.  Such topics could include values clarification activities, regular team meetings, expectations regarding contributions to team meetings, efforts to define and operationalize important concepts such as consensus, group problem solving activities, social gatherings, and the like.)

5.0  Team Values

(Identify those shared values which all team members need to exhibit in order to work together in a respectful, results-oriented way.  Also outline the processes by which team members will participate in clarifying and achieving consensus about the values that motivate and inform their work together.)

6.0  Team Organization

(In this section questions about the internal organization of the team, including the mandates, roles, and responsibilities of work groups and coordination among work groups should be addressed as well as the processes that will be employed to clarify and resolve any issues that may arise between work groups.  If it is intended that there be sub-team leaders or a project management team of more senior team members, their various roles and responsibilities as well as the processes by which these groups will manage their relations should be addressed also in this section.)

7.0  Human Resources Management Practices

(If the team requires any human resources management practices different from the human resources management policies and procedures observed by the larger organization, these should be defined here along with any processes that will be used to resolve differences or disputes regarding the definition and administration of these practices.  Examples could include recognition and awards, the treatment of overtime work [consistent with any collective agreement provisions], hours of work, training, evaluation, internal and external communications practices and requirements, etc..)

 

Appendices