See Chapter 9 in the PMBOK ® Guide.
The PMBOK ® Guide says that this “includes
the processes required to make the most effective use of the people
involved with the project. It includes all the project stakeholders
– sponsors, customers, partners, individual contributors,
and others ….” We agreed 100%. We still see too many
plans where many stakeholders’ activities are not included
in the schedule or are treated as external relationships. If 99%
of the activities on your schedule are your responsibility, 99%
of the mistakes will appear to be your responsibility. You have
to do the Level 1 schedule as a team and include everyone in your
schedule.
As always, the definitions and bullets in the PMBOK
® Guide are very important.
We see too few people doing leadership and negotiation
classes. This is particularly the case in industries and companies
that are new to project management. Dr. Kerzner says that the most
important word in project management is No! We have to learn to
negotiate for realistic time frames, more and better resources,
possibly less scope, more budget, etc.
The WBS on Page 108 of the PMBOK ® Guide is
as follows:
1. Organizational Planning
2. Staff Acquisition
3. Team Development
Comments:
1. Staffing
Requirements: Many of the project management software packages are
now addressing enterprise solutions to staffing requirements. It
is important to show resource histograms both for the individual
and the group he/she belongs to. We don’t use separate RAM’s
much any more. This information is so easily put into the new project
management tools. Fig 9-3. Ask yourself the question is this graph
skewed because design is dropping off at the end? Very often, a
skew like this occurs when the schedule has not been resource leveled.
See our PMMP Checklist.
2. Staff Acquisition: The PMBOK ® Guide states that the “best”
resources may not be available and reiterates the importance of
negotiations. On our projects, the activities that are most critical
almost always get first choice on resources.
3. Team Development: We are great believers in retreats as a team-building
activity. In a vigorous economy, fast reward and recognition is
very important or a company may lose its best people. Collocation
and war rooms can be very effective. Increasingly we are seeing
our global clients produce virtual war rooms on project web sites
so that everyone feels part of the team. We have found that mentoring
after training classes can be very effective. We generally set up
mentor-the-mentor programs so that each company has in-house experts
on each of the PMBOK ® Guide areas. Performance appraisals often
do not pay enough attention to team play. See page 426 of Dr. Kerzner’s
book, referenced below.
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